This game i got when it came out over a year a go i think it was April 2007 and i never got into it. Ive been meaning to play it for a long time but because of certain other MMO game i never did. The progress i made in the game was lost each due to the game sving
its “Saved Games” in the windows drive instead of “My Documents”
Folder. From the few levels i did play i knew this was a good game
maybe up the standards of “Half-Life 2” in terms of atmosphere at least.
STALKER the movie and short story:
The game is based on a Russian Short story called “Roadside Picnic” which was made into a movie called “STALKER” back in 1977. The Movie which the game is based on has 3 people going into the “Zone” anymore would be spoiling it. The making of the movie is very interesting as it basically resulted in the deaths of the actors and director due to the places they had to visit while filming it.
From Wikipedia;
In an interview on the MK2
DVD, the production designer, Rashit Safiullin, recalls that Tarkovsky
spent a year shooting a version of the outdoor scenes of Stalker. However, when the crew got back to Moscow,
they found that all of the film had been improperly developed and their
footage was unusable. The film had been shot on experimental Kodak stock with which Soviet laboratories were unfamiliar.
Even before the film stock problem was discovered, relations between Tarkovsky and the first cinematographer, Georgy Rerberg,
had been in serious deterioration. After seeing the poorly-developed
material, Rerberg left the first screening session and never came back.
By the time the film stock defect was found out, Tarkovsky had shot all
the outdoor scenes, and had to burn them. Safiullin contends that
Tarkovsky was so despondent that he wanted to abandon further
production of the film.
After the loss of the film stock, the Soviet film boards wanted to
shut the film down, officially writing it off. But Tarkovsky came up
with a solution: he asked to make a two-part film, which meant
additional deadlines and more funds. Tarkovsky ended up re-shooting
almost all of the film with a new cinematographer, Aleksandr Knyazhinsky. According to Safiullin, the finished version of Stalker is completely different to the one Tarkovsky originally shot.
The central part of the film, in which the characters move around the Zone, was shot in a few days at a deserted hydro power plant on the Jägala river near Tallinn, Estonia. The shot before they enter the Zone is an old Flora chemical factory in the center of Tallinn,
next to the old Rotermann salt store and the electric plant—now a
culture factory where a memorial plate of the film has been set up in
2008. Some shots from the Zone were filmed in Maardu, next to the Iru powerplant and the shot with the gates to the Zone was filmed in Lasnamäe, next to Punane Street behind the Idakeskus.
Many people involved in the film production had untimely deaths.
Many attribute this to the long and arduous shooting schedule of the
film as well as toxins present at the shooting locations.
A Flawed Master-piece:
However it must rank as one of the hardest games ive played. You can die so easily that you must basically Run->quicksave->shot->Quickload (if you die). Not to mention the fact that the NPC enemies can kill you so easily they seem to have incredible aim and accuracy something that makes you wonder what the hell kind of guns your character has, as it takes a lot og shooting to kill most of the enemies in the game. It feels at time
However the game is great i still connsider it an “Almost “perfect” game but it sure has its flaws. Its way too hard. I can quite figure out if its because ive never played the game properly , the R.P.G gameplay part to it kinda frustrates me.
Heres a video of the game that i made just to showcase the “Atmosphere” in the game. Note the sounds are very eerie and atmospheric.
STALKER:S.O.C – Atmosphere 1 (HQ Video and Audio)