S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Review - Bring protective pants, otherwise Chernobyl fallout

It seems apt that the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. saga should feature its own anomaly, one that lies outside the series' fiction. The surreal glitches in reality that litter the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, squashing or contorting or combusting anything unlucky enough to stray into their grip, have remained an ever-present force across the franchise. The first game, Shadow of Chernobyl, conjured up a shaky yet captivating picture of a bleak nuclear winter. Its successor, Clear Sky, fell somewhat short of the mark, throwing more into the mix and ultimately emerging as a bloated, bug-ridden shadow of what came before.

There was always a risk that developers GSC Game World would fail to reign in their big ideas, allowing this third instalment to drift further into the realms of shoddy execution. But as it turns out, Clear Sky was the series' own irradiated anomaly. Call of Pripyat is an astonishing return to form for the Ukrainian team, a game that not only matches Shadow of Chernobyl's relentlessly dangerous atmosphere, but in many ways betters it.

This is a more streamlined, more refined, yet more ambitious Stalker (which is easier to type than its inexplicably punctuated moniker). The factional warfare of Clear Sky is all but gone, save for a sub-plot mid-way through that has little bearing on the rest of the story. Also gone is the set of PDA markers that allowed you to mysteriously track the location of various groups, as well as mutants, around the game world. The interface has undergone a complete overhaul, removing much of the faff and focusing more attention on the essentials. In other words, it's a tighter game. But it's also a bigger one. Each of the Zone's newly constructed areas - all modelled closely on their real-life counterparts in Ukraine - stretches miles across, dwarfing any of the disappointingly constricted regions of the series' earlier offerings.

Wandering the expanse is uncomfortable and lonely. Call of Pripyat lacks the intense bouts of sheer terror instilled by Shadow of Chernobyl, but that's not to say its atmosphere is any less impressive. The tone has completely changed to deliver the most tremendous sense of isolation. This is a game, for example, that has no problem with dropping you into its wide open wilderness, alone, with nothing more than an order to investigate a series of helicopter crashes. Your first trek across the uneven land of Zaton is a twitchy, confused one. Crossing the threshold of a hill and gazing out at the enormous valley below you - murky waters running throughout, shipwrecked icebreakers dotting the scene - is as memorable as the first moments of a videogame come.

It's a magnificent introduction to this new world, eschewing the relative linearity of traditional Stalker openings. From the very start, you're free to explore the area at will, with two more equally enormous regions unlocking at later points in the game. Zaton is your first stop en route to uncovering the secret behind the wrecked choppers. This time, you're a government agent, deep undercover, desperately trying to adapt and blend into this alien landscape. The icebreakers, rusty and dilapidated, are home to various bands of stalkers, your new friends, camped out in their downtime from hunting mutants and collecting rare, valuable artifacts from the anomalous areas of the Zone.

It remains such a fascinating place. Zaton's unusual landscape is covered with the most astonishing landmarks: a twisted, contorted tree, or giant, muddy scores in the ground. The area surrounding the Jupiter plant runs down an abandoned railway line, radioactive trains glowing with anomalies in the dead of night. Pripyat itself stretches into the haze, desolate Soviet housing blocks infested with rabid dogs and mutated rats. When it rains, the sky darkens alarmingly, claps of thunder echoing through the valleys, the reflections of fork lightening glistening on the sodden ground. When the sun shines, its rays illuminate the stark contrast of the Zone's decayed beauty.

Stalker's A-Life system, which populates the world with convincing AI behaviour, has been brought right to the fore. This land may be largely barren, but any considerable trek across it leads to all manner of sights. Mutants travel in packs, scrapping between themselves, or hunting a dog before dragging its corpse off somewhere quieter to feast on its flesh. Come across a group of stalkers, ask them what they're doing, and they'll tell you they're scouting the local fauna. Tag along and they'll do just that, tracking down the many deformed beasts of the Zone, rounding them up and readying their rifles. The sound of distant gunfire is an ominous, omnipresent reminder of the constant hazards surrounding you. For the first time, the Zone feels truly alive - a place that, for all its deviations from reality, could totally exist for real, cordoned off in the no-man's land surrounding Chernobyl.