Despite the fact that this land sounds entirely inhospitable, it draws fortune seekers in search of curios called artifacts that tend to spawn right in the middle of the anomalous traps. Frightening and powerful creatures dwell in isolated underground testing labs and caverns, the landscape is full of dangerous traps that spout fire from the ground and trigger damaging windstorms, and every once in a while an emission blasts across the land wiping out anything silly enough to neglect shelter. The game is set in the Zone, a tract of land surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in which all life has been corrupted and twisted into hideous and deadly forms. To get the timeline all straightened out, Call of Pripyat is the second title to follow Shadow of Chernobyl and takes place after the events of the first. It also, thankfully, isn't nearly as buggy. It's not quite the revelatory experience Shadow of Chernobyl was, but it hits all the right notes for fans of the original and anyone else who values mood in their games and finds entertainment in being scared out of their socks. While the follow-up prequel, Clear Sky, was a bit of a disappointment in how it trimmed out a bunch of elements that helped Stalker stand out, Call of Pripyat ditches a lot of the changes made and returns to the series' roots. Sure, it was rough around the edges, but no other game out there offered such an intoxicating mix of horror and bleak beauty like Stalker and the irradiated wastes of its setting. That the original Shadow of Chernobyl was actually completed and released to the public at all after a seemingly endless string of delays was a bit of a surprise. As a franchise, GSC Game World's Stalker has come a long way.

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