Charity, Revenge and Loot-Splitting, All in One Day in STALKER Call of Pripyat

It's just another day in the Zone. A storm has just passed and I'm now preparing my things to go out and venture deep into the unknown. Welcome to STALKER Call of Pripyat, one of the most underrated shooters today. This third installment of the STALKER series is technically the best and the most stable of the bunch. In Call of Pripyat, you take the role of a military undercover sent into the Zone to investigate the crash sites of five downed military helicopters. This is just the beginning. There is more to the plot and the game than meets the eye.

My objective today is to investigate those helicopter crash sites. But before I go, I hang around the "bar" and had a chit chat with the guys there, in case any of them have anything they want me to do. One of them, Snag, told me about his loot he hid in an old car, which fell underground when an earthquake hit. It's very hard to reach, and plus there are snorks there (if you haven't played STALKER, you'll see what snorks are later on). Snag then told me that if I can bring it back to him, we could split the loot.

Then I got a tip from another guy, Savva, on the tools needed to upgrade my equipment. The tools are located in a workshop to the south of the map. Great! Two tips in one day! Nah see? I'm lucky I'm not an anti-social.. I mean, in this game. In most video games I just keep to myself. How about in real-life, you ask? Well, just because someone plays video games and writes about them, doesn't mean they're an anti-social. People always think that video gamers are anti-socials, that's very stereotypical. Cut the prejudice, people. But anyway, that's off-topic.

Where were we again? Oh right. Tools and loot. So I went out early to look for those. I haven't walk that far from Skadovsk (that ship with that bar) and before I know it, some of these weird mutants spring out of nowhere in their attempt to plant their teeth into my face. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you, Snorks! I managed to kill two of them. The third one ran off. Snorks are guerrilla-styled attackers. They usually work in packs, so watch out.

I arrived at the workshop but apparently, some mercenaries have made the workshop home. The tools are somewhere inside but they won't let me enter unless I give them some food, so I did. Pfft, I have a lot more food stored back in my place in Skadovsk. A little charity won't hurt. So anyway, they gave me the permission to go in, so I went and found the tools. The only slightly bad thing is that from now on, they would allow me to roam around that area freely. Sure, this is an advantage because I only had to pay them once for permission, but then again it's unrealistic.

Later on, I stumble upon Mikhas Loudmouth. I had a few encounters with him earlier, and we even fast-traveled together to a place called Scar Anamoly, where I met his fellow bandits. They were nice, too. Now, before I go any further, let me explain: encounters that you find interesting and rare in other games are normal occurrences in STALKER Call of Pripyat. Actually, during most of my travel around the Zone, I've had a lot of encounters but I didn't mention them. Some of them are pretty normal, while others are strange and exciting. If they were in other games, you'd think they're cool. But since they're in STALKER, they're just something ordinary.

But this encounter with Mikhas is rather interesting, even in STALKER's standard, so I think it's worth mentioning. So anyway, I was just about to have a chat with Mikhas when I heard a gunshot nearby. So I cut our conversation out, headed toward the gunshot to find a mercenary shooing off some mutated with his AK 47. Then suddenly, he pointed his gun to where I was coming from. Wait a minute, I thought. I already holstered my weapon, why are you pointing your gun at me? He opened fire anyway.

For a second, I thought he was shooting at me, but he wasn't. The merc was actually shooting something else behind me. It was probably a mutant, maybe a snork sneaking from behind. If that was the case, the merc probably saved me. Or maybe he was shooting at a bandit, because mercenaries are enemies with bandits. They open fire on sight of each other. Wait, wait a min-

Then I heard a groan coming from behind me...

I rushed to check, fearing the worst. Sure enough, Mikhas, the bandit that I have bond a little friendship with was on the ground, bleeding to death. Crap! No, it's not too late. I've got some medkits. With one-second videogame-miracle, he would be back on his feet in no time. So I approached him and sure enough, he begged for me to fix him, which I'd gladly do.

But I was a second too late.

Out of nowhere, came a bloodsucker, and like a dick it was, it finished off Mikhas right in front of my eyes! I didn't have the time to take enough screenshots of what happened prior to this point. It was too chaotic and dramatic, but you can see the bloodsucker's feet in the well-timed screenshot above just about half a second after it took Mikhas' life. The commotion earlier had probably attracted the grade-A a-hole. Then it disappeared. A few seconds later, I heard gunshots and somebody else screamed. Then, silence. I rushed to the spot to find that the mercenary who shot Mikhas was dead.

I was pretty angry at the mercenary, but now I'm furious at the bloodsucker. Sure, it was the merc who injured Mikhas, but it was the bloodsucker that killed him. Yeah, sure it killed the merc too, but it did so not because it wanted to justify what the merc did. The freaking bloodsucker killed the merc because it loves being a dick.

The bloodsucker, a dick he was, circled around me. Furious, I fired some blind shots and chased the asshole all over the place, swearing revenge for my dear videogame-friend Mikhas. I was thinking about using my sawed-off shotgun for revenge, but instead I searched Mikhas' body, found his shotgun, and used that to kill the bloodsucker instead. Now Mikhas can rest in peace. Justice!!!

Ah, it seems that circumstance isn't on my side. An emission is about to occur, cutting my celebration short. Emissions are a very deadly phenomenon in the already dangerous world of STALKER Call of Pripyat. To put it short, emissions are like sudden earthquake. The ground will shake, the sky will turn blood red, and if you're out in the open, the blowout will kill you instantly.

Fortunately, I'm very close to a shelter. A crack on the ground leads me deep into an underground cave, which may shelter me from the emission, but the cave is another danger itself. It's very anomalous, and there are mutants down there as well. So, I have to be very careful or else I'm going to get blown up or shredded to pieces down there myself.

But hey, look what we have here. Luckily I landed straight on top of the wreckage of the car that Snag told me about. There's a big chest inside. I got overloaded as soon as I pick it up, so now I'm unable to run. Not good. I'm trapped inside an anomalous underground cave that's infested by nasty mutants, I need to be quick on my feet. As soon as the emission was over, I chugged a bottle of Hercules, a 'potion' (okay, drug) that temporarily increases my strength and carry weight. I blasted my way out of the cave and ran straight to base before the Hercules effect ran out.

I made it to Skadovsk just in time. There are two things I can do with the chest: give it to Cardan so that he can crack it open for me for a price, or divide it with Snag. I divided the loot with Snag instead. I let him keep some of his most memorable stuff, and took the rest, which I sold. That's the beauty of  STALKER. Eventhough it's not a straight RPG, it still offers you multiple decisions. In this case, the available decisions are opening the cash and lose 500 bucks, or taking the cash to its owner and fairly distribute the stash (hint: the latter decision is more profitable). Later, I gave Cardan the tools that he needs to upgrade my equipment.

That's just another day in the Zaton. There are two other equally interesting locations: Jupiter and Pripyat. STALKER Call of Pripyat is a big game, but unlike most big games, it makes good use of its huge wide world by filling it with many interesting creatures, phenomenons, missions and people. A perfect game to play on a gloomy and rainy Sunday evening.