Recent reviews by Zompt

Eh, it's alright innit

If I had to choose between the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, I'd pick Call of Pripyat. Many good features from the previous games have been polished such as trading, upgrading items, combat, artifact detection and collection, and even questing. The plot and ending really got to me.

The open world is an issue. The pacing of progression between questing areas is a bit of a different flavor from previous games. In Call of Pripyat, your progress between zones is limited by story progression. This is in contrast to SoC where your exploration was (mostly) only limited by progressively more difficult opponents and anomalies. On the other hand, while CoP locks you into a zone, it's not exactly a small space. Later in the game, you'll even find yourself with reasons to go back to previous areas for bonuses and min/maxing.

The RPG element has been well polished as well. The importance of your equipment choices cannot be understated. With a wide variety of weapons, armor, attachments and modification trees (like talent trees!), consumables, and artifacts(stat altering) your options are quite vast. There are many situations in the game where the proper equipment can turn a fevered fight for survival into a even back and fourth or perhaps little challange at all.

As a STALKER game it would be poor form for me not to comment on the atmosphere. This is something I feel Call of Pripyat, like it's predecessors, did very well. At a glace, some may see only a melancholy dystopia sprinkled with shock and a little horror, but there's so much more to it. While the darkness and gloom are very evident, beneath the surface lies the subtle thrill of being on the edge of an unexplored frontier with somthing to discover around every corner. You never know who or what you'll run into next.

The themes behind the game and STALKER in general are fairly mature. For all the good in the game, it's still (IMO) dark, gritty, and brutally honest about "might" and it's connection to what is "right". There is good in this world, but it's few and far between. As for the plot, it certainly helps to have experience in the previous games. From the get-go you're aware your character's motivation is ethically dubious at best. To his credit, the MC grows and confronts these issues making him seem more relatable.

If you want a full experience I recommend you play the previous STALKER games first. There are plenty of references and even an important character or two. Problem is, I don't believe any of these games have aged particularly well graphically or mechanically. But if you can suffer though some imperfections, the experience is worth it.

One final and important note, there are some good mods for Call of Pripyat as well as previous games. If you manage to get though the game, modding is definitely a way to expand re-playability.