Brave new S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: - GUNSLINGER Mod

For fans of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.modification "GUNSLINGER" needs no introduction. They've been waiting for its release for about 10 years, keeping an eye on every published innovation of the upcoming masterpiece. For fans of the series, I won't say anything new about the GUNSLINGER Mod, they've probably passed it, and more than once. But for the gamer who knows S.T.A.L.K.E.R. only by hearsay, I have a lot to tell... Take a seat. We begin...

A little backstory...

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat" was released back in 2009 and received quite flattering reviews from critics and even more flattering reviews from players. "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat" for many became their first "stalker," despite the fact that this is the second addon to the original "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat became a great work on the mistakes of the original and the first addon. But first things first.

At the release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl "simply had no rivals in the niche of post-apocalyptic games. It was the warm spring of 2007. The closest competitor in the setting, - Fallout 3, will be released only a year and a half, and that will not be the game, which is dreamed after the masterpiece Fallout 2. "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" suffered the same fate. Many of the promises of the developers in the game were not implemented due to technical limitations of the time. But that did not prevent the game from gaining a cult status. At that time, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl stunned the players with its graphics and, most importantly, its originality. Same Crysis, though ahead of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl on the visual plane, but remained a simple linear shooter without any zest. In 2007 there were very few quality open-world games. Here comes the long-awaited game with many kilometers of the game space. And the expanses are not fictional, but created on the image and likeness of the real Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Of course, it was a hit.

On August 22, 2008, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, the first addon to the original, was released. "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky" received mixed reviews from critics, and the gaming community was divided between those who loved "Clear Sky" with all their hearts and those who hated it with all their hearts.

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky" deviated from the original world exploration concept, but the story was more dynamic and the combat system was noticeably better. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky the weapons had a tangible impact from hits and recoil; the weight of each type of weapon was now felt in the hands of the protagonist, before the weight was just a number in the inventory, and on the feelings of the shooting particularly did not affect. Exceptions were very heavy guns a.k.a. SVD, Gauss Cannon or grenade launcher.

But "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." was loved not for its shooting, but for its exceptional, unique atmosphere. Even back then, discs (discs, Carl!) with Battlefield: Bad Company and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare were being sold on store shelves - both games had shooting in excess of all of their competitors at the time.

However, the other half of the community, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky was very much to their liking. One of the greatest values in the game were and remain artifacts - organic formations with anomalous effects. Artifacts in "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" were just lying on the ground, while in "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky" you need detectors to find them. Search for an artifact with a detector in hand was an extremely successful mechanics, which not only made the game more difficult, but also motivated the players to risk climbing into placers of anomalies. Lucky, managed - the artifact is yours, unlucky - well, bad luck, load the last save.

In addition to improved weapons and detectors, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky" could boast a bit of cinematography, new locations and the opportunity to join one of the factions, in "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" our protagonist to the end of the game and remained a loner.

To this day there is an ongoing debate that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is the worst part of the series.

Nearly 15 years after its release, nothing has changed. "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is still a passing game, a must-read only for fans...

Why you should play GUNSLINGER Mod

GUNSLINGER is based on S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat without affecting the root gameplay. No new plots, factions or author's sabotage - only a refreshed original.

"The Call of Pripyat" - perhaps the best part for newcomers: there is no technical snarl "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl," and your protagonist no one is driven into the neck of the story, as it was in "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. In addition, only since "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat" all the tasks told their own unique stories, not just the tasks of the main storyline. But to read about it in 2022 is a retrospective, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat" has long been technically outdated, that's what GUNSLINGER Mod fixes.

In short, GUNSLINGER Mod is a remastered original "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat", but it is made with such a love for detail that a brief talk and will not get ...

The first and most significant change is the redesigned shooting system and a new arsenal. If in the original "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat" weapon enhancement was limited to a dry performance increase, and of the available modules were only 4x scope, silencer and underbarrel grenade launcher, then in the GUNSLINGER Mod each new dodger on the weapon not only affects the effectiveness in combat, but also changes the appearance of weapons. In addition to the above-mentioned modules we added collimator sights, laser designators, tactical grips, forends and even bayonet knives. Weapon upgrades in GUNSLINGER Mod are not inferior to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019, although the difference in the releases of both games is 9 years.

But it wouldn't be so pleasant to use a gun with all the trimmings, if the feeling of shooting hadn't undergone a number of changes. Almost everything has been redesigned. From impaction to reloading animations, the GUNSLINGER Mod has brought the original "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat" to a competitive level with AAA projects from 2019-2022. Every gun, every assault rifle, and every shotgun, every weapon behaves uniquely: whether it's the ticklish recoil of a shoulder-fired 9mm submachine gun when the trigger is cocked; the sharp and stunning recoil of a sniper rifle; or the strong but inertial pulse of a pump-action shotgun. Plus, casings and empty magazines also had weight, in the original empty casings were falling out of the removal mechanism only as a spritely, two-dimensional GIF.

Reworked also the way the weapon jams. When the weapon was jammed in the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R., a notice a la "The weapon is jammed. Reload", you had to reload the weapon, but the animation never changed. GUNSLINGER Mod fixed this. Now each individual weapon has its own misfires, and by eliminating them, the player could sometimes see in the cartridge case ejection mechanism the very cartridge that was not in the chamber.

All weapons now sound different, completely reworked all the sound assets, removed the ear-crushing looped sounds. Weapon reloading is the second point where GUNSLINGER Mod is at least on par with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019: reloading is smooth, spectacular and, importantly, does not look like a slideshow.

Next in importance in the GUNSLINGER Mod are the animations. Almost everything is animated: treatment, taking food, medicine, tourniquet application, drinking. Everything is just like in life: visual, takes time and does not act immediately. No more offscreen medicine cabinet techniques, where your character, obeying game convention, recovers right before your eyes. Your character gets hurt - take out a first aid kit and inject himself with painkillers.

The same goes for drinking drinks and medicines in liquid form: the character pulls out a container from his or her sinus, tipping the contents into himself or herself, and if the liquid runs out, our protagonist imposingly throws the container on the floor. The container, by the way, is left lying on the floor. Yes, it's a pig, but what realism!

Also the developers changed the animation of the interaction with some mutants. For example: if in the original version our protagonist was attacked by a boar, our character was only losing his health, but in the GUNSLinger Mod the character puts his hands in front of himself to soften the blow. Of course, this is a tribute to realism. Any person would have done exactly the same, the instinct of self-preservation has not been canceled.

But the most interesting rework was the mutant Controller, a psionic monster. The Controller sneaks into the stalkers' heads via telekinesis and drives them insane, either turning them into obedient zombies or even making an omelet out of their brains. In the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. when approaching the Controller our character becomes disturbed: the screen color filter changes, the protagonist moves from side to side, and all this is accompanied by mystical howling in the ears. As soon as the Controller made direct eye contact with the protagonist, the player lost control over the character for a moment, the camera approached the monster, the monster stretched his hand to us and the monster dealt a mental blow to the protagonist. In GUNSLINGER Mod, the Controller is completely different...

In GUNSLINGER Mod you will know right away that this creature is around. The protagonist's hands will begin to shake, then they will no longer obey, but they will obey the mutant.

With trembling hands your character will pull the muzzle of the gun to his head and with a naughty finger pull the trigger... Yes, in GUNSLINGER Mod the Controller can make you cosplay Kurt Cobain.

P.S. No offense to Nirvana fans, I love Kurt too, but I like black humor more ha ha ha.

To summarize...

GUNSLINGER Mod is the mod from which I strongly recommend getting acquainted with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. In the Stalker modding too much trash modifications, some modifications are good, but only for the amateur (Hello, NLC 7, I hate you, burn in hell), but here to improve the original without otsebytina graphomaniacs, without losing while in the quality - with this coped only GUNSLINGER Mod. Have not played S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but wanted to try - this mod for you.

In addition GUNSLINGER Mod - not just a modification, a platform for modifications. So the improvement of the original game alone is clearly not limited to it.

But GUNSLINGER Mod has disadvantages: the mod is implemented in 3D-targets, which are not too friendly with the optimization. The parameters related to the background lens in the menu are responsible for this bug. You will be surprised, that GTX 2080 produces 30 frames in aiming fire mode. How did this happen?

The problem is that the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat runs in single-threaded mode and does not realize the full potential of modern processors. When the protagonist in GUNSLINGER Mod takes aim with the rifle scope, the game does not render one picture, but two, as if you run two games at once. Not too happy. Fortunately GUNSLINGER Mod develops to this day, the developers add content, fix bugs.

And in general, how can you blame the mod, which played themselves GSC Game Worlds and flattering about it...?