feather240 said:
So I hear STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is pretty scary...
Can someone elaborate?
You've just entered a small, abandoned village, single-story homes boarded up against some unknown threat. The crack of thunder rings through empty window frames, and lightning casts crazed shadows across the dead grass. You've been sent here to cleanse the area of creatures called "bloodsuckers"- vicious, cannibalistic mutants- but gazing down the sights of your trusty SPAS-12 combat shotgun reveals nothing apparently living. The skies open up as you advance, pouring rain down on you as you gingerly step around one of the hanging anomalies clinging to a power pole, another crack of thunder almost deafening you... what was that sound? It almost resembled the panting of some beast. Must have been your imagination.
Cursing the downpour, and your own stupidity for coming here at sundown, you approach a small silo near the far end of the village. Two bodies lie in front of a doorway, not far from a toppled thresher. Wait... one of the bodies is moving! A weak cry for help comes out. Moving as cautiously as you can, you check the thresher, then spin around to watch the perimeter... still nothing. Yet as you approach the wounded Stalker, you can't shake the feeling you're being watched....
A snarl behind you as you bend down to help the wounded man. You whirl, shotgun to your shoulder. A blur, two points of light, burning into your soul like twin pinholes into Hell. Claws rake your arm, tearing fabric and flesh, throwing off your aim; your shotgun roars, pellets spewed into the air. Desperately you rush past the faint outline of something inhuman, just dodging another swing aimed at your head. You spin, jack a fresh round into the chamber, and fire. Blood spurts, and a dark shape materializes for a moment, hardly breaking stride as it rushes you. Too slow you backpedal, and wicked claws tear at your armor vest, cutting through Kevlar like tissue. Another shell chambered, another blast to the chest of this horror- and finally it goes down, snarling and flailing, the fire in its eyes dying like the last light of dusk.
Breath unsteady, hands shaking, you struggle to load fresh shells into your shotgun. Then a snarl, and the boards barricading the doorway of the abandoned house you're leaning against burst through, shattered by some invisible force....
And that's only about 15% of the way into the game. I don't even want to remember those underground labs.
