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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Glows With Chernobyl Radioactive Link 54

Posted by simoniker from the three-eyes-on-that-fish dept.
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."
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Glows With Chernobyl Radioactive Link More

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

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  • Well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @12:06PM (#8770023)
    I for one, hope they make a skin of Elena [slashdot.org] playable in the game :)

    • Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by obeythefist ( 719316 )
      Elena aside, STALKER looks like it might be the designated "sleeper" hit for this year.

      DooM3 looks graphically superior to well, everything, but from the alpha, the gameplay hasn't changed since the early 90's. I've played the run, gun, find the switch game before.

      Half-Life 2 will probably have more playability despite being optimised exclusively for ATI cards (no particular reason beyond marketing sponsorship). It'll be a success assuming they don't dumb anything down for the console kiddies (DX2 anyon
    • I have to admit that having a Ukranian woman screaming by on an overpowered touring motorcycle would be kind of a neat Easter egg, if a bit too in-jokish for many...
    • Actually, on second thought, it might not be a ridiculous licensing idea. I probably wouldn't ever have heard of this game (nor would the game have reached Slashdot) had it not been for the pair of Elena stories, and I suspect that GSC will owe Elena for a fair number of copies sold. I recognize a few of the elements in the screenshots from Elena's photos (like the abandoned Ferris wheel...spooky.)

      I have to say that with all the recent emphasis on the exclusion zone, and the possibility of placing games

  • The original Stalker (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shiifty ( 704247 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @12:10PM (#8770049) Homepage
    The original Stalker rides a Kawasaki.

    New site: www.kiddofspeed.com [kiddofspeed.com]

    Article 1 [slashdot.org]

    Article 2 [slashdot.org]

    • No, she is the stalkie, with all of the obsessed /. fans.
    • Stalker [imdb.com] was a 1979 Film by Russian Director Andrei Tarkovsky [filmref.com]. It is loosely based on a novella called Roadside Picnic [amazon.com] by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

      Incredible stuff and I highly recommend it. It is the first thing I thought of when I saw Elena's first set of pictures. If you get a chance to see it, do so--but be warned, it is very long and very slow. If you are a fan of film worth checking out. If you only go see films with pyrotechnics, take a pass.
      • Also, at least in Finnish translation the books title is "Stalker" as well(So it was quite straightforward to draw a line from the book to the game dubbed as s.t.a.l.k.e.r). as such it's intresting because the story was made much before the meltdown which is blamed for the anomalies in s.t.a.l.k.e.r, but imho the backstorys not that relevant(stalker offers very little explanation to what causes the anomalies, they're just there. for the sake of the story it could be garden of eden or some other mythical pla
        • according to the Stalker site, the universe that this occurs in doesn't involve the nuclear explosion at chernoble.

          not having seen the movie, I couldn't say for certain, but it seems as though it replicates the movie and is only using chernoble because it's been imprinted into minds across the world as "some where that something horrible has occured in USSR"

          since I haven't seen the movie, take a look at this back story from the game's site and see if it looks familiar.

          April 12, 2006, 02:33 p.m.
          Chern

  • Good idea for a game, bad idea for a pressconferen (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hambonewilkins ( 739531 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @12:16PM (#8770108)
    Looking at the visuals and reading the article it sounds like it could be a really neat game with really, really good graphics.

    Unfortunately, this press event sounds like it is in really bad taste. The actual Chernobyl disaster was horrible. Making a game out of it is one thing, as it is sure to be fictionalized and live in a world separate from our own.

    When THQ "wheeled one of the men responsible for the tragedy" out, that's just terrible. The lines of reality and fiction are being crossed and in a horrible way. For GTA4, I suggest they bring out real car-jackers to show the folks a good time.

  • - and impressive bandwith. I'm experiencing almost 100 KB/s download of their trailer - I can hardly get that *anywhere*.

  • Side note (Score:1, Redundant)

    by rmarll ( 161697 )
    You can see some photographs of the real site here... http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/ [angelfire.com] With some comentary contrary to the premise of the game.

  • Fallout meets Zelda (Score:4, Interesting)

    by t1nman33 ( 248342 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @01:19PM (#8770771) Homepage
    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.
    • Could very well turn out to be a sleeper hit.

      Nothing sleeper about it - this game has been hyped for years, with trailers pouring out of people's ears by now. If it isn't a hit, PC game industry will possibly collapse once and for all.

  • Riiiight... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @02:21PM (#8771463)
    When did THQ hire Acclaim's press agent?

  • Whiteboard Nihilism, or, Thank God for the French (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @03:09PM (#8771968) Homepage
    How does the game industry get away with crap like this? A better question is: how does the gaming press let the gaming industry get away with crap like this? I get as annoyed with the mainstream media as much as anyone (I'm an avid Daily Show fan, which I suppose is now as mainstream as anything but that's another post). But if, say, the film industry tried to pull a stunt like this, the mainstream media would've dogpiled on the company that did it.

    So where's the gaming media? Ohhhh, they're too busy jacking off to screenshots [eurogamer.net]. The gaming industry needs to grow some gonads, with the exception of that French guy who stood up and walked out, no doubt his massive balls dragging on the floor as he exited. I'm not asking for an over-reaction of politically-correct-ness. I want people to say controversial things. But this isn't controversial in content or idealogy. It's no less than someone pissing on the ruins of the WTC, but pissing on the ruins only because someone promised him $5 if he did it, not because he had anything to say about the WTC or had any idea of what it meant. Someone clueless about 9-11 and pissing on the WTC for $5, or having a press conference at Chernobyl to promote a game are the same thing.

    Something like that might be actually worthy of attention, if the purpose was some form of punk anarchistic expression, or the thought behind it was something like, "I'm going to show how worthless this is." But this whole STALKER thing, and all the Vietnam and WWII games that have suddenly grown out of game developers' asses; it's a bunch of morons sitting in an office thinking, "Hey, what can we do to make more money?' It's some boob for a PR rep who sat in his office and brainstormed on a white board on how to better sell the game. The meaning of these places and events have become lost to these people. Vietnam games, WWII games, promoting STALKER in Chernobyl; they're not controversial expressions, they're accidental Whiteboard Nihilism.
    • err.......u can make a movie bout it but not a game? U can write a book but not a game? U can creat a website n' post it on slashdot but not a game? my suggestion....don't like it, don't play it. But don't ban it from me.....fps is all I like....I don't have time for rpg's...they bait ya into hours of nonesense. Other types of games just don't intrest me..boring. my base's DONT belong too u.......hahahaha
    • Great post OP.

      But this isn't controversial in content or idealogy.

      Great point. Games can be fun diversions. A game about Chernobyl could be fun. But what does holding the press conference at Chernobyl mean? It's tasteless. I can understand making Medal Of Honor, but they're not promoting it at Normandy or Pearl Harbor or at a Concentration Camp.

      Making the game is one thing, doing a controversial PR session just to be edging is, frankly, annoying.

    • Would you be opposed to a guy pissing on the ruins of WTC if he barely escaped from one of the towers himself and lost a wife and both parents there? And who above all else lost a hand in Afganistan, looking for Bin Laden?

      The developers live next to Chernobyl, it's their history, it's a part of their life and they have every right to do everything they did. I am sure at least one of them lost a friend or relative in the past because of the accident. If you followed the development more closely, you would n

  • What's next? A World Trade Center game? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Peteroo ( 757115 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @03:44PM (#8772395)
    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.

    • Yeah, whatever.

      There's no reason to single this game out as 'untasteful' if you're willing to allow other games. Think about it.

      You (condescendingly) ask us to think about the poor Ukrainians as if we were exploiting their pain. Excuse me, the game was written BY a Ukranian development team.

      You, (and the person who wrote the article), seemed surprised by the tour of Chernobyl. They have tours of Chernobyl all the time. You get on a bus that's dedicated to the area, (it will never leave) and drive
    • Well I was born in Kiev and my 18th birthday is this Thursday. Yes, it had impact on my life, but of course I'm not old enough to remember anything. We (my family) moved to our relatives in another country and stayed there for a few years.
      Anyway, I don't see anything bad or wrong with the game, I'll buy it (or d/l if I get my DSL back ;) and play without any hesitation or bad feelings. The press trip is also IMHO ok, maybe somewhat strange because it could be dangerous. Just keep in mind that this is my pe
    • Well I'm Ukrainian and I'm proud to see that a Ukrainian development team put together such an impressive looking game. Ukraine has had a lot of difficulties, it has a struggling economy and a corrupt government. I think it's great to see Ukrainian programmmers creating an original game about Ukraine instead of being exploited by rich countries doing outsourcing.

    • I have to wonder about some of these estimates of the number of deaths due to Chernobyl. There are some sources that give much smaller numbers, such as this short summary [magma.ca]. The World Health Organization only seems to predict that there are 3500 deaths as result of the accident, and there is the fact that there are other towns that have natural radiation levels at almost the same level as most parts of the area around the reactor (as long as you are not standing right next to the reactor building). Although

  • I hope the English translation of the game is better than the English on the game's website.
  • I really hope they gave some credit to Andrei Tarkovsky [imdb.com].
  • ...the accident happened _before_ they had the idea for the game.

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