Vivian on 21/12/2007 at 13:04

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Is there an explanation that I missed as to how you magic your way past a field full of gravo-suck things and people with rocket launchers at the end of pripyat? I thought the game had broken at first.
Pripyat and the NPP didn't really do a lot for me, the drama was somehow missing. Pacing all screwed up, I think. Plus I got a weak ending because everyone suddenly hates me (I hid in a bush and shot the guy guarding the freedom arsenal with a vintorez and then sold all their own guns and suits back to them, so maybe thats why). So after a lot of excitement in general, the end of stalker is dissapointing - same reasons as thirith. It's difficult to enjoy pripyat when people are firing rockets at your face the whole time, and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of things there. What is the point in the FN200? Why can't you have it earlier? What are you supposed to do with RPG's? Why couldn't it actually be aliens for once, like in the book. Aliens would have been better than some hokey mind-control thing.

Vivian on 21/12/2007 at 14:21

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Um... yeah, because I followed the other one until I got stuck in a room full of baubles and a hazy green brick and had no idea at all about what I was supposed to do (I know now, having read a walkthough. Shoot the baubles. Well, duh, I guess...?).

I don't mean aliens as in 'green men with ray guns'. I mean, I think it would have been way cooler if the monolith had been some kind of implacable alien toxic byproduct. A piece of dangerous rubbish from an advanced civilisation, like in the book. It's a more atmospheric scenario, I think. Bit more witchity.

242 on 21/12/2007 at 14:52

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Noooooo... :) I like how the story isn't 100% clear even after true ending, it still remains kind of misty, and there isn't such banal thing as aliens. It's way cooler when people create hell themselves for themselves. As driver wrote continue to play beyond wishgranter and you'll know a lot more about the story.

Muzman on 21/12/2007 at 18:22

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I should preface by saying I'm nuts about this game; people can point to its faults til the cows come home and I'll generally agree with most of them; The end was intense but not as fun in an explore-y sort of way; the closer was like "up-yours Half Life 1 And 2 at the same time". It's all true but I haven't 'felt' a game like this in a long time.

as for the story; yeah I was kinda hoping for a greater tilt towards the book (there's references throughout which seem a bit variable: some stalker talks about being shoved in a meat grinder which I take to be a reference, but the anomaly in question is called a vortex. It could be a case of colloquial versus proper names, something else from the book, but its hard to say. More writing would have fleshed out that zone culture a bit more).
I read an interview where the designers said they took cues from rumours about the various research plants in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, which themselves stem from the Eastern bloc obsession with psychic powers and science (interesting how the entire cold war the yanks were nuts about aliens and higher beings, Soviets whispered about psychic powers and mind control). So that's where that stuff comes from, which is kinda cool. And the main plot of being sent to kill yourself isn't so much a grand existential twist as a clerical error (which might in itself be a grand existential twist, but a more eastern european one).
I felt like I missed a few details tho; does the monolith actually work, I mean besides doling out ironic justice on those who dare wish? It looks like its just an illusion depending on how you approach, but why create that illusion and how is it C consciousness aren't in control of it? To give the Zone meaning?
The zone is supposed to grow everytime the monolith is used right, for real not just talk?
If the monolith doesn't grant wishes as such are the agent stalkers actually captured people who made wishes? (I thought it would be kind of cool if Strelok made a wish like 'I want to live forever' and ended up sent to kill himself, and then just ends up making another one)
And are the monolith cultists C Consciousness' private army or are they really worshipers of the monolith (or is it just there aren't enough models and skins to go around)? I liked those irradiated chanting nutcases. Are they believers or just part of the illusion (or just great masters of cognitive dissonance- cue link to comchat faith debate-)?

Anyway, the strength of this game for me is the sense of adventure (I can't remember ever having to set off on a journey in a game and think about how many bullets I might need to get where I'm going and back again vs the weight of my pack and my possible need to run at any point. Some RPGs try it but they're a lot softer about it). I can forgive a giant fight at some point as the world and his dog tries to get to the centre of the Zone. But I think at the end you should have broken through to somewhere mythical that no one has been to and come back from ever before, and not because it's crawling with cultists, because it's too far, too irradiated, too dangerous. Gingerly stalking across those plains to the sarcophagus on the horizon while everyone else is behind you, lost in the crush trying to stop everyone else getting there first. It's empty, silent and totally awe inspiring. The game managed to knock me on my arse several times. I think that sort of conclusion would have finished me off in a "Well, I don't need play computer games anymore!" sort of way.

Jashin on 21/12/2007 at 22:24

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For a long time Deus Ex spoiled first-person games in general for me.

What can you do?