Roadside Picnic is the Best Game

Art Courtesy of Lukpazera

          Roadside Picnic is about a lot of things. A setting so well developed that the jumble of unexplained jargon that pours out of it washes over you without question. Bug traps, grinders, empties, shriekers, spacells, lobster eyes, and rattling napkins. Zones or Hotspots left by extra-dimensional visitors speckle the earth and each develops in its own way. In Harmont, Canada a bustling town rings the Zone. Crowding the borders rife with brothels and smugglers - fat off the profits of super powered batteries, perpetual motion machines, and the promises of greater treasure still. 

          But there is a reason the Zone doesn't get a plushy name. It is a death trap.It features such delights as hellslime in the basement ready to rip out your bones, strange beasts risen from the grave, and phenomenon that move with minds of their own. For instance, Graviconcentrates (or Bug Traps for the layman) are pockets of extreme gravity that will crush a man beyond recognition. The path is felt rather than seen and is never the straightest route. In a town this over-ripe nobody can defend all the Zone's borders and hundreds of wide eyed treasure hunters take one way trips to a gruesome end. Those who return come to be known as Stalkers. 
Roadside Picnic is Sci-Fi novel from 1971.

Books are for Nerds

          Books aren't video games, you got me there. It was written by the Strugatsky brothers and was wrapped up in 1970s Soviet Russian paranoia and censorship. But there was a kernel of authenticity that went on to be uncensored and released over 38 editions and 20 countries over the years. Most importantly, words inspire. Roadside Picnic inspired Andrei Tarkovsky to direct a film version called Stalker in 1979. A slow intellectual movie that nonetheless has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Movies aren't video games, you got me again. In 2000 GSC Gameworld got this simple setting stuck in their minds and in 2007 managed to share their vision with the world. A game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 

This is a scene of things going well

Finally a Video Game

          S.T.A.L.K.E.R. featured many similar elements from the book and film. Rare anomalies in dangerous places with awesome powers, creatures in the dark, dim dark despair all grace the game. Mixed in are NPC factions, psychic abominations, and survival elements. It is Silent Hill meets Fallout meets . Running the Zone on the backend is an AI. ALife, developed by GSC Gameworld, supports over 1000 autonomous agents in the zone. Allowing each playthrough to face new troubles of roving creatures chasing after prey, of faction members sending you after members that got lost on their own procedural generated quests. The AI is so good that you can expect enemies to use non solid grass as cover, flanking maneuvers, set ambushes, and shoot you dead more often than you'd like.

          Its a world where killing a bandit might enrage one faction and engender good will in another. Its a world of risk and reward where, unlike other survival games *cough*No Mans Sky*cough*, you're not constantly worried about your hunger meter running out. Its a slow burn where you pick and choose your battles. If you die in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. its not because the game slowly drained you but because you picked the wrong place to be in, touched a rip in space time, or didn't run fast enough from a demon dog. It is gruesome, it is dismal, it is rewarding, and it is terrifying. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has garnered a cult following for 11 years that continues to espouse idolatry about the glorious Zone and all its horrors. Call it religion, fanaticism, or pseudoscience - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. contains and deserves all three. Probably merged into some hideous monster

But What is It?

         S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an FPS survival horror game. It has an engaging story and a unique experience I've yet to see replicated anywhere besides the original, its prequel, Clear Sky, or its sequel, Call of Pripyat. Roadside Picnic considers to spread its influence to this day. Developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. went on to create the Metro series. Like anomalies from the Zone its twisting influences can be found in The Long Dark, Rust, Sir You Are Being Hunted, and in the SCP archives. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been teased before without results but is now set for a 2021 release.