S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl [PC]

This preview has been a long time coming. Since 2002 we've been writing about GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, detailing the roller coaster ride of its development with a keen interest in when the game would finally release. After several years of anticipation and bouts of despair over whether it would ever be finished, it seems all is in readiness for this long awaited first-person adventure to hit shelves in March of this year. We got the opportunity to play a near-final build of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. over the weekend, and managed to get a good sense of the game's structure and feel.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. takes place in an area known as the Zone, which surrounds the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant that, in 1986, irradiated a 20 mile radius in Ukraine following a reactor explosion. The game intensifies the sense of calamity associated with the ruined plant, as in 2008 yet another explosion rocked the surrounding countryside. Through satellite data it was determined the new explosion didn't actually occur at Chernobyl, but around half a kilometer away. The Zone was then created by the army, as they barricaded the land affected by the new fallout. Rescue and research teams were sent into the heart of the Zone, only to die. Eventually the Zone expanded again, instantaneously killing all armed forces patrolling its borders. Anyone who hadn't fled before did so now, so by the time the game begins in 2012, all that's left are militant bandits, mutated monstrosities, pockets of a paramilitary outfit known as Duty, a violent sect known as the Monolith, as many other undesirables bearing the unfortunate characteristics of being both unhappy and armed.

You play as a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. who's recently been dumped off a death truck. To be more accurate, the death truck actually gets hit by lightning and blows up, and in contrast with the truck's name, you just happen to be alive. Found alongside your mostly dead body is a PDA, which reads "Kill the Gunslinger." Once the game begins in an area known as Cordon, you're in conversation with a trader named Sidorovich. Known as Marked One (presumably because you've got S.T.A.L.K.E.R. tattooed on your forearm), you're immediately presented with two characteristics about yourself that will color the rest of the game. First, you've got amnesia. That tired clich¿ aside, there's the more interesting second characteristic, which is your need kill someone named Strelok. It turns out you also have a picture of the guy in your PDA, so armed with the name and face of your enemy and a pair of binoculars you head out into the desolate Zone to spill blood and discover your past.

While the game is a first person shooter, it feels distinctly different from anything out on the market right now. The outdoor environments in the game are massive, usually taking several minutes to sprint across, assuming you don't run into any stray mutant dogs, packs of bandits, temporal distortions, or sources of intense radiation. Calling S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a pretty game wouldn't exactly be accurate, since the environments, structures, and characters are so drab, disheveled, and depressed. A feeling of desolation, of unavoidable strife and impending doom radiates from the game's sprawling, rolling fields of dead foliage that sway in the Zone's brisk winds. While trekking through shrubs, over rusted train tracks, and through the interiors of crippled industrial facilities, the graphics never allow you to be comfortable. Looking up from the dreary countryside allows for a view of a gorgeous sky, that changes from night to day and back again, and occasionally serves as the stage for spectacular thunderstorms, replete with rain, winds, fog, lighting, and thunder. A lot of care has gone in to crafting a realistic, gritty environment for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and from what we've seen so far, the visuals greatly enhance the mood and themes of the game, which in turn enhances your ability to immerse yourself in your adventures across the dystopian Zone.

Perhaps even more impressive than the visuals are the sounds, which from what we've experienced so far go a long way to creating a believable game world. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s soundscape is full of haunting, forlorn string arrangements that complement the bleak but striking graphics to add tension in appropriate situations or merely underline the notion that you exist and operate in a defeated, hopeless landscape. You may have seen screens of some of the mutated creatures in this game, but you really don't know how frightening they are until you actually hear them. Otherworldly grunts, groans, and screams of incomprehensible anguish are emitted by these attractively unfamiliar entities. During one sequence we played in an underground research facility, we were struck by the unsettling heights the indoor sequences can reach, particularly when we saw our first Pseudogiant. Since there's barely any electricity in the Zone, you'll frequently have to rely on your flashlight, which has an unending power source. Thanks to some particularly impressive lightning effects, exploring near pitch black sewage tunnels or abandoned underground laboratories full of invisible, telekinetic, flame spitting ghosts, mutated babies, rumbling misshapen juggernauts, and crab-walking masked abominations can be a truly intense, unnerving experience.