Latest news with #Chornobyl
The Verge
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Another way to stalk.
Another way to stalk. GSC Game World has announced that its gloriously messy shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is coming to the PlayStation 5. There aren't a lot of details, but the new version will make use of the DualSense controller's features, and is expected to launch towards the end of 2025.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Close to perfect': readers' favourite games of 2025 so far
Enshrouded is a beautiful combination of Minecraft, Skyrim and resource gathering that makes it at least three games in one. My daughter told me I would love it and I ignored her for too long. I've tackled Elden Ring, but much prefer the often gentler combat of Enshrouded. It sometimes makes me feel like an elite fighter, then other times kicks my arse in precisely the right measures. Its real joy is the flexibility to spend your time doing whatever tickles your fancy. I'll spend a few hours growing crops to make a cake or smelting metals for better armour, then knock off a few quests to unlock new materials and weapons. But mainly my goal is to complete the ludicrously large plans I have for a castle or village perched on top of a mountain. Most of all, though, the visuals are glorious. From the deep forests, to the deserts to snow-capped mountains, just a feast for the eyes. When the sun sets and the light hits the shroud just right it's one of the most stunning things I've seen in gaming. Paul, Southend There are no other games like the Stalker series. Stalker 2 is utterly immersive, a survival epic with a riveting backdrop loosely based on the Stalker film (another riveting experience) and the Chornobyl incident. This is a complete rebuild in a modern game engine of the first Stalker game, with updated graphics and interactivity, but the same familiar places. There's a new story too. Not only does it have the same feel as the original Stalker, it also has many familiar bugs. I've been playing computer games since Labyrinth in 1978 and Stalker is the most charismatic of them all. Purchasing it also gives a small boost to the Ukrainian game studio. James, Spain This is my highlight from 2025 so far. I love the art style and music. But it is the three-dimensional characters who make it my favourite. They pull you into the story; I really felt an emotional connection to them, although you get to spend more time with some than others. They left me wanting to know more. I can't wait to see what Space Colony Studios does next. Miranda, Cardiff Stray comes a close second, and Atomfall was a lot of fun, but Indiana Jones was about as close to perfect as I could ask for. Not too long – with two kids and a busy job, I don't have time for sprawling open-world RPGs any more, but there was enough of an open-world flavour to keep me satisfied. The missions were fun, and very Indiana Jones in terms of style and problem solving. Having the boulder scene from Raiders as the prologue was a touch of genius. And let's be honest, with the excellent sound effects, you could never tire of punching Nazis. Rob, Edinburgh I have been enjoying Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. It is a great mix of open-world exploration, with so much to do and often the game encourages you to explore different lives to get better equipment for exploration. Coupled with a charming art style and a great multiplayer community, I can see myself only further extending my 80 hours in the game. Jonathan, Edenbridge, Kent I loved the remastered Oblivion, it's rare that a less-than-beautiful game from your childhood gets re-released as a beautiful remaster. The gameplay holds up, and all of the quirks that made me love the original game remain. During these quite difficult political times it's nice to escape into a Lord of the Rings-esque world full of dungeons and lighthearted characters. Even the sequel to Oblivion, Skyrim, feels slightly too serious for these serious times. The biggest reason it was my favourite wasn't because of the gameplay or even the gorgeous new graphics. I got my partner Emily into gaming a few years back – watching her discover the world of Oblivion brought me back to when I first played it, and I enjoyed watching her discover the fantasy world more than I enjoyed it myself. Jack, Bath I loved Avowed. It came out of nowhere for me, I hadn't seen any of the publicity leading up to it, but it was just so brilliant to play a mid-sized RPG. Much as I love the enormous sandbox genre, it feels like so many games now want to be the next Skyrim. Avowed took the opposite route, it set you on rails and it focused on the systems it wanted to do really well rather than trying to do everything. The combat, the exploration and the writing were all top-notch. Isobel, London This one is easy for me. It's all about story, story, story. I have a rule about buying games these days: I wait one month before I consider the purchase. I let everyone else play test the game then make a decision. With all its quirks, KCD2's story overrides any small bugs or oddities you may experience. I didn't experience any issues, I was immersed in the story of my Henry and being lost in a world where all my emotional buttons were being pushed. With all that going on, moving through the story was exciting and more so when the big quests finished or act changes occurred. It's a game that kept revealing itself right up to the last point where you are on a hill talking to your departed parents. It is here that you now realise that you were truly playing and guiding the story of Henry. The choices you made mattered. It's not until after playing that you can ultimately decide if it was all worth it, good or bad. One of the best RPG video games I have ever played. Andrew, Australia
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Close to perfect': readers' favourite games of 2025 so far
Enshrouded is a beautiful combination of Minecraft, Skyrim and resource gathering that makes it at least three games in one. My daughter told me I would love it and I ignored her for too long. I've tackled Elden Ring, but much prefer the often gentler combat of Enshrouded. It sometimes makes me feel like an elite fighter, then other times kicks my arse in precisely the right measures. Its real joy is the flexibility to spend your time doing whatever tickles your fancy. I'll spend a few hours growing crops to make a cake or smelting metals for better armour, then knock off a few quests to unlock new materials and weapons. But mainly my goal is to complete the ludicrously large plans I have for a castle or village perched on top of a mountain. Most of all, though, the visuals are glorious. From the deep forests, to the deserts to snow-capped mountains, just a feast for the eyes. When the sun sets and the light hits the shroud just right it's one of the most stunning things I've seen in gaming. Paul, Southend There are no other games like the Stalker series. Stalker 2 is utterly immersive, a survival epic with a riveting backdrop loosely based on the Stalker film (another riveting experience) and the Chornobyl incident. This is a complete rebuild in a modern game engine of the first Stalker game, with updated graphics and interactivity, but the same familiar places. There's a new story too. Not only does it have the same feel as the original Stalker, it also has many familiar bugs. I've been playing computer games since Labyrinth in 1978 and Stalker is the most charismatic of them all. Purchasing it also gives a small boost to the Ukrainian game studio. James, Spain This is my highlight from 2025 so far. I love the art style and music. But it is the three-dimensional characters who make it my favourite. They pull you into the story; I really felt an emotional connection to them, although you get to spend more time with some than others. They left me wanting to know more. I can't wait to see what Space Colony Studios does next. Miranda, Cardiff Stray comes a close second, and Atomfall was a lot of fun, but Indiana Jones was about as close to perfect as I could ask for. Not too long – with two kids and a busy job, I don't have time for sprawling open-world RPGs any more, but there was enough of an open-world flavour to keep me satisfied. The missions were fun, and very Indiana Jones in terms of style and problem solving. Having the boulder scene from Raiders as the prologue was a touch of genius. And let's be honest, with the excellent sound effects, you could never tire of punching Nazis. Rob, Edinburgh I have been enjoying Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. It is a great mix of open-world exploration, with so much to do and often the game encourages you to explore different lives to get better equipment for exploration. Coupled with a charming art style and a great multiplayer community, I can see myself only further extending my 80 hours in the game. Jonathan, Edenbridge, Kent I loved the remastered Oblivion, it's rare that a less-than-beautiful game from your childhood gets re-released as a beautiful remaster. The gameplay holds up, and all of the quirks that made me love the original game remain. During these quite difficult political times it's nice to escape into a Lord of the Rings-esque world full of dungeons and lighthearted characters. Even the sequel to Oblivion, Skyrim, feels slightly too serious for these serious times. The biggest reason it was my favourite wasn't because of the gameplay or even the gorgeous new graphics. I got my partner Emily into gaming a few years back – watching her discover the world of Oblivion brought me back to when I first played it, and I enjoyed watching her discover the fantasy world more than I enjoyed it myself. Jack, Bath I loved Avowed. It came out of nowhere for me, I hadn't seen any of the publicity leading up to it, but it was just so brilliant to play a mid-sized RPG. Much as I love the enormous sandbox genre, it feels like so many games now want to be the next Skyrim. Avowed took the opposite route, it set you on rails and it focused on the systems it wanted to do really well rather than trying to do everything. The combat, the exploration and the writing were all top-notch. Isobel, London This one is easy for me. It's all about story, story, story. I have a rule about buying games these days: I wait one month before I consider the purchase. I let everyone else play test the game then make a decision. With all its quirks, KCD2's story overrides any small bugs or oddities you may experience. I didn't experience any issues, I was immersed in the story of my Henry and being lost in a world where all my emotional buttons were being pushed. With all that going on, moving through the story was exciting and more so when the big quests finished or act changes occurred. It's a game that kept revealing itself right up to the last point where you are on a hill talking to your departed parents. It is here that you now realise that you were truly playing and guiding the story of Henry. The choices you made mattered. It's not until after playing that you can ultimately decide if it was all worth it, good or bad. One of the best RPG video games I have ever played. Andrew, Australia
The Guardian
02-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Going Nuclear by Tim Gregory review – a boosterish case for atomic energy
There is something biblical about the fraternal relationship between the atomic bomb and the nuclear reactor. Both involve bombarding uranium-235 atoms with neutrons to produce a chain reaction via nuclear fission. Both were made possible in the same instant, at 3.25pm on 2 December 1942, when the Manhattan Project's Enrico Fermi orchestrated the first human-made chain reaction in the squash court of the University of Chicago. 'The flame of nuclear fission brought us to the forked road of promise and peril,' writes Tim Gregory. The bomb came first, of course, but atomic dread coexisted with tremendous optimism about what President Eisenhower dubbed 'atoms for peace': the potential of controlled fission to generate limitless energy. As David Lilienthal of the US Atomic Energy Commission observed, atom-splitting thus inspired a pseudo-religious binary: 'It would either destroy us all or it would bring about the millennium.' Nuclear optimism was shattered by the 1986 Chornobyl disaster but, as the subtitle of his book advertises, Gregory is determined to bring it back. A nuclear chemist at Sellafield, where the Queen opened the world's first commercial nuclear reactor in 1956, he's a cheerleader for Team Millennium. Writing in a Promethean spirit of 'rational and daring optimism', this self-proclaimed 'nuclear environmentalist' believes nuclear energy is the only viable route to net zero by 2050. 'The nucleus could power the world securely, reliably, affordably, and – crucially – sustainably,' he declares. Gregory is an excellent popular science writer: clear as a bell and gently humorous. If you want to understand the workings of fission or radioactivity, he's your man. But he is also an evangelical pitchman whose chapters on the atom's myriad wonders can read rather like high-end sales brochures. Radiation? Not a problem! Less dangerous, in fact, than radiophobia, 'the irrational fear of radiation'. High-level nuclear waste? It can be buried in impregnable catacombs like Finland's state-of-the-art Onkalo or, better yet, recycled through breeder reactors. Gregory wants the reader to learn to stop worrying and love the reactor. Of course, there is a radioactive elephant in the room, which Gregory eventually confronts in the chapter We Need to Talk About Chernobyl. Like Three Mile Island (1979) and Fukushima (2011), the Soviet disaster caused reactor construction to crash. Europe built more reactors in the five years before Chornobyl than it has in the four decades since. The Fukushima meltdown spooked Germany into dismantling its entire nuclear programme. Whereas France, which has one-eighth of the planet's 441 active reactors, currently generates two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear, Germany produces none, cancelling out its gains from renewables and making it painfully reliant on Russian gas. Gregory argues that the construction of reactors like Hinkley Point C in Somerset runs behind schedule and over budget because we've lost the habit, even as China and South Korea streak ahead. To Gregory, all this is a tragic case of radiophobia. Only around 50 fatalities have been directly attributed to radiation from Chornobyl, while the official death tolls for Fukushima and Three Mile Island are one and zero respectively. Roll them all together and the same number of people are lost roughly every three minutes to air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. No doubt, the kneejerk rejection of nuclear energy can be ignorant bordering on superstitious, but safety concerns demand more space and consideration. Oddly, Gregory doesn't mention Serhii Plokhy's 2022 book Atoms and Ashes, which explains how the Fukushima disaster could have been much worse if not for the courage and judgment of a few key officials. More offputtingly, he attacks renewable energy with roughly the same arguments used by rightwing critics of net zero, warning of 'energy scarcity, industrial wind-down, and food insecurity' if we choose wind and sun over good old uranium-235. But surely it is not a zero-sum game? After a while, Gregory's relentless boosterism begins to lose its persuasive power and he sounds rather like the blithely confident scientist in the first act of a disaster movie. Even though I'm personally convinced that anybody focused on the climate emergency would be foolish to dismiss nuclear out of hand, I suspect that sceptics may require an argument that sounds a little less like 'Calm down, dear.' Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World by Tim Gregory is published by Bodley Head (£25). To support the Guardian order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Forbes
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
The 3 ‘STALKER' Remasters Do The Bare Minimum, And That's Fine
The three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. remasters are great for console players, even when they, er, aren't. The ever-growing list of 2025 remasters continues this month, and it's now the turn of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy to join the ranks of Tomb Raider IV-VI, Suikoden I & II, Lunar, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition dropped on May 19, and having now completed the OG Shadow of Chornobyl and sinking a good 10-15 hours between Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat, I can confirm two things for PS5 and Xbox players (but I'm sure PC players, who've been modding it for years, may disagree): The three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. remasters have undergone a visual overhaul, with an impressive amount of detail devoted to lighting, which now adds effects such as godrays, screen space reflections, and global illumination — perfect for console players, given how atmospheric it's always been on PC, especially with mods. NPC models, weapons, and environments have been given a new lick of paint, while attention's also been paid to water shaders, wetness effects, and skyboxes. The cinematics look better than ever, too, thanks to 4K pre-rendering. Textures have also been edited, including the notable removal of Soviet-themed artwork (alongside, it seems, rubles as currency). Unlike GSC Game World's team, I've not lived in Ukraine since it was invaded, so I can't judge on this decision, even if the rest of the game sticks remarkably doggedly to the source material. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder They kept the ferris wheel in, at least. Console players on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S can pick between quality and performance modes, but you really should stick with performance, as the frame rate absolutely trumps whatever meager details are boosted. Consoles also receive keyboard and mouse support, as well as that all-important integration for cross-platform mod sharing. For PC players, there's Steam Deck optimization, Steam Workshop mod support, full gamepad compatibility, and cloud saves. Most importantly, owners of the original games on Steam or GOG receive the corresponding enhanced editions for free (the original's upgrade appeared in my GOG library on release day). Those buying remasters on PC will get the classic games for free. When you jump into the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. — I'd be surprised if anyone started with the other two — there's a good chance you'll've forgotten how good the voice acting and music are. The cinematic boosts are fantastic, even if they still feel like an early-stage PS3 game, much like the wider experience. Finally, we also get a weapon wheel, but one that makes ammo changes or gun modes unpredictable. That's pretty much where the UI improvements end, and you realize GSC Game World sticks to the source material like glue. The left analog stick and D-pad work independently, making navigation a chore; picking missions, finding your place on the map, and item interactions are a drudge; interactive switches or levers aren't labelled as such; save state dates are weirdly pegged to 2012; and you have to wait for the slow fade-in of '(X) Talk' to interact with other stalkers. Most egregiously, and going against basic accessibility standards we really should expect from remasters, absolutely no attention has been paid to the STALKER games' unusual subtitles, which rarely (if ever) reflect what's being said. This ranges from minor omissions to significant gaps in the voiceover, such as key locations or your next steps. In the weirdest moment of all — Call of Pripyat's opening sequence — the narrator says entirely different dates and years to the subtitles. Sure, this was the case in the original, and people might see it as a quirk of the series, but subtitles exist for a reason, and it feels lazy. Despite everything that's dropped on consoles recently — and with the impending release of the Switch 2 next week — I couldn't stop playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition. I've had to uninstall it, because despite all the recommendations I've had for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, and Revenge of the Savage Planet (plus the incoming Switch 2), I was utterly unable to leave the Zone. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy needs no (re)introduction, and certainly doesn't require another review to rake over 16-to-18-year-old faults; what matters is that GSC has brought a brutal, weird, and truly unique game kicking and screaming into the modern era, with just enough spice to make it incredibly attractive and playable on consoles. The support adds something extra for those willing to mess with, and inevitably break, a game that already has its fair share of odd problems. Ah mate, not this prick again. I'm not a Soulsborne guy. Still, put me in any FPS, and I'll clear it on veteran, unless it's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. It encourages you to learn without really teaching you, and it's keen to punish you for not taking advantage of absolutely everything it doesn't fully explain. I save-scummed my entire way through the Sarcophagus, despite playing on novice difficulty, and had two medkits and one anti-rad pack to my name before the credits rolled. I lost 10kg of bullets, medicine, and throwables in the final hour, and it was all worth it for the inevitable 'greedy' ending I always get. After I tried and failed to review S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 — a game so broken before launch that after 45 hours reviewing it, its developers dropped a day zero patch that voided 90% of my notes and broke the game in different ways — the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy Enhanced Edition reminds you that the better experiences are often simpler, even if you constantly feel like you've been dragged through a hedge. It's far from perfect and won't hit the heights of PC community mods, but for newcomers and veterans who want a peek at what it's like on PS5 or Xbox, it's absolutely worth a go.
