In April 2014, a group of modders under the tag Dezowave Team released a long-term project (more than 6 years in development), which set itself an ambitious plan – to show the masses the game of the dreams of all initiates – “that same” Stalker, lost somewhere on the way to release.
But did the international team manage to outdo the final product of GSC Game World?? Based on user opinions from different sources, no, but it maintains the level of good play. So, on StopGame the project has a rating of 7.6 points; 8 points on the AP-Pro thematic portal; 8.7 on ModDB; other modifications have been created on its basis for a long time – in short, at first glance, Lost Alpha turned out great.
But my impressions of the game are not nearly as positive, and in this text I will try to explain why. All components of the mod were affected: the plot and mechanics, critical bugs, graphics and even localization. Your opinion may differ radically, that’s okay. And if you have something to add or tell, I’ll be happy to read it in the comments.
Oh, these storytellers
Of course, it’s worth starting with the plot part. Overall, it follows the same paths as the original game, differing in details. But if the restored ideas themselves are interesting to get acquainted with, then their implementation cuts the whole idea in the bud.
For example, story videos about experiments previously carried out in the Zone take place in dark, dilapidated locations on damaged equipment – in such a situation there are no questions at all why everything goes wrong.
In addition to the cut scenes, most of the characters encountered are also poorly written: that Duty in the beginning, that the military in the end are weak-willed weaklings who, without the Marked One, cannot kill a bloodsucker or control an armored personnel carrier. For gameplay, of course, there is variety, but logically it’s just stupidity. It wouldn’t hurt to spend a little more time justifying such situations.
Strelok himself also does not shine with intelligence and intelligence, and can talk about bloodsuckers whom he has not yet met. But not only the main character can surprise – Colonel Petrenko from Dolg turns out to be a very great repairman – he even repairs weapons and armor for simple stalkers. Why this function is not given to any of the dozens of subordinate fighters around him is an unanswered question.
Overall, the main quests that intertwine with the old plot are implemented quite well and have several completion points with the correct markers on the map. But most of the new ones are often just the location of the final goal (even if it is several levels lower or higher) with a description in the style of “Find the wire”. And it doesn’t matter that to do this you must first find the entrance to the dungeon at the other end of the map.
The lion’s share of orders already consists of the banal “bring and give”, which quickly becomes boring, and such performance generally causes rejection. Adding to this the large deserted areas, it can be assumed that Hideo Kojima was inspired by Lost Alpha when developing his “courier simulator”.
Additional quests also do not shine with ingenuity, and sometimes even with logic: for example, an unlucky stalker asks for the return of his usual Thunderstorm, and as a reward is given a SEVA jumpsuit, which costs several times more than weapons.
The quintessence of story adventures for me was the appearance of the Illuminati and the matrix, as well as the banal copying of Half-Life, after which the degree of delirium for some reason does not increase, and the expected Hitler on a tyrannosaurus does not appear from the portal. Although he would belong there. It is simply impossible to take such intricacies of history seriously.
Not a bug, but a feature
The mentioned long distances in Lost Alpha were supposed to be covered by cars. But besides the fact that they cost the same as a cast iron bridge, they are controlled in exactly the same way. Poor implementation of transport makes one immediately disown such “pleasure”. After all, if the car turns over, then there is no way to leave it, the only thing that can save you is loading another save. And the fuel disappears just before our eyes. Apparently, leaky gas tanks are a quality standard in the Zone.
Thus, It’s safer to run around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on your own two feet. But on long walks, sooner or later, you will have to use a sleeping bag – a useful thing in harsh places, by the way. It will help both pass the dark night and remove radiation and other ailments from the body. Probably also gives the strength of the earth. After this, you can even jump from a high-rise – a real hero doesn’t care about gravity.
And if you don’t want to complete the next task, you can sit down to play at any of the dozens of computers that work flawlessly even in abandoned underground complexes. But the best option, of course, would be a PC based on Duty, fortunately, the serviceman standing next to him doesn’t ask unnecessary questions.
But what would be worth asking the warrior yourself is why there is a machine gun in the game if it doesn’t work? No, he shoots, but that’s where? Because of it, in theory, a dynamic quest to clear the area of mutants turns into a monotonous shooting of living creatures with a sniper.
By the way, trophies collected from animals and other monsters can be sold not only to stalkers. But it’s impossible to find out whether the Secret Trader is buying them – he turns out to be so secret that he disappears while the Marked One runs to his mark. Well, I didn’t really want to.
Plyushkin syndrome
The crookedness of the inventory deserves special mention. The biggest problem was that as the game progressed you can put on your back ten kilograms of quest items that cannot be given away, sold, or at least thrown away. This situation happens when you find things without a task taken or have not collected everything to complete it. For example, after spending more than an hour studying the X-18 laboratory and giving up on this matter, I managed to find 4 out of 5 documents, but had to drag them with me to the very end, without options. And other documents too. And three sets of tools. And a test psi helmet. And a random key..
Also, the display of old and new product icons in the inventory looks very stupid: processed cheese is the size of half a sleeping bag, like corn and other olives. True, after discovering giant-sized cans of these same olives on the shelves, I realized that the authors had simply never seen canned food in real life. By the way, “Tourist’s Breakfast” and the nameless stew have the same icon for both, but different characteristics; and two identical PDAs can have different icons.
But there is a choice of useless alcohol, like in a distillery. By the way, drinking makes you feel the same way – both vodka and beer. Well, okay, alcohol is evil, that’s understandable. But what remains beyond understanding is why grenades of the same type in the inventory do not stack, occupying several cells.
Help Dasha find logic
It’s funny, but true: every second person you meet offers to buy a guitar and harmonica. And it doesn’t matter who you trade with – absolutely everyone is musically literate: loners, bandits, Debt, military… It feels like you’re not in the Exclusion Zone – a harsh and merciless region, but in a competition of amateur musicians in a local cultural center.
In addition to the disillusioned bards, leveling https://moheganpacasino.co.uk/games/ up weapons from masters was added to the game, but for some reason all the inhabitants of the Zone have the most basic weapons in their hands, with the rarest exceptions. Apparently they don’t trust local technicians.
Outside of upgrades, there is also a mechanic for repairing things. And while NPCs cope with repairs without any problems, Marked himself was unable to patch his suit, even though he found a repair kit – some parts were missing. What is the point of hiding such sets in deserted places without the possibility of their immediate use – an open question.
But what raises not questions, but a huge irritation is the batteries in the flashlight, which sit down in literally a few minutes – Chinese consumer goods, no less. If you are preparing for a foray into dark laboratories, you must stock up on dozens of batteries. This in no way affects the difficulty of the game, but it’s incredibly annoying, because it’s not always possible to stock up on batteries for future use.
Well I don’t play like that
You remember that Lost Alpha has a plot? This is something you must adhere to. No options. If you complete the quest differently than planned by the developers, you may not be able to progress further, or worse, you may get stuck. Example: at the beginning of the game, there is an opportunity not to save the Fox, but simply kill him, but after that a new task will not appear, and then you will have to wander around the Zone in search of the Strelok until you are blue in the face. Or the opposite situation: at the Landfill, Gray at first wanted to, but then changed his mind about sharing information. I had to deal with a person because of a glitch. Such flaws on the part of the developers force them to save before any more or less important decision, so that later, if anything, they do it “correctly”.
One of the advantages of the game, Dezowave Team called a lot of new locations. Well, as “new” – partly old, from build developments. But the modding team forgot to mention that for the most part these are just deserted corridors tens of minutes long running. And not having the opportunity to pass the way otherwise, for half (!) time from 30 hours of game will have to be driven from point A to point B through one, two, or even three locations. And some of them have insurmountable obstacles, such as, for example, faults in the Landfill or a ram’s horn from the fences on the road to Bar. In such a situation, the most desired product becomes an energy drink, of which you can probably drink a whole tank during the game. Here the conductors are just asking to break into the Zone, as was the case in the sequels of the game. And they even meet in the plot, but Marked One still has to run next to him, sadly looking at his partner’s back.
To all of the above, you can add a whole cart of small bugs, which over time you stop paying attention to, like a message that the battery is low when you reset extra flashlights or a line about saving that does not disappear from the screen.
AND If you can close your eyes to small flaws, then huge problems that can break the passage are a serious problem. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one whose combination lock simply didn’t work in the Pripyat dungeon. And there’s no way to get further, even if you have a document with numbers in your inventory. I had to use the classic trick of opening the door by throwing a weapon in a certain place.
In short, if the developers wanted to create an impenetrable or not very friendly game for beginners, they succeeded brilliantly.
Beauty requires sacrifice
The original game, due to technical flaws in the X-Ray engine, in terms of graphics there are not enough stars from the sky. But the authors of Lost Alpha went on a wild ride, increasing the number of environmental and vegetation effects to an exorbitant level. The statics turned out to be a pretty good picture. But in dynamics, this resulted in noticeable jumps in FPS depending on the environment: often in every thicket and other thickets, the number of frames can drop to 20-30 on DirectX 10 and 9 rendering, returning to 100 in simpler areas. In static lighting (DX8) the frame rate is many times better, but the picture, of course, is not as beautiful and graphic artifacts appear in places, such as transparent zombies. To be fair, these “invisible” ones are available on any settings.
At the release, the developers clarified that the game is designed for DirectX 10. But I have a question: the first demonstrations of gameplay from GSC were back in 2002, when there was no talk about the tenth “direct”. A if Lost Alpha is trying to bring back “the same” Stalker, then why use a newer render?, for which the game was not originally developed?
Circus Buratin
In this mod almost all cut scenes and animations that were not in Shadows of Chernobyl are made very primitively and they look ridiculous. Obviously, it would be better to simply not use the clunky cutscenes, replacing them with, say, studying documents in the inventory and notes in the PDA.
But there is a good view from the camera from a third person and even a second. In this version, the funny running without a weapon seems not so cartoonish anymore. However, there is no practical justification for this function in the game.
In my opinion, it would be better to spend more time nailing NPCs to their points, who stand like tin soldiers, although in comparison with them other stalkers show a semblance of life.
Musical break
The music in the menu ended even when digging into the settings. A small thing, but still unpleasant. In the game itself, the situation is even worse – songs from every radio are screaming twice as loud as any person around. The volume control in the settings has no effect here. It’s especially funny at such a “disco” to try to listen to Sidorovich’s educational program. He’s talking about swag, but it only gets to you like “once a year the gardens bloom». Although we must pay tribute to the surroundings – the Soviet stage as a background for an old-school merchant is quite on topic. As for the huckster himself, his voice acting in the game cannot be compared with Shadows of Chernobyl, being completely inferior.
Also, in most custom cinematics, often one character speaks very quietly, barely audible. At the same time, his interlocutor, who is standing next to him, sounds quite normal. Example – in one of the X-laboratories, the anguished “Help me!" resounds from the far corner throughout all the rooms, but what the warriors on whom the camera focused is talking is difficult to understand due to the volume of speech of one of them. Apparently, no one has done enough to normalize the sound.
There’s a Russian spirit there
Like the inventory, the domestic localization of the game is worthy of a separate discussion. The implementation of new jokes and songs is, of course, good. But it would be possible to allocate at least a little more resources to the text component? Yes, the original game is full of errors of various kinds, but at least it has an atmosphere and originality, logic and meaning – whatever you want to call it.
In Lost Alpha, in those places where Russian speech simply did not exist, all conversations are abstract and poorly connected nonsense. It is clearly visible that all the new text was written only in English and simply passed through some kind of Google Translate with minimal edits.
An example of a conversation between the Guide and the Marked One:
— I am the Guide, the one from the legends. Took you to the center of the Zone a few months ago. Do you remember?
— This handwriting is vaguely familiar to me. By the way, the Doctor wanted to see you.
– And here I am. I don’t know much, but ask, I’ll try to answer.
– This is good! See you!
Another example, this is the Ghost communicating with the Strelok:
— Passage to bunker X-2 ahead. Once we get there, Fang’s decoder will help us get inside.
– And you will set the explosives, as we agreed?
– Only after we deactivate it. To make sure the government doesn’t get their hands on it. Follow me carefully and carefully – the last time the three of us almost turned into a distorted ball of flesh.
And like this throughout the game. I wouldn’t even highlight the localization of a free mod as a separate item if it weren’t for one “but”: the guys are so proud of their work that they shamelessly put their names in first place in the final credits. After them comes the Dezowave team. Well, GSC Game World received only a few lines towards the end. Yes, the authors of the original game, whose content was used in the mod, were given a whole paragraph in the credits.
I want the Zone to disappear
If we remove the obvious weak points from Lost Alpha, such as useless locations, inappropriate and poorly functioning mechanics, an outright farce in the plot and a banal copy of Half-Life, then the result will be… S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. This suggests that at one time the publisher gave GSC the right kick, which only benefited the game.
And a fool understands that no one would cut out interesting and well-working ideas then. But simply taking and returning the rejected content, only wiping it from dust, without analyzing why it was removed and how it could be done better – it will not be possible to create a complete picture.
One could argue that there is a more sophisticated version of the modification (Developer’s Cut), but if Dezowave Team could not competently implement the cut gameplay, then looking at the author’s “gag” is not fun for everyone, in my opinion.
In the end, there was only one question left: is it necessary to look for “that” Stalker, or have we always had him?? The answer, obviously, is different for everyone.
Best comments
LA upset me so much that I have no desire to touch other mods yet)
I also remember Lost Alpha for my first ride in a car, which turned over whenever I tried to turn at a speed higher than a snail’s speed (and taking into account the fact that during the “trip” the player is shot from a helicopter, snail’s speed is tantamount to a death sentence), searching for the mentioned documents (there is some inconspicuous room there, which I found with difficulty after an hour of wandering in pitch darkness – the battery on the flashlight was dead) and constantly running around instructions from Sakharov (and there are actually 3-4 story quests from scientists that force you to run back and forth).
But the most disgusting moment was earlier: at the very beginning, where it was necessary to save the Fox, I did not pay the ransom, but simply shot those who took him prisoner with a member of Sin. A few hours later, during a story quest, I run into a tunnel and the hero simply dies without any explanation. Well, I think it’s a bug, but when I rebooted it happened again. Googled it because I ruined my relationship with Sin. I had to leave the tunnel, run for 15 minutes (if not more) either to Sidorovich or to Bartender (I don’t remember) to restore relations through them, and then back into this tunnel. Not only is the quest itself very dubious (since after meeting Sin you again have to flee to the Dark Valley from which you came before), but without googling it is not clear why the hero dies.
Gray wanted to share the information at first, but then changed his mind. I had to deal with a person because of a glitch.
Laughed loudly)
Well OL, as I heard, this is really “build”. I played a little myself, but for a long time. It’s just complete A-Life here: monsters of all kinds can stupidly run after you all over the map, and at the same time the gameplay is reminiscent of Cool Sam)
I’ll take a pencil, maybe I’ll have something to share)
Certainly. Uncharted or Tomb Raider (with small puzzles) or GTA (with a combination of simple tasks to complete one) immediately come to mind.
My complaint is more that in Lost Alpha there is a lot of room to roam, but it all comes down to platitudes. For example, the mechanics of transport – it is used in exactly two story missions in the entire game (and even then, it’s easier to immediately go out and solve all the issues outside the car). Or “crafting” artifacts – there is a mechanic, but during the course of the plot there is no need for it (there is a side task, but it is easy to miss). Or “super-aggressive night A-life”, but not a single “night” task.
I hope my idea is clear.
It was just a mistake to play the usual Lost Alpha, and not the DC version.To. many problems and shortcomings of the regular version (such as cars overturning too easily, bugs and the presence of some illogical/poorly executed cutscenes and story branches, etc.d. ) were solved in it, plus DC comes with an automatic mod installer, which you just need to run and it will find available mods, you just have to choose which ones you like (there are improved NPC models, a mod to disable the use of batteries for a flashlight, autumn texture packs for vegetation and much more).
Plus, on a regular DC you can also find options on how to enable the spawn menu (I found it useful because.To. at one time I almost completed the normal one, but abandoned it, and by that time I had found a lot of decent art that gave +20-30 kg of carryable weight, so I just spawned a couple for myself at the beginning, so that I would run less around locations due to the need to carry swag back and forth) in contrast to DC: Extended, where the developers had already started doing some crazy things, developed their own anti-cheat and made it possible to save only near the fire in safe places.
