[sek929]

As mentioned in another thread I love this game, and the predecessor, Shadow of Chernobyl. Clear Sky came between the two but was a prequel, and widely regarded as the weakest game. Instead of a huge post and tons of pics right away, I am going to update this thread periodically with interesting facts and pics of Call of Pripyat.

The game starts off at the end of SoC, with 6 army helicopters sent to the Exclusion Zone in order to recapture order in the area. Something 'anomalous' happens and all 6 choppers fall out of the sky. You play an army captain sent in, on foot, to investigate the events before any more rescue choppers can be sent in.

You are plunked, almost abruptly, in the first of three large areas, called Creek. Only two of the downed helicopters are in this area, and it would be foolish to go straight after them without getting your bearings. You have a 9mm Pistol (useless) and a worn-out AK47 (terribly inaccurate). You'll meet two STALKERS, basically men with no allegiance to any factions who are in the Zone for various reasons, usually money, right away and upon asking some questions they'll add your first important waypoint to the map. The Skadovsk Wreck, which is the 'safe house' for this area.


The constant bad weather from SoC makes a return. Despite daytime lasting about 30 minutes game time, it often starts raining and gets pretty dark.

You'll want to get here quick because the game starts during the evening, and being outside, at night, with beginner weapons isn't a good idea. That brings me to my first 'love' of this game.

Night is dark, no, not the dark in other games...I mean pitch ****ing black, like the middle of Montana on a moonless night. With a tiny flashlight as your only illumination source at the beginning this makes travel very tense....not to mention mutants are at their most active during night as well. Much improved over the original, you can now sleep and choose to forgo night travel, though you will get caught out at night plenty of times.


This is how much you can see with your flashlight at 1:19am, without it you can see nothing, and I mean nothing.


This is the same spot, with Night Vision on. You don't start the game with NV, and this image is actually the crappy NV which is the first kind you get, still you can see what is actually around you in the previous dark pic.


Next Time
Blowouts. Artifact hunting.

[Mac User #001]

Thanks! This will be nice to follow until the US release of the game!

[sek929]

Let's talk about Blowouts.

Blowouts are a random, map-wide occurrence that can kill you or make you rich. Blowouts (as explained in the game) are radioactive bursts from the Chernobyl NPP. They can happen twice a day, and at any time...whether you are ready for them or not. Luckily the first sign you have of an impending Blowout is the 'Find Shelter' task that appears in the lower left corner and a map marker being added telling you where the nearest place to ride out the storm is. This place isn't necessarily 'safe,' such as an area you have not explored and/or cleaned out from mutants.

The first Blowout occurs in the game fairly quickly, on my first playthrough I had to survive a blowout during travel for my first task. After not hiding properly, and dying a few times I realized the map marker was located in a chasm. I climbed my way down carefully as the sky turned violent and upon reaching the bottom I was attacked by terrible mutants called Snorks. Killed a few and then got killed by a few more. So I eventually opted for an earlier save game and weathered the Blowout in the Skadovsk wreck.

That first blowout was an amazing part for me. It's not explained, and at first almost seems like some sinister 'hell on earth' scenario. I would later find a safe spot from the storm that also allowed me to see the whole thing take place. Below are pictures of Blowout progressing.

Once the task of surviving image fades you begin to hear a storm kick up, and the clouds begin to change color.


Then lighting and thunder, the sky pulses between brightness and darkness.



The sky reddens, the ground shakes, deafening rumbling fills your ears, your screen twists and shakes. This is about the time you will die if you are caught outside.



Then a few seconds later it ends abruptly, the sky returns to normal and your fellow STALKERS will quickly run outside, why? Because Blowouts are the only thing that causes Artifacts to form, and the time right after a Blowout is the best for Artifact hunting, which is the fastest way to make copious amounts of money.

Of course, if you are caught in unfamiliar territory this experience can be quite daunting. In a new area I ran for cover only to find my hiding spot overrun with Zombies, basically just STALKERS or Bandits that have succumbed to strong psychic fields, like those generated by some very powerful mutants. Other times I would find rat mutants, and even the horrifying Bloodsucker taking up residence in the basement of my salvation.

The coolest part is that other Bandits / STALKERS / Army personnel nearby will seek the same shelter as you, and even put aside their hatred of you (in the case of Bandits) in order to hide from the storm.

I was hiding in a small concrete bunker of sorts riding out the Blowout, by myself, when two Bandits ran in and made themselves comfortable, sometimes they'll even whip out a guitar and start playing!


Next Time
Artifact Hunting

[The Final Dakar]

Cool shit.

[sek929]

Today on As the Zone Turns, artifact hunting.

The original STALKER took a vastly different approach to artifact 'hunting' and anomalies in general, yet the fact remains that artifacts and anomalies are linked at the hip. In case you don't know, artifacts are wondrous items worth tons of cash and coveted for their ability to augment your skills in-game.

In Shadow of Chernobyl (future reference, I'll call it SoC from now on) both artifacts and anomalies were scattered around almost at random. Interior areas had cleverly placed anomalies, but not many artifacts to speak of. You'd be able to see an artifact bouncing, almost like the default app bounce on MacOS. from as far away as your object distance was set to. You could gleefully scamper over and pick up about 80% of those artifacts without much effort at all. The other 20% of the time an artifact would be directly underneath or inside of an anomaly, but still completely visible, so a little hit to the health is all it takes.

In Call of Pripyat (CoP) anomalies are large distinct areas/formations. They may contain a number of separate anomalies both mobile and immobile while radiation, heat, psi fields, etc are all affecting you in different damage categories. That'll be covered later though. Anomalies are marked on your map and affect a large area with general damage (radiation, heat, etc). Just to illustrate how dangerous anomalies are in this game, I would rarely forget to quicksave before an artifact hunt. Even with upgraded armor, properly equipped artifacts and health packs it is still VERY easy to die inside an anomaly.

This is known as the Circus Anomaly.




Of course simply dodging your way through the anomaly without proper devices yields nothing. Even if an artifact were to exist you'd simply pass over it without equipping an artifact detector. You start the game with an 'Echo Detector', much like your starting weapons this too is useless, even more so that the pistol. A beeping sound is all that leads you to the artifact, and it can't even detect most artifacts anyways. Your first real detector can be bought for 2000ru, and is called a Bear Detector. It has a compass-like circular 'radar' that lights up in the direction of the artifact, yet it too does not detect all artifacts as shown below.




Now notice the above detector's screen, at the same point in what's known as the Ashes Anomaly. It's called the 'Veles Detector,' and it's the best artifact detector you can buy. The cheaper detector should be able to pick up the artifact at that range, but it cannot see this rarer type artifact. Examples I'm going to show are all using this newer detector, which once you have the money can be bought from several places.

Now back to the Circus Anomaly, this time I'm shown in its center. After dodging the rotating fireballs, which actually seek you out, and squirming through hidden fire jets, all the while taking moderate fire damage (the yellow flame in the top left) I've got a dot on my Veles. Notice the reddish patch in the top left of my screen, that is the artifact as it is before the detector...well, I guess it makes them drop into our reality....it isn't really explained how the detector materializes artifacts, but it fu**kin does and that's good enough. The second image shows the artifact after dropping.




Now all you have to do is make sure you aren't on the verge of dying, which happens quite a bit at this point, and escape the same way you came in, dodging the same damned anomalies.

Throughout the three main areas of CoP, there are around 15 of these main anomalies, some aren't labeled, but all can contain up to three artifacts at a time.

Jesus, that was already longer than expected, next time is going to be the Artifact, Anomaly, and Detector wrap-up.

[Mac User #001]

Thanks man, really. Getting more and more excited for the game. You could works for these guys, you know?

[downinflames68]

This seems pretty neat. Think it will run decently on my C2D iMac, 2.13ghz with 7600GT?

[sek929]

Should run quite well, I get around 30 FPS with settings near low on my Radeon 2400XT, which is only a 128mb card. Besides that I have a 2.0 C2D and 4GB of RAM, but when booted into XP it only sees 3 GB.

GIve it a try, it's certainly not a run of the mill shooter.

[sek929]

Keeping this semi-abandoned thread alive I found a pretty well done Call of Pripyat video on youtube.

Enjoy. YouTube - STALKER-Call of Pripyat/Зов Припяти NEW video! [HD]