S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl Preview

All of the aforementioned game elements should add to the realistic atmosphere GSC tried to convey in the game. Another thing that speaks in favor of this is the completely new physics engine that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. runs on. The powerful engine allowed the developer to pay extra attention to body physics, and, as Anton Bolshakov, Project Leader at GSC says, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has an advanced skeletal animation system that controls realistic body movements at a very high level of detail. Each human character in the game contains about 50 bones, all of which can be adjusted--right down to the pinky finger. Our engine defines human movement based on the maximum tensile strength of bones, joint stiffness, and weight, among other factors. All of this contributes to the way in which a body will react when it is falling or being shot."

These flowers make me hallucinate, but not in a good way.

I wonder if the trains stick to the schedule and if I'm going to be allowed to keep this gun.

As we've already mentioned, many objects from your environment will be at your disposal, just as a wide range of different weapons. Weapons will differ in many things, from penetration ability or range to durability, misfire tendencies and other features. The same will go for the controllable vehicles, as they will take different amounts of damage or need more or less fuel.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. uses the X-Ray graphics engine that creates environments in up to 3 million polygons per frame. Many of the modern technology elements are used in the game, showing the fully dynamic lightning and soft shadows and utilizing the effects such as grain filters, color saturation, image distortion, and bump-mapping. Judging from what we've seen of the game so far, the game features some realistic and detailed character and weapon models, and the environment is rendered beautifully, with striking detail and color palette. I never thought I could apply the word "beautiful" to a grim-looking Chernobyl-based mutant-infested first-person shooter such as this, but this is a fact - I actually caught myself staring at the evening sky and scorched grass. The game should also feature day and night cycles, which should not only add to the realism but also create more varied graphics and a more interesting and intense game play.

What keeps this game going, apart from the non-linear single player and solving problems with monsters the violent way? According to Bolshakov, a very important feature of the game is the multiplayer, which combines challenging and detailed map design with some popular multiplayer modes. Those are deathmatch, with specific deathmatch maps and balanced weapons, and capture the Artifact, which is a variant of the classical capture the flag mode and is more strategy-oriented.

GSC GameWorld has intended this game to play on the verge of realism, with a lot of freedom of movement, authenticity and detail to keep you going. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is action-oriented, but this is not the type of shooter where you insanely run around and shoot in all directions at anything that moves, or demonstrates even a slight intention of moving in the near future.

The designer Alexei Sityanov has described S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as "Ghostbusters in Chernobyl," with the addition of the "Stalker movie, the novel The Roadside Picnic, intelligent mutant creatures, anomalies, Stalkers, and a constantly changing gameworld." (I must admit I rather loved that novel. Not that you care.) This game is realistic, so you're not supposed to shoot around blind with rage, but rather to go hunting and treasure-seeking - yes, I am referring to those lepers' legs and phosphorescent toilet brushes. What's wrong with that? One man's trash is another man's treasure!