There is no doubt, this relatively small Russian outfit are responsible for the most atmospheric PC FPS games ever. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has revolved around the post-nuclear fallout of Chernobyl where the after-effects of radiation have caused strange anomalies and mutations across the surrounding wastelands.

Call of Pripyat is the third in the trilogy (acting as Sequel to the original game, Shadow of Chernobyl) placing the gamer into the shoes of a STALKER, a bounty hunter, in the Ukrainian town that was affected mostly by the fallout, Pripyat.

It’s a fabulous world that feels as real as can be, sensitively depicting the desolate nature of your surroundings together with the shaman-like activities of other soldiers and stalkers around you as they fight in their own little battles in real time as they try to gain advantages in their own faction wars.

Graphically, it excels in dousing the world in this grey and green overtone that seems to have lost its colour, whilst at the same time illustrating some of the unnatural delights of a world affected by a man made catastrophe.

Although no role playing element is involved, there is character progression. Money is hard to come by in the world so you have to carefully purchase and manage both weapons and ammunition, of which there is a multitude of options. It’s armoury is typically diverse and ranges from cheap, sawn off shotguns that are found two a penny, right up to government special edition sniper rifles that can clean blow the head off an armoured man from 1km away.

The landscape is VAST and some of the locations are utterly terrifying. For the first time in my 30 years of game playing, I screamed at the screen, taking my headphones off and looking at my wife in an utterly embarrassed pose. It really did terrify me.

Being their third installment, it’s a lot less buggy than their previous iterations and gains from the obvious budget inflation and allocation to proper UAT testing. It’s not 100% perfect, but the gaming experience is.