History VideoGame / STALKER

** [[RasputinianDeath Some mutants also can soak up a lot of damage before finally going down for good]]. The Pseudogiant, for example, while it was only fairly durable in ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', takes ''ungodly'' amounts of punishment to take down in ''Clear Sky'' and ''Call of Pripyat'', and can take ''two'' shots from an RPG-7 in the face, [[OhCrap while at the same time whittling away your health faster than the blink of an eye]]. If you don't have an RPG-7 or Gauss Rifle with you, you better hope you have enough ammo and medkits if you're going to kill this thing, otherwise you'll have to run away, hopefully avoiding its stomp attack which has a damaging area of effect and which can briefly stun you.

* NonStandardGameOver: In ''Call of Pripyat'', [[spoiler: when Beard asks you to retrieve a strange glowing artifact in a wrecked ship west of Skadovsk, after retrieving said artifact from the ship, as you try to leave, a Stalker named Tuna stops you and asks for that artifact you have, [[BlatantLies claiming a friend of his is dying]]. If you refuse to hand it him, either by telling him that you indeed have it but keep it for yourself, or lie to him that you don't know what that artifact is (highly recommended that you ''don't'' take that option), his two buddies will stop you at gunpoint and warn you to not make any sudden moves. You have about five seconds of free movement to attempt an escape. If you just stand still and let Tuna walk to you, Tuna angrily demands that you hand over that special artifact. If you still refuse to hand it over, you get a bad cutscene where Tuna stuns you with his rifle butt and tells his buddies to shoot you dead. If you do this, there's no way to control your character as it is a scripted event. The only way to avoid this is by either handing over the artifact to Tuna or shoot him and his buddies down when you refuse the first time. The latter is better because an important achievement is unlocked after doing this quest, which also contributes to one of the game's many endings.]]

* NonStandardGameOver: In ''Call of Pripyat'', [[spoiler: when Beard asks you to retrieve a strange glowing artifact in a wrecked ship west of Skadovsk, after retrieving said artifact from the ship, as you try to leave, a Stalker named Tuna stops you and asks for that artifact you have, [[BlatantLies claiming a friend of his is dying]]. If you refuse to hand it him, his two buddies will stop you at gunpoint and warn you to not make any sudden moves. Tuna demands that you hand over that special artifact. If you still refuse to hand it over, you get a bad cutscene where Tuna stuns you with his rifle butt and tells his buddies to shoot you dead. If you do this, there's no way to control your character as it is a scripted event. The only way to avoid this is by either handing over the artifact to Tuna or shoot him and his buddies down when you refuse the first time. The latter is better because an important achievement is unlocked after doing this quest, which also contributes to one of the game's many endings.]]

* NonStandardGameOver: In ''Call of Pripyat'', [[spoiler: when Beard asks you to retrieve a strange glowing artifact in a wrecked ship west of Skadovsk, after retrieving said artifact from the ship, as you try to leave, a Stalker named Tuna stops you and asks for that artifact you have, [[BlatantLies claiming a friend of his is dying]]. If you refuse to hand it him, his two buddies will stop you at gunpoint and warn you to not make any sudden moves. Tuna demands that you hand over that special artifact. If you still refuse to hand it over, you get a bad cutscene where Tuna stuns you with his rifle butt and tells his buddies to shoot you dead. If you do this, there's no way to control your character as it is a scripted event. The only ways to avoid this is by either handing over the artifact to Tuna or shoot him and his buddies down when you refuse the first time. The latter is better because an important achievement is unlocked after doing this quest, which also contributes to one of the game's many endings.]]

** [[RasputinianDeath Some mutants also can soak up a lot of damage before finally going down for good]]. The Pseudogiant, for example, while it was only fairly durable in ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', takes ''ungodly'' amounts of punishment to take down in ''Clear Sky'' and ''Call of Pripyat'', and can take ''two'' shots from an RPG-7 in the face, [[OhCrap while at the same time whittling away your health faster than the blink of an eye]]. If you don't have an RPG-7 or Gauss Rifle with you, you better hope you have enough ammo and medkits if you're going to kill this thing, otherwise you'll have to run away, hopefully avoiding its stomp attack which has a damaging area of effect.

** [[RasputinianDeath Some mutants also can soak up a lot of damage before finally going down for good]]. The Pseudogiant, for example, while it was only fairly durable in Shadow of Chernobyl, takes ''ungodly'' amounts of punishment to take down in ''Clear Sky'' and ''Call of Pripyat'', and can take ''two'' shots from an RPG-7 in the face, [[OhCrap while at the same time whittling away your health faster than the blink of an eye]]. If you don't have an RPG-7 or Gauss Rifle with you, you better hope you have enough ammo and medkits if you're going to kill this thing, otherwise you'll have to run away, hopefully avoiding its stomp attack which has a damaging area of effect.

** [[RasputinianDeath Some mutants also can soak up a lot of damage before finally going down for good]]. The Pseudogiant, for example, while it was only fairly durable in Shadow of Chernobyl, takes ''ungodly'' amounts of punishment to take down in ''Clear Sky'' and ''Call of Pripyat'', and can take ''two'' shots from an RPG-7 in the face, [[OhCrap while at the same time whittling away your health faster than the blink of an eye]]. If you don't have an RPG-7 or Gauss Rifle with you, you better hope you have enough ammo and medkits to kill this thing, otherwise you'll have to run away, hopefully avoiding its stomp attack which has a damaging area of effect.

** [[RasputinianDeath Some mutants also can soak up a lot of damage before finally going down for good]]. The Pseudogiant, for example, while it was only fairly durable in Shadow of Chernobyl, takes ''ungodly'' amounts of punishment to take down in ''Clear Sky'' and ''Call of Pripyat'', and can take ''two'' shots from an RPG-7 in the face, [[OhCrap while at the same time whittling away your health faster than the blink of an eye]]. If you don't have a RPG-7 or Gauss Rifle with you, you better hope you have enough ammo and medkits to kill this thing, otherwise you'll have to run away, hopefully avoiding its stomp attack which has a damaging area of effect.

** [[RasputinianDeath Some mutants also can soak up a lot of damage before finally going down for good]]. The Pseudogiant, while it was only fairly durable in Shadow of Chernobyl, takes ''ungodly'' amounts of punishment to take down in ''Clear Sky'' and ''Call of Pripyat'', and can take ''two'' shots from an RPG-7 in the face, [[OhCrap while at the same time whittling away your health faster than the blink of an eye]]. If you don't have a RPG-7 or Gauss Rifle with you, you better hope you have enough ammo and medkits to kill this thing, otherwise you'll have to run away, hopefully avoiding its stomp attack which has a damaging area of effect.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: The main problem of the first game. Other two games have long, but not so annoying loading screens.

* NewAgeRetroHippie: Ganja, Freedom's barman in ''Clear Sky.'' Comes complete with [[{{Reggae}} reggae]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYMVCogRsrA music]][[TheStoner and a fondness for the 'erb.]]

* NewAgeRetroHippie: Ganja, Freedom's barman in ''Clear Sky.'' Comes complete with [[{{Reggae}} reggae]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYMVCogRsrA music]] and [[TheStoner and a fondness for the 'erb.]]

** Special mention has to go to the M.S.U. (Massive Update) mod for ''Call of Pripyat'', which not only adds a whole lot of new features for the game, up to and including, [[GunPorn a plethora of new weapons]], and a major graphical update, but also makes the game even more playable by fixing a truckload of bugs and glitches that plagued the game (especially when it was added with mods which caused the game to be even less playable).

* EliteMooks: The military Spetznaz units. Also, the rarely encountered Military Stalkers, who are sort of the Elite of the Elites. These guys are equipped with extremely good armor, and the Military Stalkers are armed with Russian Special Forces AS Val assault rifles.

** In ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', one of the easiest ways to obtain a semi-decent weapon right off the bat is to raid the military base that's at the far end of the road in Cordon, the newbie area. A dozen-plus soldiers, and if you're good about staying under cover, you might not take any damage at all. Unless the Spetznaz are there, which can happen. If you kill ''them'', though, you should be set on weapons for half the game. Eventually, when you return to Sidorovich halfway through the game, you ''are'' going to have to raid it. You'll make a neat profit off it, even if Sidorovich is rather tightwadded.

* [[WizardNeedsFoodBadly Stalker Needs Food Badly]]: If you don't eat every once in a while, you will start to lose health until you either eat something or die.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Completing Trapper's mutant-hunting quests in ''Call Of Pripyat'' [[MultipleEndings unlocks an ending]] describing how Yanov has become a safer place for Stalkers thanks to your efforts. In-game, however, [[TheFarmerAndTheViper Yanov becomes even more dangerous]] as completing all the hunting missions causes [[DemonicSpiders Chimeras, Burers and Pseudogiants]] to spawn randomly throughout the area. [[SarcasmMode Yay.]]

* MeleeATrois: Every faction, be it military, Duty, Freedom or Mercs want to kill someone else. There ''is'' balance, as the two main rival Stalker factions (Duty and Freedom), tend to occupy only the regions their bases are, only doing some raids on more neutral zones, and the military only patrolling the border, with the occasional raid on a strategically important location. Then there are Mercs and Bandits who attack almost everyone on sight (Except ''Call of Pripyat'' but that [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou won't last long]] ). The zombies are self-explanatory, . The only faction that doesn't have some sort of war going against someone are the Loners, though they are notoriously attacked by bandits and some Merc squads.

** Hell, one arena match, you're required to use this attack if you want to survive (you + knife versus some guy with a F2000, the best CQC assault rifle, and an Exo.)

* TheRemnant: In ''Call of Pripyat'', [[spoiler:The Monolith Cultists become this.]]

* RuinsOfTheModernAge[=/=]AndManGrewProud : ''And how !'' Obviously, the area around the Chernobyl power plant is really TruthInTelevision. And it does have a greatly haunting vibe to it, even without the presence of bizzare mutated monsters and paranormal activity like in the game.

** Loners typically use olive green and black.
** Bandits use black, brown, and (in the novice suits) white.

** Freedom sports colors similar to Loners except they use orange and yellow in their more advanced ranks.

* DemonicSpiders: In-Universe: The PDA explicitly lists blind dogs (and by extension, pseudodogs) as deadly to even the most experienced Stalkers, as they are fast, small (compared to humans), slightly stealthy, and most importantly, '''hunt in packs'''. Then there's the Controllers, which will because of the [[InterfaceScrew interface screw]] that comes with their psychic attack likely kill you if they manage to score a single hit, the Burers, who generally start their assault by telekinetically throwing your gun halfway across the map before pummelling you to death with heavy objects and telekinetic blasts, the Bloodsuckers, who'll turn invisible as soon as they spot you and perform hit and run attacks while circling your position or just tear you to shreds immediately in melee combat. Let's just say [[DeathWorld everything and everyone in the Zone]] is this to some degree.

** They're back in ''Call of Pripyat'', but are generally not a huge threat due to their poor accuracy. They're still tough, but they go down easy enough if you hit them in the head. Oddly, they're smart enough to scavenge better weapons and more ammo off their zombified compatriots, but they're completely incapable of climbing ladders. They're also largely deaf and rather lacking in the eyesight department, to the point where you can get right up behind them simply by ''walking'' even whilst wearing the Exosuits, which are about as stealthy as a clown at a mime convention. Then you can {{Backstab}} them with the knife (or a shotgun) ForMassiveDamage. This is mentioned during Uncle Yar's mission in ''Call of Pripyat'', where Uncle Yar and you are strolling through a village infested with zombies, with Uncle Yar commenting on how peaceful it is ("Peaceful like a village!") as you walk right past a shambling zombie.

*** [[spoiler: However, be aware that recklessly storing your equipment may come back to bite you in the ass. One quest involves having ALL the equipment in one of your storage crates stolen. You can find and get it all back later on, but depending on how much you can carry and how many things you have, you're going to have to make multiple trips at full load.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler:The Duty faction constantly preaches that they're striving to create a world free of the Zone's corruption, but in ''Call of Pripyat'', you're able to find the corpse of their original founder. His PDA reveals that Duty's original purpose was literally no different from that of any other opportunistic Stalker hoping to make their fortune in the Zone.]]

* DrunkenMaster: Cardan, the mechanic at Skavodsk, is only competent when he's completely wasted - in fact, he can only perform high-level weapon modifications after downing at least two bottles of vodka. [[spoiler: Showing him the Gauss Rifle, however, shocks him into sobriety.]]

* InfinityPlusOneSword: The Gauss Rifle, a hilariously powerful experimental semi-automatic rifle that can OneHitKill literally any enemy in the game and can only be obtained from Monolith troopers at the very end of the main story. Balanced out slightly due to ammo being virtually impossible to find and very low rate of fire. Game Mods often gimp it to be only useful against humans and weaker mutants, and it was changed to just that in Call of Pripyat.
** There's only one though, and if you sell it, [[LostForever you are not getting it back]].

** Subverted in ''Call of Pripyat'', while you still do suffer from the ill effects of vodka, it also causes you to slowly starve with each drink you take. See DeathByGluttony above.