Why have I been so critical of Stalker?

I have been extremely critical of the development of Stalker in the last couple of years. Now that the game is scheduled for release I must say that I am looking forward to playing it, but feel that the developer may have made a few mistakes along the way. The reason why I have been critical of its development is due to the fact that I have been following its development for close to four or even five years. I had even, at times, been extremely excited by the prospect of Stalker's release. It was one of those games which appeared to make an attempt to break the shooter mold somewhat. It was promised to be a large open world or sandbox game in which the player could possibly not even win. There was the prospect of attempting to complete the game only to find that another AI controlled Stalker had beaten you to the task. This concept would have to be considered somewhat unique to gaming. However, it was not meant to be. The publisher of the game have managed to sink their fingers in to the game and have assisted in making the game a more traditional shooter.

Stalker was originally billed as a survival shooter. That is the game developer placed you in the world of Stalker and you had to survive. More importantly, you had to learn how to survive in this unique world. It wasn't just a matter of using your existing set of FPS skills to do the job you would have to learn a new skill set in order to live in that world. What other game could offer this type of experience? A mix of FPS, roleplay, hunting and survival all rolled in to one. However, it was deemed not practical. It seemed that this started to happen after the game picked up a publisher. A publisher who was willing to put money in to the project.

As far as I am concerned the developers have been a little too forthcoming with information with regards to the game. They have let the gaming community know too much and then, when they have been unable to deliver, have had to change the concept of the game in order to match the reality of their ability. Or, has it been that the publisher has decided that a unique approach to the gameplay was too risky a proposition to guarantee a substantial return on their investment.

The developer was more than happy to appease the gaming community with many different prerelease videos featuring ingame tidbits. Many of them overlayed actual video footage of Chernobyl and the surrounding areas and then faded nicely in to the ingame reality. The shadows and lighting were definitely cutting edge, at the time. As the snowball of Stalker grew, with the claims from the developer and the gaming community getting behind its release the cracks began to show.

Checking in at the developers Stalker website became a daily pilgrimage. I had a number of gaming websites which I would check out for gaming news regularly and Stalker became one of them. It must be difficult for developers to maintain a website for a game in development. Giving the gaming public enough information to whet their appetite while not giving away too much in the way of ideas which haven't fully been implemented. Here was possibly one of their mistakes. They gave the gaming public too much information. Release dates and game details were thrown about carelessly. It was like giving candy to children. The more information we received the more we wanted. They also ran a story competition which was tainted in some way (I didn't get all of the details on it) and had to be changed or scrapped. The promise was that the stories would be incorporated in to the game. Then all of a sudden the information flow died. Time went on and people were beginning to believe that Stalker was in trouble. One of the official statements from the developer was that the engine was starting to show the signs of aging and had to be redeveloped for newer hardware. Considering the quality of the ingame videos which were being released this statement was difficult to believe. Then at the beginning of last year was the large scale sacking of a lot of staff involved in the game. This for many people signified the death of the game itself. The official story was that there was some required culling based on where the game was at and these staff were no longer needed. However, others looked more deeply between the lines and believed that Stalker was the next Duke Nukem Forever.

What is the use of making mistakes if you don't learn from them? I hope that the developers have learned a lot from what they have gone through making Stalker. Obviously the information which you release to the public can create the life and death of a game. People are more than happy to take a little bit of information and make it real. Make it their own. For me, I am happy to admit, that Stalker was shaping up to be a game which was prepared to break the gaming mold. Unfortunately, it seems that the game has not ended up that way. In some way we get attached to these ideas and they shape the basis of the game in our minds.

I hope that Stalker is an excellent shooter. I will be buying the limited edition version and throwing my hard earned dollars back at the developer. This game will definitely be getting a Cynical Gamer review, as to what form it takes, we'll just have to wait until the game comes out to find out.