S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Glows With Chernobyl Radioactive Link

Thanks to Eurogamer for its coverage of a THQ-sponsored press trip to Russia to preview GSC's forthclming PC first-person shooter. Since the game is "based on the premise that you've gone to explore the 20km 'exclusion zone' of Chernobyl", this has led to some odd preview publicity, as the writer notes: "When they invited us on a cheery tour to go and see Chernobyl for fun, we knew something had gone awry in our lives. Stranger still, during the press conference to promote the much anticipated mutate 'em up S.T.A.L.K.E.R, they wheeled one of the men responsible for the tragedy. I didn't know whether to laugh or throw things." There's also an interview with one of the developers on Eurogamer regarding this September-bound title, but it's concluded that S.T.A.L.K.E.R, with its impressive visuals, is "...shaping up to be one of the scariest, most original takes on the increasingly tired FPS genre."

Comments

The original Stalker

[Shiifty]

The original Stalker rides a Kawasaki.

New site: www.kiddofspeed.com

Article 1

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Fallout meets Zelda

[t1nman33]

Take the open-ended gameplay and post-apocalyptic atmosphere of Fallout, add the skill-based semi-RPG characteristics of the original Zelda, and you've got this game. Could very well turn out to be a sleeper hit.

I like the way that Zelda allowed you to progress in an open-ended style as far as your skill allowed you to go. You could skip the extra heart containers, more powerful swords and the rings if you were really hardcore.

What's next? A World Trade Center game?

[Peteroo]

A strange article about a stranger press event.

To his credit, the writer raises up front the issue of the appropriateness of certain elements of the trip.

To his discredit, he then lets go of the issue just as quickly--with a potshot at a journalist who had the temerity to accept a free drink--and from there on in, it's all game, game and game. ("It looks staggeringly beautiful, and takes PC visuals to a place we've all been looking forward to for a long, long time.")

Indeed, beyond a reference to the 20 km "exclusion zone" around Chernobyl in which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is set, the piece barely acknowledges the event itself. No reference to the deaths from the explosion and radiation at the nuclear reactor near Kiev, the courage of the people who contained the fire, the vastly increased risk of thyroid cancer among Ukrainian young people from the release of radiation, or the evacuation and resettlement of an estimated 326,000 people.

Not even the date (1986).

And while the writer does mention "reactor," it's only to inform us that "the small team at GSC actually went themselves down to the stricken reactor to gather source material, and have done a fantastic job of replicating the rust and decay."

But let's step beyond the article for a moment. It's amazing to me that someone would build a game around a relatively recent event that has been such a source of misery to the Ukraine.

Hell, make up a reactor accident in an imaginary country--if only to spare people's feelings. It is further amazing that THQ would actually bring journalists to Chernobyl to promote the game--this surpasses the recent deliberate-bad-taste publicity stunts by Acclaim--and that a journalist could go ... and then produce coverage that skirts the disaster itself.

How about a few pointed questions to THQ and GSC reps on the issue of taste? How about a word from people who live in the area on how they feel about the game? How about even a passing reference to what happened that April night in 1986?

Time does have a way of softening the impact of events. Almost 30 years after the fall of Saigon, we've started to see games based on the Vietnam War. (I don't see the analogy that another poster drew to World War II. That was the defining event of the 20th century, and its outcome defined much of the world for the 34 years that followed.)

I'm unsure where exactly to draw the line, but I don't think 18 years is enough. Game developers need to think harder about this issue before turning a national tragedy into a shooting game. And gaming publications need to question of the value of such trips and the quality of the coverage they produce.

What's next? In 15 years, are we going to see a game based around the collapse of the World Trade Center towers?

I'll answer that question right now: Without a doubt.

Re:Good idea for a game, bad idea for a pressconfe

[gl4ss]

so which exactly is more 'bad', making a game about an accident which directly or indirectly made tens of thousands lives shorter or about a war that was intentionally started(in hate) and ended up having millions of people dead?

stalker has very little to do with the actual accident though, the s.t.a.l.k.e.r.s setting(denying that it's heavily based on strugatsky brothers stalker book would be just ridiculous) was made up long before chernobyl happened(there's even a movie made in '79). it just happens so that the area(of chernobyl now) looks exactly like the area portrayed in their novel(all the way to abandoned buildings, homes left as they were, rusting cars, deadly traps you can't see.. ). It was quite hard to look at those pictures(of the motorbiker girl) and not make a mental connection to the eerie world of strugatskys stalkers.

my personal guess as to why they chose chernobyl as the cause of the anomalies(rather than aliens) is that it probably makes more sense to people unfamiliar with the book than just saying that 'some aliens or something'.

Re:Good idea for a game, bad idea for a pressconfe

[wronskyMan]

There was nothing good in the story of Chernobyl.
Hmm... what about the firefighters/engineers who went back into high radiation areas to shut equipment off or perform other rescue tasks, knowing they were condemning themselves to a slow death of radiation sickness to save their younger colleagues?

Re:Good idea for a game, bad idea for a pressconfe

[wronskyMan]

I think they would know it was radiation - the whole cracked open reactor and all. Also, the radiation lethality depends on the time and intensity - if one person went back several times, they could receive a cumulatively lethal dose, whereas a person who left the area might survive. In addition, many of the heroic actions they took were not futile - the firemen putting out the burning graphite moderator probably prevented an even greater release of radioactive particles (from the smoke, etc), also somebody would have to shutoff lines spewing radioactive steam, electrical breakers vulnerable to fire, etc, so some of the actions were to save more than an individual trapped person.