Quest-givers exist only to recite the required text to give you an idea of where to go, but they and their stories add some color to the gritty, gray world of the Zone. Storytelling hasn't been the series' strong suit in comparison to the bleak, sparsely populated and grim atmosphere. Unfortunately, all the choppers go down and you, as a former stalker, are assigned the ugly task of finding out what happened, eventually leading to what is left of the former Soviet city of Pripyat.

Taking place in 2012 after the events of Shadow of Chernobyl, Call of Pripyat starts with the military sending in several choppers to the previously inaccessible heart of the Zone. If it weren't for the mutants that also cropped up along with the anomalies, there might have been more brave souls who were willing to risk being gunned down by the military or microwaved by the occasional radioactive emission.

The military had also tried to cordon off the vast Zone, but more of these opportunistic treasure hunters - now called stalkers - found ways back in to continue their black market gold rush. Then there were the physics-defying artifacts that also appeared, irradiated lottery tickets that made survivors rich as czars. In the following years, the curious entered the Zone and discovered strangeness, such as invisible anomalies that exist as reality-ripping holes that can burn, crush or melt the atoms of the careless. In this sci-fi take on reality, there was a second event in 2006 that caused all sorts of havoc. The action still takes place within the Zone, the exclusion area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP). With the third game, Call of Pripyat, GSC may have found a middle ground that still has that irradiated touch while easing in new players from outside of its fan base. To anyone who tried upgrading from a starting pistol in the first game, Shadows of Chernobyl or survived the opening area of the prequel, Clear Sky, you know what I'm talking about. Its challenges have swung between satisfying hardcore survivalists and trying to entice newcomers to its world. series is something of a work in progress.

Can i run stalker call of pripyat