It was a day that fans of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl have been waiting on for nearly six years. THQ VP Kelly Flock stated Thursday night at the beginning of THQ's Gamer's Day press event, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has been released to manufacturing." Those words marked an end to the development of the long-awaited GSC GameWorld developed first person shooter. Last night THQ had some LAN stations for some S.T.A.L.K.E.R. multiplayer action and FiringSquad played a round to try it out.

The multiplayer level, titled "Desolated Village", pretty much descibes the map itself with ruined warehouse building, rusty ladders and beaten up metal tanks decorating the setting. The map had multiple levels as one could climb those rusty ladders up to certain rooftops which we found were ideal places for some sniper action. The game was set up for eight players in deathmatch mode and we did find that the map was perhaps a tad too big for that few players; it took a while sometimes to find a opponant to shoot at.

The deathmatch gameplay is nothing you haven't played before in many, many other FPS titles. You run around and you shoot at the enemies using the various machine guns that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has to offer. There are a couple of new wrinkles that GSC GameWorld have added to pure deathmatch, however. One is that if you get shot but don't die you may find yourself not being able to move very quickly as your wounds cause you to tire which is certainly a more realistic way to deal with health issues in the gameplay. The other is that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s weird radiation caused enviromental anomolies can also show up in multiplayer matches as well. These creations can suck you in, fly your player character into the air and finally explode your body into so many blood particles. Ouch.

While the multiplayer match we played today wasn't all that innovative our previous time with the single player beta of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was indeed fin and had deep levels of gameplay so we are still very excited by the news that the game is done and that the final version will ship to stores later in March. Look for a full blown review from us when that happens.

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