S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (series)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement: Most players are unaware of the novel and the film. The rest most likely bought it because of the novel and the film. The rest of us bought the novel and the film because of the game.
    • And even less people know, that the game is also partially based on another short story of the Strugatsky Brothers, The Forgotten Experiment (which features concepts of quasi-natural yet explained origin of the Zone and scientists working in the Zone).
  • Demonic Spiders: The Poltergeists in the Red Forest mine in Clear Sky are a subject of many angry message board rants. They basically toss metal water heaters at you which can kill you in one hit and are essentially undodgable.
    • Not to mention wild dogs. You could be a top-level Stalker outfitted with exoskeleton armor and the finest of guns, but you'd still have to make a frenzied dash past the pack of wild dogs in front of the Duty compound to get in.
      • Alternately you could just shoot one or two. If you kill the pack alpha the rest of them run away.
        • The Poltergeists in STALKER: SOC aren't a bowl of cherries either. Sure, they can't one-hit-kill you, but you can't get rid of most of the stuff they throw, the damned things move FAST, and there are SEVEN OR EIGHT in X18, the first time you'll run into them. Aim for the center of the flying ball of sparks and be ready to heal.
          • It also doesn't help that they can see through walls.
        • Fortunately, The poltergeists were nerfed for Call of Pripyat. Except for one poltergeist towards the end (that has SHOC's poltergeists see through walls abilities), COP poltergeists can only see you if your moving. So all you have to do is stand still, then they will lose sight of you. (Also works for pyrogeists in COP)
          • COP makes up for this by adding psychic dwarves who can telekinetically steal your weapon and then throw it halfway across the map. When they're not throwing gas tanks at you, that is.
            • The burers are easy to deal with when you learn how they react. Use either of the shotguns that can be made "automatic." Hide it and try to get into medium distance of them, which is where shotguns are best deployed. Pull it out and just keep pumping shot into it, after the first few shells it will do its psychic barrier that reduces incoming damage. Just keep plugging away since it will not stop doing the barrier until you stop shooting. With ammunition upgrades and the automatic upgrade, you essentially barrier lock it to death.
              • Just use a knife. They can't pull the knife out the player's hands and the knife inflicts enough damage to kill it in 6-7 stabs. Just don't try it if there's a second burer nearby. Alternatively, use the RPG.
    • Any enemy packing an RPG in Shadow Of Chernobyl. The blast radius is big enough that you will hardly have a chance to dodge, unless you know where they are and start moving the instant they fire. Even if you dodge, you'll still get knocked around by the blast, so good luck seeing clearly enough to return fire. And of course, the RPG is heavy enough and there's little enough ammo that you can't reasonably carry it with you. Your best bet is to quicksave and try to snipe them before they see you.
  • Ear Worm: Several. The vocal bit for Dirge for the Planet is looped endlessly inside Sidorovich's bunker whilst the Bar used to have one of the stalker guitar songs play over and over and once you hear the Bandit Base Polka in Clear Sky it will never. Ever. Stop.
  • Game Breaker: When you do get one the VSS sniper rifle is one of the best guns in the game (very light, silenced, accurate, can kill most enemies in 1-2 shots, and is the only sniper rifle you can sprint with, and ammunition isn't that hard to find, at least compared to SVD and gauss rifle rounds)
  • Goddamned Bats: Blind Dogs and Pseudodogs. Ridiculously hard to get a headshot on, drop near-worthless parts only one trader wants (Sakharov), and TRAVEL IN PACKS. Pack a shotgun and a bunch of medkits, or suffer a death of a thousand cuts.
    • The same goes for the rats.
  • Good Bad Bugs: When Pseudodogs charge towards you and attack, there is a very small chance that the physics engine will glitch and you will be propelled several hundred meters straight up at high speed. This has never been fixed despite having been present since the game was released.
    • There's also the knife's secondary attack (see the One-Hit Kill entry below).
      • Sadly fixed in Call of Pripyat.
    • If you die just as you are transitioning from one area to the next, you will spawn in dead, unable to use your weapon or access your inventory or talk to people, but mobile and completely immortal.
    • The armour repairing trick with four battery artifacts (Collecting at least 4 artifacts of the flame/electricity battery type, wearing them, then jumping into a fire/electrical surge will restore your HP, and more importantly and absolutely a bug and not a feature, repair your armor, otherwise impossible in the unmodded 'Shadow of Chernobyl).
  • Hell Is That Noise: The distinctive wheeze-pant of Bloodsuckers, which due to their cloaking ability is the best (and often only) way to determine their location. Even hardened, seasoned players are easily unnerved by the sound, and the first time a player meets a Bloodsucker can lead to full-blown panic attacks. Also the voice of the Wish Granter, which continuously calls out to you in Chernobyl NPP.
    • Usually the first sign that there is a Controller around is a growl, followed by a tone which sounds like a tinnitus episode. Then comes the Interface Screw...
    • The low, rumbling sound that precedes any blowout in Call of Pripyat is always unsettling, and an indication that you have only a minute or two to get somewhere safe.
  • Internet Backdraft: O sweet, merciful God. Never ever bring STALKER up in forums not dedicated to it. Especially the second game.
  • Memetic Mutation: Get out of here stalker
  • Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page, which it earned.
  • Narm: The English voice acting can get rather...enthusiastic. Fortunately, it's fairly easy to change all the non-essential spoken dialogue back to the (far better) Russian originals.
  • Special Effects Failure: For some reason the sound of choppers overhead can be interrupted by breaking crates. Also the glowing eyes of the mutants can look a bit weird up close, for some reason the same effect is used for actual lights.
  • Spiritual Licensee There's no official connection to either Roadside Picnic or Stalker, but so much is clearly lifted from them it's often assumed the game is licensed.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Call of Pripyat is noticeably more polished than the previous two games, adding multiple UI improvements, removing Clear Sky's infamous homing grenades and bug-ridden Faction Wars, giving the player decent equipment from the beginning and (most importantly) making the game playable out of the box without the need for multiple patches and bug-fixing mods.
  • That One Level: While almost the entirety of all three games qualifies, this troper's hat goes off to the rudeness displayed in the 2nd level of Clear Sky, where crossing into the new area by the only available route has you coming out behind a boulder, on the other side of which is a mounted machine gun in the possession of the military. Well at least they don't know I'm here - wrong; they know you're there and tell you so. Well I'll be safe behind this rock - wrong again; after a few quick bursts, they send a number of better-armed and better-armoured soldiers after you. If you manage to dispatch them, you then have to figure out which way you can safely leg it.
    • In Shadow of Chernobyl it's probably the Red Forest where nearly everything is radioactive, which makes it much harder to take cover properly.
  • That One Sidequest: In Call of Pripyat, babysitting a scientist as he takes readings of anomalies. A teeth-gnashingly difficult mission that comes out of nowhere in an otherwise well-balanced game. It takes the egghead the better part of 5 minutes to do his science and throughout that time you are attacked by hordes of monsters coming in from all directions. The scientist is armed but tends to die if he suffers so much as a papercut. Even if you manage to save him, you will have expended a horrendous amount of ammo and potentially incurred a five-digit repair bill. Oh, and in order to complete the mission you need to do all of this twice.
    • If this happens, You're Doing It Wrong. The two escort missions follow an initial mission with the Stalker squad working for the scientists. Any member of the squad that survives this initial mission will be available for the escort missions. Having the full squad available cuts the the mission time from A Lesser Eternity to A Tolerable Slog, though both escort missions still consume tons of ammo, particularly the swamp. If all of the squad members survive all three missions, the squad is given an equipment upgrade. Useless to you, but a nice reward for them! This troper discovered this on his second playthrough, and has yet to see if this impacts the ending.
      • The swamp part is particularly hard not only because they come from all directions, but also because the thick brush and foliage effectively conceal their approach. While the other mission involves using large amounts of ammunition as well, it's much easier: you start off positioned on higher ground and holding off hordes of slow-moving enemies below.
      • Actually, if you talk to the leader of the Stalker squad after they get upgraded equipment, they will give you some since all their success was thanks to you. It consists of the dome shield helmet, med kits and meds, as well as some money and ammunition. Not so bad after some of the pain from the quest line.
      • The quest can be easy. If you've saved the aforementioned Stalker squad, they'll come with you. If you're really lucky, there'll be a squad or two of helpful NPCs sitting there already, who'll be very happy to help you hunt down the mutants.
  • Ugly Cute: Pseudodog puppies. Dawwww
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