Now THOSE GUYS know how to LARP. Can you get more authentic than going to FUCKING CHERNOBYL itself? That’s insane. And they brought super realistic looking airsoft guns. Security there must be pretty lax. But what shots!
This has me totally pumped for Clear Skies. I don’t think the publisher could get better publicity than this. They need to pay these guys some money for their shots.
Edit: One more pic, though you should look at them all. Some could be wallpapers/loading screens for the game. This one shows clearly it was some kind of awesome LARP, as they have set up an anomaly and a stash:
Radiation levels have dropped to safe limits in most areas around the site now. So there’s little danger from that anymore, either, as long as you don’t stay too long (meaning move in, I suppose).
I’m surprised that they got permission to go into the Zone of Alienation that far. From what I’ve heard it takes a few bribes to get into the zone period, but VERY rarely do they let people get very close to the power plant itself. And on top of it, they didn’t just show up to take some pictures, these guys are running around with guns and digging holes and setting up tents and wearing funny makeup and stuff. I’m really surprised the Russians had so much patience with them, heh.
Stalker was a cool game though, definitely some badass atmosphere there. I’m looking forward to Clear Sky. My only complaint is that it’s one of those games where you slap your forehead and think “How in the hell could they NOT have put multiplayer coop into this game?!”.
Thanks for the link though :) I’ve got a friend who really digs Stalker, I’ll forward it along.
It’s basically some guy that lives over there who sneaks into the Zone on his motorcycle to take little photo tours of the place. There’s some really awesome pictures in there that really capture the look and feel of that place, I think. There are tons and tons of pictures and plenty of narration to go along with them, so I’d recommend hitting up that link if you’re even remotely interested in the subject matter :)
Great pictures, but I smell something fishy… Apart from that first shot of Chernobyl, with an anonymous foot in it, all the pictures could have been taken anywhere in northern Ukraine, and nowhere near the reactor. Is it not possible they used one stock photo of a soldier walking near Chernobyl and then just took pictures in the woods north of Kiev?
Her motorcycle. But yeah that’s a really cool photo journal and it’s what got me interested in Stalker in the first place. Maybe she’s a stealth viral marketer!
However, describing it as LARPing and cosplay (gag) is indescribably lame. What these guys did is to LARPing as felling a mighty redwood is to whittling.
When I read about tours to Chernobyl, the radiation levels measured by geiger counters placed on the floor in the authorised areas were almost 2000. That picture could have been taken on an authorised tour some distance from the reactor. That doesn’t mean that all the other pictures were taken nearby. The other pictures look like they were taken on a military training area.
Hmm. Looking at the current incarnation of the site, it looks like she toned down a lot of the more outrageous inventions. The photos are of Chernobyl; just don’t think that there was a motorcycle involved in taking most of them.
