S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is a horror survival game that was released in 2009 by the Ukrainian video game company called "GSC Game World". In this game, we have to complete quests, kill people & mutants, talk to people and simply enjoy the amazing graphics.

Story

First, let's start with the story.

Everything starts on the 26th of April, 1986 when the reactor block 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. The explosion made the radiation from Chernobyl spread across Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and even the USA.

In the beginning, the residents of the towns that were nearby the nuclear plant didn't know what was happening, because the government of the Soviet Union didn't want its residents to start panicking. The consequences after the explosion were that brutal, that the government started evacuating towns, villages, and even cities.
The residents of Pripyat were getting poisoned for unknown reasons, nobody knew about the disaster.

There was a 30-kilometer long exclusion zone which used to prevent any residents of the USSR from entering the zone, so most of the residents won't get poisoned by the radiation.

Despite the explosion, the nuclear plant continued to operate. Because of the sudden depopulation of the cities, towns, and villages, the government of the USSR decided to create a network of secret laboratories in the exclusion zone.

In 2006, 20 years after the explosion of reactor block 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, some strange things started happening. The exclusion zone lighted up with flesh of very bright light, which killed the guards of the exclusion zone. The scientists didn't know what happened back then.

One year later, in 2007, the scientists didn't have any explanation of what happened in 2006. Many people used to go and explore the area and not many of them came back alive. Most of the people that returned, started telling the scientists stories about mutants with some unbelievable abilities.

According to some sources, the exclusion zone was populated by many unknown individuals. In the game, we call them "stalkers".

A year later, the population of these stalkers continued to grow. Not all the zones nearby the disaster were explored, because all the attempts to get in them ended in a fail.

Because of that, the Ukrainian government decided to launch an operation a.k.a. Operation Airway. However, after some time the operation turns to be a fail and the helicopters that the government sent to the exclusion zone never came back.

Because of that, the government decided to send a USS experienced stalker to the exclusion zone to investigate the failure of the mission. We will talk about him now :)

Gameplay

In the game, we get into the role of the USS agent & stalker Major Alexander Degtyarev who was sent to investigate the reason behind the failure of the mission, as I stated above.

When we start playing for the first time, we get 2 weapons which are AKM-74/2U and Honorary PMm which is Degtyarev's award from the government for the successful execution of highly dangerous orders.

If we are bleeding, we have to use bandage or Vinca drugs. Otherwise, this will damage our health very badly if we don't stop the bleeding on time.

The fastest way of movement is just to run, but unfortunately, because of that our character gets exhausted very easily and we have to take a break very often.

We can also talk to random NPCs and trade with them!

The entire theme of the game is related to the exclusion zone and the obstacles which we have to avoid (such as zones that have high levels of radiation in most cases).

In the game, there are many emissions and because of that, we have to cover ourselves before it takes place. For me, that's kinda irritating, because we have to wait up to 5 minutes until it's gone.

Let's talk a little bit more about the mutants.

In the game, we usually have to kill our enemies & the mutants.
The mutants are surprising me the most. Even the smallest mutated puppies can kill us in a matter of seconds.
Some mutants throw barrels at us in an attempt to eliminate us.
Some of them aren't easy to kill, so we have to be well-armed.

The game offers us to update our gear for very good prices. Updating our gear affects our character positively.
We can also upgrade our helmet and torso. For example, we can make our helmet have a night vision. We can also increase our resistance to electricity or even radiation! I think that's amazing.

Artifacts

Artifacts are also important in the game because of their value and characteristics. They aren't just some usual loots, they are usually very expensive and they have extremely useful effects which help us while our gameplay. We can use them to purchase some costumes, equipment, etc. The artifacts are very shiny and beautiful looking. In the game, we can get some good offers for our artifacts. We can find them in anomalies in most cases.

Summary & Additional Information

I rate the game with 8/10.

The graphics are really nice, the sounds are slightly irritating.
Some guns reload very slowly which kinda annoys me.
I would recommend this game to people who are really interested in the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster.
The atmosphere in the game is really nice, it totally gave me creeps when I started playing this game for the first time.
Sometimes the game lags a lot for no reason.
When I started killing the mutants for the first time, I lost sight of reality, I felt like I was inside the game (which is really cool, it's important to feel those vibes while playing :D).
It doesn't require a lot of storage to download - we need at least 4 GB to download the game, which is an upside for me.
The game is really easy to play, I bet y'all won't face any problems while your gameplay.

-t4tsumihyaku