@dunetiger : one of the naerds: Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Getting yourself irradiated over a game isn't something I'd be doing. But the reason these guys did probably has to do with it being a locally set game that did well. I'm sure people who actually live in New York, and are playing GTA4 get a thrill out of seeing stuff in-game thats outside their window. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. probably has the same effect on those guys.

GexX2

@peet:

There is absolutely NOT "HUGE" amounts of radiation in the air at Chernobyl (or at least the city of Pripyat, which is what most people consider "Chernobyl"). While the initial contamination was quite high, today there is no more radiation in the area than there is any other major city of the world. Which is to say that there's some, there's always some no matter where you are, but it's very little.

Hell the place has become quite the tourist attraction. You can take tours all through the zone. About the only thing you can't do is get anywhere near the reactor (which was operated for another 15 years after the incident BTW), as radiation there can still be quite high in pockets.

SigmaHyperion

Normally I'd defend them, saying let people have their fun, but to actually do it in Chernobyl is stupid beyond all belief.

ShaggE

That's quite a cosplay but . . .

Kotaku sponsored by Coors!?!?

Very pimp guys.

Stay classy.

Tubatic

@th3-1nf1d3l: Yeah, I noticed that too. In fact, I've been searching on google furiously to find out if theres an English translation available. Sadly, I haven't found one yet, but I did find these two articles.

[en.wikipedia.org]
[en.wikipedia.org]

Apparently the first one is a book that stalker was loosely based off of, and the second is the movie adaption of the book, with some differences.

@Mpalm.: Aww.. Thats too bad. Most of the time based missions aren't required, and can be easily redone.

GexX2

I loved S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and I plan on getting Clear Sky on day 1. The whole running around the real zone and shooting at each other with real guns while getting real irradiated seems like a bit much to me though. Otherwise I would have loved to join in.

Pezdispenser

I'd put some of these shots on my wall.

Boxelder

So, to stay true to the realism, they had one or two guys get stuck on a wall and shout "STALKER GET OUT!" over and over, right?

All kidding aside, excellent work. Really impressive. I actually stoop up and clapped.

Palladium

@GexX2:

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't really believe it was a bad experience. It was more of a ho-hum for me, and I get that not everyone feels that way, but it's not like it's got the following of your typical emo Squeenix RPG or, sigh, Halo to warrant this kind of effort. Different strokes, I guess, but to me, it's like gathering a bunch of your friends together to re-enact... oh, I dunno, Captain Power.

dunetiger : one of the naerds

sure STALKER was massively buggy, with some annoying time based quests, but what it lacked in polish it made up for in premise, atmosphere and gunplay.

It was also nice to have a story driven FPS that hadn't been console-crippled for the PC.

ArcaneDevice

@hikkifan1986: dont look at me, I'd have at least sold out for a FULL strength beer.

Luke Plunkett

Mostly airsoft in there, Bullpulp, FenFal, few AKs, a HK G3 and an M4. The 50Cal feeder picture looks like its from the APC (A BTR-80 I THINK).

Really cool, great photographer that knows how to do post-process on his photos too.

Thanks for the link.

Patient

@GexX2: I wanted to get into STALKER, i really did. But... when i had a few quests completed and all of a sudden the game told me, "Whoops! Took you too long to hand them in, sorry!" i got pissed off and stopped playing.

Mpalm.

@GexX2: I agree, it was probably the best overall shooter of 2007 for me.

On a side note, is that a STALKER book I saw? I want one...

th3-1nf1d3l

Hey great idea...lets get dressed up to reenact a game. Better yet lets do it where there are *HUGE* amounts of radiation in the air. Some people are just fucking stupid.

peet

As a chemical engineer, I would love to get to go to Chernobyl and nose around.
Also as a chemical engineer, I'd never go there without proper protection, hope those guys took safety measures.

chemical_eng_mx

@dunetiger : one of the naerds: I thought S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was one of the better FPS's I've played in a while. It requires more than just running into open doors holding down your mouse button. Sure, it was buggy at it's release, but its story and pseudo-open world have a real pull to them, and the combat becomes addictive. Hopefully Clear Sky will clear up its major issues, so more people get to play this gem.

GexX2

I guess this is one of the things that looks good in pictures, but is boring to actually participate in. I mean, how fun can a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. re-enactment be?

walk for 10 minutes, fight for 5, walk 10 more, kill a dog, walk 15 minutes, go inside a dark building with mutants and die, start over.

Plus, how would they do the battles? Airsoft? How do they deal with the whole nuclear area thing?

If they enjoyed it, more power to them, but imo, this seems like it would be a giant snooze-fest...

Coquiton

I kind of missed Stalker...too bad it never came out on the consoles...Id go back and pick it up

mcrproductions

People are ridiculous.

Aethyr

normally dressing up like game characters results in a fat dude in the middle of a shopping mall dressed in green felt and styrofoam pretending he's Link, but this is not only original, but convincing and ever so slightly fucking nuts, in a very good way.

The only thing missing are some glowing, bouncy artifacts.

ArcaneDevice

I love Russia.

This looked like it was fun, sans the dying and radiation poisoning.

SkutSkut

Jeezus, how much did you guys get paid for the goddam beer ads?

hikkifan1986

Pure awesome. I love people

Agnitio

The pics are nice, but it just looks like a bunch of people in fatigues and military issue equipment. +1 for authenticity but -1 for creativity IMO.

SeanBradley

Kotaku has fallen in love with that Rock, Paper, Shotgun site...

@dunetiger : one of the naerds:
Totally agree. This game was OK, but to deserve this much is a little to much,

SanjiX

... I don't remember the game being good enough to warrant this.

dunetiger : one of the naerds

Strangely enough, they all wound up looking like that the next day.

Dreadfish

cosplay or real? this blurs the line...

G for GRENADE

What the hell!? That's insanity!

PatMan33

Great job but real weapons used to reenact scenes doesn't sound like a good idea...

Samos42

@th3-1nf1d3l:

I would love that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. book as well.

@GexX2:

You can download the book "Roadside Picnic" written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky here:

www.cca.org/cm/picnic.pdf

You should definitely see the film, Stalker. It's one of the most beautiful films ever made. Every shot is picture perfect. It's my all time favorite Andrei Tarkovsky film. It's pretty artsy and full of philosophical tones, and there are many scenes where there is no dialogue for a while ... be forewarned action fans.

dead_red_eyes

Awesome. I wish I was there. STALKER is certainly one of my favorite FPS games. The atmosphere is absolutely top-notch.

Yuki

fat hand

JUBEI21

@SigmaHyperion: I'm inclined to believe the chemical engineer over you.

spiderweb1986

Yeah mostly airsoft. One of the Ak's had the Tokyo Marui sticker on there, and the SAW that someone had didn't conceal the BB feeding tube with the de-activated 5.56 rounds.

Seems like most of those had steel bodies, so i'm guessing they had alot of fun.

Almost rivals Operation Lion Claws....

Number 6 is coming up this weekend too....

Requiemblues

@ShaggE: Some areas in Chernobyl still are contaminated. High-absorbent areas, as indicated in my prior posts, will still continue to be radioactive for decades until after it's all been leached out into the air, or torn down.

NKato

@SigmaHyperion: There is high radiation in some areas that were like sponges to it. For instance, cars, houses with a lot of drywall/fabric, couches, anything that can absorb and retain the radiation. This is why Chernobyl is still a ghost town. It's still unsafe for people to come back in, tear down everything and rebuild - plus, most people agree it should be left alone as a lesson to the world what mistakes can do in a nuclear era.

So just coming out to Chernobyl isn't dangerous, you just need a geiger with you, and avoid places that are known to be absorbent to radiation.

-NK

NKato

@dunetiger : one of the naerds:

Freudian slip? Perhaps.

dunetiger : one of the naerds

@ShaggE: Ach, looks like I'm the stupid one. I thought it was still contaminated. *hides under chair*

ShaggE

@GexX2:

I dunno. What if it was a radioactive Jill Valentine? Mmmm... Radioactive Jim Valentine....

But yeah, I suppose if you live right at ground zero, there's gotta be some extra connection you have with the game that nobody else will have.

dunetiger : one of the naerds

@hikkifan1986:
Lol, I've been wondering the same thing. The Coors Light ads are too distracting to not be ignored.

argh

With real disfigurements.

Frank

Very nice photography and post processing. Very dynamic in some pics, great scenes and composition in others. I could learn something from that guy. (Heh, but the running around in irradiated forests, voluntarily, no thanks. I had enough of that crawling through there in COD4.)

Zeus

all cosplay should be this cool. awesome photos.

CSat420

@symeon6: oooh pizza with a ice cold coors! Good idea kotaku!

symeon6

Looking at that picture makes me hungry. Whos up for pizza?

symeon6

Also, if you are going to go back and pick up a copy of STALKER, be sure to also pick up the Oblivion Lost mod. It makes it non-gimpy and difficult like the devs intended it to be.

HappyWulf

Pripyat is a fascinating study on what happens to a city where everyone literally drops everything and leaves for good. Nature has managed to recover much quicker then man and has begun to reclaim the land. Animals nest in former tenements, soccer fields are now covered in full-grown trees, buildings are crumbling from the passage of seasons, etc.

Just keep in mind that most wildlife have much shorter life cycles then humans, hence they can adapt quicker. Hell, the amount of genetic deviance in the field mice in the area over the past twenty two years compared to mice from cleaner areas is astounding.

Paul Soth

I dont think those are real weapons, they look more like airsoft guns. The masks theyre all wearing are all made for airsoft, and all of them are wearing some kind of eye protection. Just thought i would point that out. I have an airsoft M4A1 replica and it looks and feels so real you could rob a bank with it.

Striker118

Serious games, serious fans. None of those fancy pantsy elves and lightnin' bolts round here and not a wizards hat in sight. Just guns, tanks, and enough testosterone to drown a horse, this here's manly cosplay!

JonathanStrange

@dunetiger : one of the naerds:
Bimmy and Jimmy?

Channing

@Patient: It's "bullpup" not "pulp", and that's an AUG rifle anyway. And the picture of the feed with the dummy rounds is from an M249.

Fullforce

Jeee talk about idiots posting.
Do people even realise how radioactive the area is? Thought not.

muscrat_01

Hah, this is actually pretty good. Wonder how they managed to get that apc out there.

For those of you harping about the radiation, people still live there and love it...

+ Watch video

ReginaldTheSeventySecond

@muscrat_01: Most of the area is not that bad anymore.

Yuki

As things to do with cosplay go, those photo's are pretty good. Especially the sillier efforts.

And all that exposure to radiation will likely give the participants that boss-eyed, ugly look that stops cos-players indulging in more appealing past times...

I love you really cos-players, but just from a distance.

Spadgy

@Yuki: Yeah, if you ignore the freakishly high cancer and birth defect rate... Sure, the radiation won't matter that much if you're only a tourist, but the effects on the people that still live in the area are not to be ignored.

FranUnFine

@dead_red_eyes:
The Special Edition of the Game came with a book (not roadside picnic), think it was about what happened before the game events. Not sure though, never read it.

Just found out: there are three Stalker novels out here in germany. cant find them in english though.

Twitch100

@spiderweb1986: Well I'm a rocket scientist so you should believe me over the chemical engineer.

(note: that was a lie)

As others have been saying, most of the Chernobyl area is not especially dangerous at least for short periods, though there are pockets which are. In order to avoid those, the group appear to have carried a radiation meter, since I assume that's a photo of one down there. Of course the fact there's a photo of it likely indicates there's high radiation in whatever area they took that photo...

From the Wikipedia article:

'Access to the zone for brief visits is, however, possible; day-tours are available to the public from Kiev.'

So, not just random STALKER fans; you too can go visit Chernobyl if you want.

quen

As I understand it, digging is a bad idea. Those little trenches they dug are likely the most dangerous part of the whole deal (unless they were eating squirrels or something).

valuepack

What confirmed it as "airsoft game" for me was the presence of MultiCam.

not_tom_brokaw

I like the pic that shows them trading, what? the "baked potato with sour cream" artifact? And you guys worrying about radiation? That is what vodka is for, silly.

Mega-Driven

@not_tom_brokaw: read into that as you will, ha ha.

not_tom_brokaw

I'm curious about that APC they look pics in. I thought most of the military equipment left in the zone were there due to soaking up a lot of radiation. Tanks, etc. can all be found there, but they're far too radioactive to sit on, or even get into.

They probably checked to see how radioactive the thing was before they started shooting it, but still, it just sort of gave me a bad feeling in my gut after I saw the gents screwing around inside it.

SnakeCL

Gotta love the pasty white sausage fingers on that guy.

Ma1agate

Umm yeah their testicles are probably going to fall off with in 2-3 weeks.

susurrate

@SnakeCL: I believe they brought the APC there themselves. All that is probably done with out oil money.

Mara

Holy crap... Chernobyl is just as ominous in real life... I mean, I've seen other pictures, but damn. They all look like that.

Nolano