GSC Game World continues to plug away at its S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, this week announcing the third installment, Call of Pripyat.
Slated for release in the fall, Call of Pripyat will pick up shortly after the closing events of Shadow of Chernobyl with the government launching a military operation to take control of the CNPP. The mission fails, of course, and the Ukraine Security Service sends an agent into the Zone center to investigate the situation and figure out what went wrong — that’s where you come in.
Along with the new story, Call of Pripyat will benefit from an expanded side quest system, deadly new monsters, an improved interface, an in-game sleep function, and something called the A-Life system which was created from the “best-liked” features from the first two games. But perhaps the feature I’m most pleased by is how you will be able to continue your adventure in the Zone even after you’ve completed the story. This is something that really hurt Fallout 3 for me. Once the story ended you either had to start over or load up your save data from before the final mission. It seems like a minor detail, but it makes a huge difference in a game like this.
More than anything, though, I want to see GSC finally launch a game that’s stable from the get go, not riddled with bugs and performance issues like both previous S.T.A.L.K.E.R.‘s. I’ve had a copy of Clear Sky sitting by my PC since last year that I simply gave up on because of crippling performance flaws, and it’s been killing me because I loved the original game so much. But now that Call of Pripyat is coming I’ll definitely take another stab at it and see if it’s been patched up enough yet to be somewhat playable for me.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat announced [S.T.A.L.K.E.R. official web site]
Matt Litten is the full-time editor and owner of VGBlogger.com. He is responsible for maintaining the day to day operation of the site, editing all staff content before it is published, and contributing regular news, reviews, previews and other articles.
Matt landed his first gig in the video game review business writing for the now-defunct website BonusStage.com. After the sad and untimely close of BonusStage, the former staff went on to found VGBlogger.com. After a short stint as US Site Manager for AceGamez, Matt assumed full ownership over VGBlogger, and to this day he is dedicated to making it one of the top video game blogs in all the blogosphere.
Matt is a fair-minded reviewer and lover of games of all platforms and types, big or small, hyped or niche, big-budget or indie. But that doesn't mean he will let poor games slide without a good thrashing when necessary! 
