Random brain farts on tech, games and gunpla: STALKER: Call of pripyat review

Overall-8/10
Dont play this game if you love dogs

Gameplay-8/10
Woots
-Most stable client
-immersive breathing world
-Great sense of progress
-Well designed upgrade system for gears
-unforgiving realistic combat system
Fugly
-Bad voice over
-erratic NPC behavior
-text quest with no voice over
-forgetable multiplayer
-lack of plot during first part of game
-tension music plays too early

Visuals-7/10
Woots
-DirectX11 engine
-Great environmental ambience
-Better performance than previous STALKER
Fugly
-engine showing its age
-tesselation not used to full potential
-inefficient engine with high requirements

This is the third installment of STALKER and its the first version that is stable and doesnt corrupt game save randomly.Developed by a russian developer and a designed to be a russian game, the voiceover is lackluster and the subtitles are all over the place.As a RPG/shooter hybrid, its a lackluster when quest are given out like diablo2 style text communication while npc spurts a few random strings of conversation repeatedly.It makes this game feel even more dated especially after the release of Mass effect 2 recently with it full voice over as mentioned on previous post.
Not having completing the first STALKER due to game file corrupting deep into the game and not played Clear sky, i return to the zone skeptically. Surprising the client didnt crash till the credits rolling and no game file corruption is encountered.All is left is the dangerously beautiful zone to explore with your hair standing at its end. The depressing wasteland filled with equally depressing occupants makes simper exploration a chore and if the sun set before you accomplish your goal, you are about to spend some time with your most primitive fear.Its not the enemy spawning or deliberate gore or ridiculous flashlight mechanics you get from doom3 or dead space.Its the vast emptiness, ambush from wondering mutants you couldnt see in the thick foilage and the fear of switching on your flashlight needlessly to attract attention. It is this that makes you double check every corner, shine at every movement of the foilage and make your adrenaline pump at every shriek that is caused miles away.
This sense of dread and vulnerability is reinforce by the unforgiving combat system, non level character progress and weak armor you starts the game with.With the great sense of progress in terms of gears with the discovery of more advance western built reliable weapons to upgrading various feature to your armor like nightvision makes this game addictive even without a strong plot.The sense of progressiveness also extends to artifact hunting where you only have the device to locate and obtain the simplest but as you progress and obtain high end equipment you even have the ability to detect life threatening anamoly.
The upgrade system is well designed where you can customise your weapons to the role or style you use them while armor can be installed with systems to protect against the anamoly you are worst at evading or simply just increase your armor to fend off melee attacks. Gears have durability and it deteriorate as armor got hit by bullets or weapons when fired.As it deteriorate, weapons will start to jam and armor will reduce in stats, and if you didnt repair in time the gear will IA too often or no longer provide tangible benefit that you will have trouble surving in the zone.However, no matter if you are wearing the fully upgraded exoskeleton or firing a experimental gauss rifle, you will not survive long playing like you do in modern warfare 2 or other shooters. Other than maintaining your gears, you have to maintain yourself. As you get shot, you will bleed and have to bandage up, absorb too much radiation and you have to take rad medicine and you will get hungry from time to time. This add a additional layer of realism to this post apocalypse sim.
Unlike the treasure hunting Stalker you are playing in the first game, you are now a major working for russian military.Artifact hunting is no longer the main objective, but since their market price is high and they can be equip for many benefits so you will hunt it anyway. As mentioned above, the plot is thin until you reach pripyat which is at the last portion of the game.Pripyat is a urban wasteland which is a refreshing change from zaton or jupiter but the game suddenly become very linear and you are simply following the tightly scripted storyline. As you complete the game, a series of image will flash by showing you the outcome of the gameworld, depending on how you complete the missions or lack of. Since the outcome is only happen after you complete the game, your action lacks impact on the game world while you are playing.
To accomplish all the dread atmosphere, the xr engine that have been powering the first game have been ugraded to version 1.6 with directx 11 feature.As the first directx11 feature that i play, it already offer a positive impression.Simply by running the game in this new codepath provide more than 10% performance benefit without lowering graphics quality.However the new directx features are not well implemented like the tesselation. Tesselation automatically duplicate and increase polygon in a less performance hungry manner and allow rendering of perfect spherical shapes. But in STALKER, it is only implemented to gas mask while the rest of the game objects is still rendered in parallex mapping. The engine still look dated nontherless with its low draw distance and poor texture, although the texture problem is less obvious in cases where parallex mapping is used.However after spending time with the game, you will realise the engine excels in producing realistic urban landscape in bright day light where it would showcase it impressive global shadow and parallex mapping works best on bricks and walls. But the bad news is you rarely get to see such scene in the depressing zone with stormy weathers every other day and the lack of standing structures. The processing power required is still disproportionate high and reduce the audience for this game greatly.
Other than the bad voice over, i also mentioned the lack of it too.Another serious sound issue is the tension music when fighting enemy plays too fast.It sometime warn you of upcoming ambush from an unspotted enemy taking away alot of tension from the game after you know how to exploit it to your advantage.
After so many years, the STALKER that is meant to be is finally produced. If you are like me who gives up on previous version due to instability or the hardcore zone explorer that put up with previous version will find this new STALKER attrative. The zone provides the most unique experience that you will never find in other game, and deserve a chance even with its design faults.

A place you call home