This is not the old GSC Game World, with their incomprehensible translations, their litany of broken quests and storylines, their Nobel-worthy ideas that sing in theory but fail in practice. Call of Pripyat is a genuinely riveting open-world shooter that bears all the signs of handcrafting where most open world games revel in their sameness an RPG without stats, a shooter where hours may pass between incidents of shooting. But it is here, in this third iteration, that GSC Game World finally got it right, achieving what the mighty Ubisoft, with all its money and talent, couldn’t accomplish with Far Cry 2. Call of Pripyat is not game of the year material, and by this third installment even diehard STALKER fans are beginning to feel the edge of their lust for more Zone grow dull. Where Shadow of Chernobyl was moodily terrifying and Clear Sky was atmospherically desperate and crowded, Call of Pripyat is introspective and bleak, a lonely and isolating experience that brings to mind the best moments of gloom from both of the earlier games while greatly improving the experience. Don’t let the beautiful sunrise fool you I was eaten up like a second later.Īnd here we are with Call of Pripyat, the third and probably last installment we’ll see for a while, if not ever. It brought a lot of innovations to the series, it just didn’t always execute them well.Įarly morning in the Zaton swamps. The subsequent Clear Sky was considered a misstep, but don’t judge it too harshly.

The initial installment, Shadow of Chernobyl, was really a phenomenal game – broken in many respects, but a revelation. Announced in 2000, it suffered through a seemingly endless array of troubles, delays, buck-passes and embarrassment. series has been around forever, or at least as long as antediluvian things like, you know, the Moon, you could be forgiven. If you feel, sometimes, that GSC Game World’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I haven’t stopped the bleeding but I have gotten it to the point where I’m pretty sure my body is making blood faster than I’m losing it. A deep gash just to the left of my groin. I’m injured, too – a wild boar tusked me out by the farmstead this morning. My stomach also didn’t appreciate this morning’s breakfast, a pink log unpromisingly named “diet sausage” by its seller. I feel a little nauseous since last night. My right shoulder aches from holding the rifle in position my fingers are so frozen I might not be able to pull trigger if I tried. It’s been raining since I got up, and the sky threatens a cheerless day. I slog alone through gloomy, marshy grassland.

“Call of Pripyat isn’t perfect either but as a third-generation evolution of an idea so blindingly ambitious, it sure as hell doesn’t disappoint. Time Played Finished Verdict: 5/5 Gold Star Publisher BitComposer (U.S.) Cenega (Europe)

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