S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is dead. Why?

By the time you read this it's an old news: Stalker 2 as computer game was cancelled, though "we find it necessary to inform that GSC Game World and Sergey Grigorovich remain to be the sole owners of all the intellectual property rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series and the brand overall, including all the trademarks, the game universe, the technology etc. This can be easily verified with the trademark services online.", states company's official website http://www.gsc-game.com/. 

As a rule of our cynical world when king dies, his pants become a major point of profit. On one hand those who did not know about existence of this product will be curious, and hardcore veterans will spent some coin on final "golden" edition or side-line products like table-top game, hats and t-shirts. 

However, I'd like to elaborate why this game came to this sad conclusion, did not fared well on western market in comparison with other FPS games and lost big part of it Russian supporters. 

Starting with most obvious problem of any major game trying to become AAA (world wide) product: development time. Stalker was developed for almost 8 years before it reached people who waited for it. 8 years is enough to see a child walk and talk, and in computer game industry an entire generation of technology as well as clients taste has changed. During development this difficult baby had to refresh its graphics at least twice to be in line with modern shooters and other high-tech games. 

Post-soviet game developers have not yet been among creators of high-end games like Halo or Crysis. (Perhaps with exception Il-2 Shturmovik by Maddox Games, but this lies outside the subject of this post). Both these games have clearly stuck to tested path of FPS-bestseller: simplicity and power with lots of graphical candies and marketing support. Ever since Doom, FPS games have always been about player getting adrenaline high as result of shooting some bad guys (aliens, Nazis, commies, invaders, frags, demons, other players, underline one you prefer), all other things are quite optional, like storyline or surroundings. The trick of any good FPS game is how to justify appearance of another portion of enemies in order to keep player busy and high on adrenaline.

This is where we come to one of the biggest problems of Stalker - unclear concept.

Game was sold and positioned as SURVIVAL/HORROR FPS. However, as a survival it made player eat and take a lot of pills when screen was flashing with danger sings. My first reaction on seeing radiation sing appear was a bit of surprise. How can a human detect radiation without Geiger counter? Do i have a skill for that? Do i have that equipment? If that would be an RPG those question would be answered, but in this case i had to adjust to a flashing screen. It may seen minor but this is where survival in STALKER ends, leaving us with pressing buttons for another med-kit. It may be very FPS style, but its not horror. Later on in the game and its add-ons RPG elements were introduced into the game, but remained minor adjustments, rather than serious rethinking of how game works. 

On the FPS side STALKER does a fairly descent job. It provides you with gun, enemies who ignore head-shots, re-spawning frags and monsters, and impenetrable cover. In close quarters its still a good shooter, and will provide you with adrenaline and entertainment for some time.  

Now if you look at what as player has to do in the Zone apart from shooting at random monsters and walking around anomalies. You are suppose to do quests; find stuff, kill stuff, and get somewhere where your hero supposedly wants to go. This is a clear RPG territory, and luckily by third installment Call of Pripyat they made quest viable and important, not just a notes in the diary you never read or even notice. 

The roots of this idea lies in the free-to-explore-world concept on which STALKER is build. During early stages game developers mentioned that they looked for inspiration to Fallout and Fallout 2. These iconic games are not only RPG, they have a solid narrative base behind every location, quest and personalities. Unfortunately, this where is the weakest spot of Stalker: they gave us freedom, gun and shooting range but forgot why that world exists and what is out place in that world. Despite the great work on humor, endless fan-fictions its still a mystery what does our stalker feels towards Zone, factions and reasoning behind their conflicts.Whats more upsetting on occasion when we get a chance to recruit NPC they fit into profile of unnamed-guy-about-to-die-for-the-cause. 

One of the reasons that group of original Stalker developers formed 4A Games and started to work on Metro 2033 was, as they stated " that Stalker was trying to be everything a game could be". As a result it lacked something important, we may add.

To double the trouble of open world programming, scripting and creating Stalker does not have a major hero. Yes, you read that right. 3 installment and our main protagonist is deaf, mute and unlovable. He is clearly designed to be a focus for our own exploration of Zone, but what is he like? Mystery. There much worse games out there, for example some versions of Splinter Cell and its add-on games by Ubisoft Shanghai, but unlike Stalker, they carry on the day using power of Sam Fisher (or any other hero) charisma. By making hero a living, breathing and relating to world around him even a bad game can survive long enough to make a profit. 

This is one curious situation, to be fare. Despite all aforementioned problems Stalker lived for more than a decade, spawned a book series and recently a board game and some curious cultural activities like films and fan-fictions. Now it should continue its spirit as Survarium, another breakaway project. 

So, the King is dead. Long live the Stalker?               

 

  

      

Commander

Out of all Warhammer 40000 armies and factions i'm attached to Imperial Guard the most. I'll skip the usual reasons why people relate to poor cannon fodder, and try to concentrate on main one:

You as a player actually giving orders to your troops on the battlefield!
 
IG was my first army a played with, and so far my gun-line infantry based army either did very well or got beaten to a pulp. Well, for me as player with role-play experience and understanding of how real armies actually work this ability was a real gift. You might note that during the battle you don't have a luxury of letting your painted minions to disobey you. But if you try to put yourself into a shoes of your toy army commander this becomes a truly exciting experience!

 In the chaos of battle, in the roar of guns and engines, under indiscriminate enemy fire, in a face of alien horde a veteran commander guides his humble soldier to victory.

This commander is you.



     

first steps

There will be hardly place for popular culture discussions, or weather, or politics. At least i really hope so...

This place is born for my weird need to tell what i think about games i love and hate, about my attempts to create and all the fuss associated with that.
   Feelings, plans, jokes of fate and final products of sleepless nights. 

Games! 

Card-games, table-top, computer games, life games, role-play games, books about games and may be some psychology behind the games.  Perhaps some distraction in the way of reviews on various cultural feeds. I generally avoid doing something in well-established manner, so it will mostly be an experiments, attempts to understand something by writing it out, by feeding it out. 

So the first step, the beginning. Definitely as strong as first step of a child.  
Unsure of how to do that, looking over the shoulder on others, but stepping it, making it, falling and raising again, and again to walk. To step firmly and easy toward the goal. To go through darkness and light of journey. To stand on its feet and keep going.  

But it all begins with small first step, 
today, 
now!      
   

Sincerely yours,

Mark.