The first hour: "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat"

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: CALL OF PRIPYAT, the most recent entry in the Stalker franchise was released last Friday, but only on Amazon. The earliest delivery date would have been Wednesday, but the end-times snow storm made that date less likely.

So in my despondency, I put off the purchase. I’m glad I did. Call of Pripyat came out on Steam a week after the official release date, and it’s a bargain. The collector’s edition is all that’s available through Amazon, and it’s already priced pretty low at $40. But Steam has it at $30, and they’re running a loyalty promotion that drops the price to $20 if you have either of the two previous games, Shadow of Chernobyl or Clear Skies, in your Steam games list. I think that’s a promotion that developers or distributors should run more often.

Call of Pripyat is far more stable than either previous game was at launch. It hasn’t crashed on me yet. It’s not the prettiest game, and it still has some odd bugs, but I’m glad to return to the irradiated Russian back-country. So let me take you on a tour through the first hour of the game.

Warning, there are a lot of images after the jump.

(0 minutes) Boot into S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and promptly skip the intro movie, ignore my starting mission, wander up to a small, radiation-infested group of shacks, get hit by an anomaly, stumble into a pack of dogs and die.

(0 minutes again) This time, I watch the intro movie, which details the history of Chernobyl, the events of the first two games in the series and some background on the Stalkers. The text and the voiceover have amusing discrepancies. I’ve been sent to investigate the crash sites of five helicopters that fell out of the sky at the end of Shadow of Chernobyl.

(0 minutes) Spend some time looking over the new heads-up display. One new addition is a bar that indicates how much sound my character is making. I guess that means there’s a stealth element to the game now.

(2 minutes) Find two wandering stalkers who tell me a little bit about the area, like where the nearest Stalker base is and who to talk to about the helicopter crashes.

(4 minutes) I need to test my weapons, just to make sure they work. After looting the, I realize that the inventories have switched sides, and I’ve been putting my stuff onto dead bodies.

(7 minutes) I make it to the nearby Stalker base and, after being forced to put my gun away, gain entrance to the rusted hull of a ship called Skadovsk. I head straight for a trader to unload my loot, but he’s not buying. Instead he offers me a job finding artifacts for him.

(8 minutes) I put that off, talking to the other Stalkers standing around, they all direct me to talk to the boss. He’s got a job for me to. He needs another guy to fill out a strike team he’s sending to take over another location.

(9 minutes) I find the strike team leader in the base and we quick-travel to another rusted hunk of metal that used to be a boat. It’s pitch black, so when people start shooting but I can’t see anything. Eventually our side wins, and I find the leader. He yells at me for not pulling my weight and refuses to pay me. It’s hard to argue with him.

(14 minutes) I head back to Skadovsk’s boss and he’s got another job for me. This time the rangers need another guard to oversee a trade with Duty. I head over, running through a little light radiation and take my place among the guards. Something goes wrong and the exchange turns into a firefight. This time I can see, so I take out two Duty, and I get paid for my work.

(20 minutes) Back to base again. Talk to the trader again and realize that you get to the trade menu by clicking at the bottom of the screen, not through the dialogue options. Oops. He won’t buy the damaged guns I’ve picked up so far, so I drop them and look for something else to do.

(21 minutes) I find a guy who wants me to investigate a “strange glow” on a ship in the middle of a lake. The boat theme is getting a little old, but at least something is glowing. I’m going to bet it’s an artifact.

(25 minutes) Yep, the boat’s steering wheel is glowing, and it’s an artifact, though it doesn’t seem to do anything but poison you with radiation.

(27 minutes) As I’m leaving the boat, I’m interrupted by a guy waiting outside.

(27 minutes) He wants the artifact I just picked up, saying it has healing properties that someone he knows needs real bad. But screw that guy, I need it to finish a mission.

(28 minutes) Well, his two buddies were lying in wait, and they want to shoot me full of holes. I feel the same way.

(30 minutes) Two medkits and a bottle of vodka later, and I’m healthy and radiation free. And walking straight, I swear.

(36 minutes) The first emission warning. I hate these things. I have to find shelter in a few minutes or I die.

(38 minutes) I take shelter in a barn, and wait for the emission to pass.

(40 minutes) Ok, barns apparently don’t offer any protection, and it doesn’t help that the barn was full of zombies. Time to rewind.

(36 minutes) Reloaded to try to find real shelter. I’m pretty close to one of the helicopter crash sites, so I sprint that way. After passing a few anomalies, I search the fallen helicopter and discover the electrical systems have been fried.

(38 minutes) I sprint away from the helicopter to a group of stalkers nearby. The emission is nearly on us, so I pay someone in the group to take me back to Skadovsk, and I manage to avoid being burned by the sky.

(46 minutes) While running around the countryside I find an invisible mutant wandering inside a town. But it was during the day so I wasn’t scared and it quickly died.

(50 minutes) Just exploring. Found a combat shotgun and an empty building.

(55 minutes) Making my way to the next helicopter. As I approach the site, the screen gets whiter and objects start to lift off the ground and fly at me. I guess I found one of the poltergeists one of the stalkers at the camp told me about.

(57 minutes) Near the helicopter is a field of electric anomalies. I take out my scanner and it detects an artifact. But I have to be right next to it before it will manifest.

(60 minutes) Sweet, I found it. My first mission-unrelated artifact.

From there I sought out other helicopters, infiltrated a mercenary base to steal a laptop, took out some bandits for their specialized artifact detectors and helped an old man lure a Duty squad into a zombie farm.