PORTAL 2 (360, PS3, PC)

Back in 2007, valve software (a bunch of cool guys) released a game bundle containing all their source engine games to date (except CS:S. I don't like CS.) It had been called one of the greatest deals in gaming history, as it included the fast paced story driven shooter Half-Life 2 and it's standalone expansions, an ever-so-fun throwback to the good old days of multiplayer with Team Fortress 2, and finally the puzzling platformer Portal.

The original portal is very much a prototype. When compared to its sequel, you can see just how experimental it was. Not to say it was a bad game, though. Portal etched itself into the hearts and minds of gamers across the world with it's fantastic writing, challenging and inventive gameplay, and... Well, that's it, actually. The original portal was criticized for its length. It was a very, very short game.

Portal 2 hoped to remedy this by becoming more of an actual game. It felt much more finished than the first, with a larger cast of characters, bigger environments, and new gameplay elements. It seemed to have succeeded when it was released back in April to staggeringly good reviews. It currently holds a 95/100 on metacritic.com.

Of course, what you're really here to read is my opinion, not the opinion of some gitface that's all the way over in America. You want the pure 100% New Zealand beef instead of some smelly foreign meat.


Giving it to you may be a tricky feat, however. There's a lot to go over in portal 2, what with it's excellent writing, all-star voice cast, and huge production values.





Graphically, Portal 2 isn't likely to dazzle you. It's certainly no Crysis with dated textures here and there, the occasional blocky model or bad lighting effect but an attractive stylization keeps it afloat. You're certainly not going to forget what you see in the game, that's for sure. Most evident would have to be the characters.





Atlas (blue) and P-Body (orange) are the perfect pair of lovable rascals. You'll play these two in the game's new co-op multiplayer mode. Also new on the scene are Wheatley, a defective AI core and Cave Johnson, eccentric CEO of Aperture Science. They are voiced by Stephen Merchant (The Office) and J.K. Simmons (Spiderman movies) respectively. Ellen McLain returns as GLaDOS, the maniacal AI with a seemingly unending supply of deadpan humor.


Back in the land of graphics, there's an amazing amount of detail packed in. The game starts with you being thrown into a carefully reconstructed version of the first level from the first game. Portal 2 is set a long, long time after the first game (I think it was 200 years?) and you've just woken up out of cryogenic sleeping to find the science facility in ruins. The facility has become overgrown with plants, the walls and panels are dirty and covered in rubble, and everything has a very nice destroyed feeling to it. As you press onward through the game, you'll notice that the style of the environments subtly changes from the aforementioned destroyed look to a very clean, sleek appearance. You'll see less grime-covered panels and vines, and see more pristine, carefully built rooms.

Of course, they won't be pristine for much longer with the new gameplay elements. You'll have to do quite some redecorating before the game is over.





Take this stuff, for instance. This blue goop is the Repulsion Gel. It'll send you flying if you jump onto it. This is one of the aforementioned new gameplay elements. It would probably have to be my favorite, but it's tied with the Propulsion Gel, it's sister compound that is ludicrously slippery. Also new are the Thermal Discouragement Beams, high power lasers that can be used to fry sentry guns or power doors, and the Hard Light Bridges, solid surfaces constructed from solar energy.

The gels, beams, and light bridges all come together to form some truly great game design in Portal 2's puzzles. Each one of these is carefully done right down to what seems like every pixel. Sure, there's a few real headscratchers involved but give it some time, take a look around, and remember that you're holding a portal gun and you won't have much trouble. There's nothing quite as satisfying as getting everything into position, and executing your own brilliant plan.


Still, Portal 2 and it's puzzles will only truly work well when you get into the mood of it, and there's nothing better to help you do that than the music. Portal 2 utilizes a very inventive procedurally generated music system, where the music will crossfade into other soundbites or tracks depending in the player's actions. This could be things like the music picking up during an exciting moment, or slowly building in the background as you think up a plan. Most interesting is that the game's lead composer Mike Morasky has stated that at least one particular piece of music (and I quote) "only repeats itself every 76,911 years, 125 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes and 30.3 seconds.". While it might not sound like it, all the procedurally generated music feels fairly natural and definitely does build a sense of wonder, as you push that last box into place and finally see how to make that last, big jump.


Sadly, however, none of this can excuse Portal 2's biggest flaw: It's still short. Long games are becoming a thing of the past, what with things like the call of duty series becoming more about multiplayer and less of telling a good ol' action movie story and it seems that the Portal series is taking up permanent residence on the bandwagon.

The game does not have a lot of replay value, or a lot of content. Once you're done with the singleplayer, you'll probably move onto the multiplayer and then finish that up as well. That's that. No challenge maps, less than a handful of easter eggs, and an overall dissatisfaction. There's little point in replaying the game as you'll already know the solutions to all the puzzles, and the same goes for multiplayer. The only challenge there will be getting your moronic buddy to cooperate with you once you're done with it.

Portal 2 is a quality product that is definitely worth your time, but as I said nothing can excuse it's length. Still, if you're willing to look past that fact you'll have a wonderful time full of laughs and fun that you won't soon forget. It's just a shame it's over so soon.

Graphics - 9.0: Not quite the scenic vistas you'll see in other games, the game has an attractive style and well thought out environments.

Presentation - 9.0: Slick menus and a clean interface will help you enjoy the game with a great co-op interface.

Sound - 9.0: An inventive music system and well done sound effects are a pleasure to listen to, as well as the all-star voice cast that is endlessly hilarious.

Gameplay - 8.5: Not much has changed here, outside of refinements, clever design and excellent new elements.

Overall - 8.5

-leo

Good heavens, we've moved!

EDIT: wait wait wait

wait.

okay nevermind tumblr sucks and I'm going to bring my portal 2 review over here instead.



[deleted]

suddenly, tumblr. Head over to the new site and check the first post for details.

Woah.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2010-dark-millenium/101455

The second this comes out I'm dumping EVE.

Game Informer gives AvP low score, Gamers conclude reviewer is an idiot

Game informer's review on the new aliens vs. predator game appears to have been written by someone who hasn't even seen the movies. This article on Allegedly Speaking dissects the review and points out the flaws.

What's this?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Where I'm at right now

Edit: Forgot to mention that I took off the ads. They were very intrusive and weren't actually generating any cash.


Ah, new year, new batch of games.

As I begin my inevitable loss of interest in EVE online I looked into other MMO's. This time, it's warhammer online: age of reckoning. It's not the only warhammer-ish thing as of late, I bought dawn of war anthology a few weeks back.

I went for the retail version of warhammer online and struck gold.



Yes, that is the collector's edition of the game. This thing is scary huge. It's roughly as big as an xbox 360, and I think even a little heavier. It was on sale for $65 at electronics boutique (EB games) at the st. lukes westfield shopping center. Obvious plug, but that was an awesome deal you have to admit.


In other news, things have been going great - I finally managed to fix a busted partition on my hard drive (that was about 17.9 gb of unusable space)and added it back to the main partition.

How did I do it?

..Dunno, actually.


So, anyway - Warhammer 40k Dawn of War. Friggin' brilliant, if I say so myself. I didn't think squad-based real time strategy would be possible - if even such a thing existed - but I have been proven wrong.



WAAAGH!


Other than that, nothing much else has happened. Currently looking into buying mass effect 2 on steam.

Add me on steam if you want to, here's the link.

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197985100217

I'd just say my steam community name but there's about fifty different goddamn "penguin"s on there.


-leo

Half life 2 dragged kicking and screaming into 2010.

EDIT#2: Replaced the twitter widget and also changed the general layout of the blog.

EDIT: Just noticed that the twitter widget has broken and is now displaying whatever the hell it feels like. Hmm.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1093025

Now there's something you don't see everyday...

PS1 Emulation... on windows 7?

Technology these days, eh?

Earlier today I dug out my mangled old copy of Digimon World and got my old install of ePSXe running, loaded up a few plugins and it worked like a charm. I just wish I had looping eye of the tiger every time I entered the gym. It was made really enjoyable by the fact that I had managed to get my PS3 controller to work with it, thanks to the good chaps over at .

Their latest drivers allow you to emulate an xbox 360 controller using a PS3 controller. Works with most games, Left 4 Dead being the exception.


In other news, I've been playing about with a few games. Fallout 3, Overlord, Torchlight, James Cameron's Avatar: The Game...

Yes, a movie game. Despite what reviewers say it isn't actually that bad. It feels like ubisoft actually tried.

Tried being the key word, they still failed horribly.





oh god that buggy was the most horrible vehicle ever

Selling out

You'll notice ads on the site. This is because I plan to be rich.

Borderlands (360, PS3, PC)

There's guns. And guns. And guns. And more guns. And more guns. I could go on like this for about an hour.


BORDERLANDS is the highly anticipated four player co-op shooter which has been touted as Diablo for a new generation by cliffy B over at Epic Games. That's pretty high praise. He's right, however - Borderlands is a loot-driven experience which relies heavily on co-op and online play.

The premise follows the tale of four fortune hunters arriving on planet Pandora, a wasteland of sorts filled to the brim with scrapyards the size of football fields and angry wildlife. It's your job to take control of one of the four characters and lead them on their way to find the Vault, a massive stash of alien technology. It's been generally dismissed as a myth, but you are contacted by a mysterious woman who tells you the vault is real. It's a decent enough plot but it's not fleshed out terribly well and feels rather forgettable.


The gameplay, however, does not disappoint. The single thing I can state firmly about it is that it's fun. It's fun blasting bandits and raiders to pieces, it's fun dissecting skags with your favorite shotgun, it's fun making heads explode with a sniper rifle that fires explosive bullets. You'll be gleefully entertained as you pick up a revolver and begin showing people what their brains look like. It's a good thing the controls can keep up with the action most of the time, although control defaults are a bit odd. Melee is mapped to V? whaa?


My largest gripe with the game was that I experienced a few bugs. The PC version has terrible connectivity issues and gearbox are jamming their fingers in their ears and shouting. The xbox 360 version's matchmaking function would send you into games with players well below your level. There's a few other ones I don't feel like specifying. The PS3 version suffers from a bug which affects being able to invite people from your friends list, and that hampers the overall experience, as borderlands is a heavily cooperative game.

The world of pandora will seem very lonely without a few other players to help you through it. This is problematic, as stated with the issues above. It's playable in singleplayer, but do you really want to slog through the entire game without anyone to shoot stuff with?





Graphically, the game won't disappoint. It's got a lovely cell-shaded comic-y style that pretty much anyone can enjoy. If you think this'd tone down the violence to the game, you're wrong - Heads roll, skag bits fly, and you'll be electrifying people out of their skin.

You'll occasionally notice a few visual glitches, blurry textures and poor animation (find Scooter in New Haven. You'll know his creepy, inanimate face when you see it.) but it can be looked over to an extent. I've got an odd glitch on my widescreen monitor which seems to stretch past the model for the combat rifles. There's an odd gap between character's arms and the screen. I'll post a screenshot of it later. I'm hoping gearbox will patch it, it's surprisingly distracting.


The sound design, also, does not disappoint. There's the usual variety of boom, rat-a-tat-a-tat, kchunk kchunk kchunk, ka-pow and others which all make a good amount of the weapons sound appropriately beefy. It's all supported by some solid voice work and good music. The voice work is downright hilarious, especially with the psychos and other bandits. One thing I always love is Brick's maniacal giggling. The music is all done very well, and there's not much else to say about it. It'll change into a more actiony track when you're fighting a large group of enemies which is a nice detail.


Borderlands, with all it's 17.5 million different guns, is a very fun game. You'll definitely need some friends in order to have some lasting fun with it, however.

Presentation - 7.0

Gameplay - 8.7

Graphics - 8.5

Sound - 8.5

Overall - 8.7

A rant.

Remember S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl? I sure do. I'm here to rant about it s'more.

The nail-biting-keyboard-smashing-wall-destroying-controller-breaking difficulty was my biggest gripe with the game. The one thing I have no tolerance for is important quest NPC's being killable. I must have loaded my game about five times trying to save that bastard Seriy before giving up.


Onto the bigger and better subject. Call of Pripyat, the new game in the series. Guess what - The difficulty isn't insane. Yes, you read that right. Although I must admit I've been desensitized to difficulty after Demon's Souls. I share a love/hate relationship with that game. It's a good game, just makes me want to load a puppy onto a catapult and calculate exactly how far the yappy little bugger flies. Go have a look at it if you want, just be ready to make a head-sized hole in your wall.


Anyway, call of pripyat - The game's out in russia right now. And that means it's in russian. And that means we can't buy it anywhere other than russia.

Torrents are fun.

Yes, I will admit to 'pirating' the game. I'd prefer to look at it as gamer's interest. So, anyway - It isn't translated. So you know what some guys did? Ran the entire bloody game through google translate.



Now that's pretty lazy. Thankfully, there is a much, much better translation available. No voice work has been translated but any text is now actually readable without you shouting "what the дерьмо am I reading".

Nevertheless, the game is a large step up from shadow of chernobyl (and even, oh god, clear sky). It is no longer frustratingly hard to find medical supplies and items, and quest npc's no longer walk into bullets.

Oh, and there's hotkeys now. Yay, no more rustling around in my inventory while I'm being shot at.


Sheesh. This has turned from a rant into a bloody overview of the game. I think I'll end it here for the moment but I'll never be done ranting about the stalker series.

Demon's Souls (PS3)

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH


ASDFGI;HONETRYIJHPOWR3YKMES4DRFJKNLMEGDRFJKLGSDFGHSDFGHSFJKOL

J;PLSDFHETWRY07UPO984653IUPOATSDFJ.,KNLMIHUOHDJBKNLGASFAVSFGT7O8YJKLEWRFIU84259ETW4R3Y78HJH

-098T46509J;OLCZBVSKDN;GAWSDOLFIN
QTUYW492IJGBHSFBJI;HUOEJAHF;JKL'GBNJGSNF



THERE'S YOUR REVIEW








Fine. I'll make an actual review later.

Dead Space Extraction (Wii)

If cloverfield made you sick, this is not the game for you.




Gasp! What is this? Another wii game that doesn't overuse waggle? This must be a gift from the heavens! Altman be praised!

Heh heh. Unitology. But yes. Waggle is not overused. I want to hug the man who designed the controls for the game.


Dead Space Extraction takes place in the media hub that is the Dead Space franchise. The series is a cake made of win and the icing is made of success. All the content of the series (thus far) takes place around a single event: the Aegis 7 mining expedition. They found something. Something dark. Something evil. But enough about my brother's armpits. The colony found a marker. No one knows where it came from, why it's here, etc but digging it up unearthed something that also is not my brother's armpits. Now before I turn this into a rant about how bad he smells I'll just get on with the actual plot.

You play several different characters throughout the game attempting to survive an alien onslaught and escape. You'll fight the horiffic Necromorphs, who are quite different from your average space zombies. For one thing the only way to kill them is to brutally dismember them, limb from bloody limb.


"y halo thaaaaAAAAAAAAGH"

Yes, the series is quite gruesome.


The gameplay is where the game shines. It's another rail shooter (chrissakes we've got enough of those on the wii, why make more?) but at least they've broken the mold to an extent. More on that later. It's all the pretty standard formula - Baddies rush at you, blast their ugly heads in. It's actually surprisingly fun as you tear enemies asunder with an array of commandeered mining tools, such as the Ripper and Plasma Cutter. I mean, this stuff is awesome. The ripper is a remote control circular saw. If that doesn't sound awesome I don't what is. All the weapons are entertaining to use which is a good thing. It's great fun ripping a slasher's legs apart with a blast from the Line Gun.

The quality of the gameplay can only carry a game so far, however. I encountered a few bugs on my trip through the ishimura. The worst of which was a game stopper which had a bossfight stuck like a broken record. No game is free of bugs, but even then - That's pretty bad.

A co-op function is also included with the game. Ammo is not shared. Health is. It can be pretty fun at points, but it's mostly rather strange having two pointers waving about on screen. Things get slightly easier as well as one might expect, with two people gunning through.


The game sounds fantastic. Music is there when it needs to be, appropriately spooky and very well made. There's an excellent voice cast to back that up, as well. Everything from distressed yelling to barking out orders sounds great. The characters are about as fleshed out as they can be considering this a rail shooter but the voice work makes them seem like believable people. The sound design, too, doesn't disappoint. It's very satisfying hearing the disgusting splatch of a necromorph's arm being blown out of it's socket with an equally awesome sounding plasma rifle. The best part of the sound design is when you're in a vacuum. The game, with it's predecessor, was designed with great intelligence. Hull breach shows up? zwoosh, the entire game goes silent. Remember, no sound in space. It builds up a hell of an atmosphere, again, like it's predecessor.


Graphically the game is among the best on the wii. Alot of the animation is fluid with character models looking great. I have a single complaint about the game. Blurry textures. Oh wait, we're on the wii. It'll be difficult to find something that doesn't have blurry textures. Nevertheless - The major disappointments are just a few blurry textures but that comes with the hardware. The design around the environments is amazing. They've looked through the previous game and recreated many key areas such as the medical wing, shuttle bay, tram systems so that they look like they areas that you'll have to run through in the original. There's the off occasion where I forget I'm playing on the wii and have the odd flashback to my first run through the original. Design on the tech also looks great with all the mining tools looking quite space-y.

The entire game takes place from a shaky first person view as your character stumbles about. It gets a bit dizzying at points and tends to obscure ammo on the off occasion. There's a few points when you get to look around the rooms freely but they don't last nearly long enough.


There was alot of hype leading up to extraction with many seeing the transition to the wii as an utter failure. They can go walk off a cliff, as the game didn't actually suck. If you've got a wii and a spare 70 bucks, here's something to buy.


Design - 8.5 An awesome universe and well made content make the whole franchise a blast.

Graphics - 8.0 Looks great. For the Wii.

Sound - 9.0 The game sounds amazing with awesome sounds and music.

Gameplay - 8.5 It's a ton of fun as you fight for survival against hordes of space zombies.

Overall - 8.6



No necromorphs were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Wait ten minutes and I'll write a review for dead space extraction.

Yes, yes. I'm still here. Lord only knows how many of you are still following my blog, but suffice to say I haven't died, gone missing, been sucked into an alternate dimension, eaten by cthulhu, had my mind flayed, or been outwitted by guybrush threepwood.

So, nothing much has happened, really. Just been chugging few a through games. Dead Space Extraction, specifically. I preordered the hell out of that thing and have not regretted it. Any gamers reading this should go and look up the dead space franchise, actually. It's fantastic stuff.

Wii Sports Resort (or, OH GOD WHY AM I REVIEWING THIS)

I LIED AGAIN


Wow. I don't even know where to start with this one. It was loaned to me for a week and I played about 20 minutes before heading off to play fallout 3.

So, as you might expect it's a followup to Wii Sports, the game that shipped with the wii to show off the motion tech. This time they've stepped it up a notch by including the Wii Motion Plus, a new addition which fits onto the regular wiimote controller. It basically fancies up the motion control.

And yes, it's a collection of minigames like the previous one. A few of them are fun such as the swordfighting and there's a few that you'll get bored of in ten minutes and never play again, such as the Archery.

Alot of the minigames are multiplayer but the downside is that you'll need extra motion plus addons for each other remote. Kind of sucks.


The visual style is that cheery little mii style as used in wii sports and wii play. There really isn't alot to say.


Audio-wise the game isn't too bad but there's some annoying commentator voice pieces and a few music bits that loop until they rot your brain.


Boredom factor - 5.0

How much I want to play something else - 7.5

How much I wonder what the release date for the next metroid game is - 10

How much fun I could be having playing tiberium wars - 8.0

The game itself - 7.5

This is a joke review because my father insists that I review it. He didn't specify how I did.

I dunno, maybe I'm just not a fan of party games that are nothing but a ton of minigames.

-leo

Updates. Soon.

Coming up next, either Fat Princess (PS3) or American Mcgee's Alice (PC/MAC).

Alice. That was a fun one.

Tim Burton would've looked at it and said "woah fuck that".

In the meantime, here's what I've been playing for the last fortnight.



EVE online. Yeah.

Oh look, I still exist

Yes I'm aware of how long it's been. A few weeks back I picked up a nasty stomach bug. I counted how many times I barfed that night. Ten. Ten times.

I hate nature.

And right after that, I picked up a nasty cold. Yeesh. That cold has persisted to this date.

In short, sorry for the lack of updates. I've been very sick and very busy with other games.

To tide you over, here's some TF2 related humor.



That song is all too true.

I'm still here.

Went to see Terminator Salvation last yesterday, picked up killzone 2 today. Fun.

Killzone 2 is fun, spectacular graphics and exciting gameplay. First impressions are good.

Here's another video of that awesome cat. Remember him and his bag?



Funny kitty.

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 (PC, PS3, 360)

Screw you, gametrailers. The bots are fun to play with.


The latest in the line of the most popular series of competitive games, Unreal Tournament 3 doesn't take a step in the right direction. That's not a bad thing, because it gets comfy where it is and makes what it's got damn good. There just isn't alot new.


UT3 takes us back into the undefined world of destruction, carnage, tournaments, and guns. Lots of guns. Especially explosive ones. Alot of the weapons are quite tricky to handle, as none of them can be used effectively against another. It's all very balanced. You can grab one gun, get good at it and then snag another and be just as proficient. Of course, the guy with the rocket launcher is going to beat the guy with the pistol by a longshot but that's common fact. All of the weapons are designed cleverly, everything feels very weighted and satisfying to shoot, even down to the little old enforcer pistol. A favourite of mine would have to be the Flak Cannon, the game's substitute for a shotgun. This thing is great.



What's not to love about a four-pronged device of death that launches white-hot chunks of metal?


Yes, the multiplayer's there. Yes, it's fast-paced and carnage-heavy. And yes, it's a ton of fun. Considering the game's age (2007) you'd be surprised, but people are still playing it. It seems not everyone has shuffled back over to halo and cod4. With an external map editor, there's some hilarious maps to be played. I recall one time I played team deathmatch in a giant bathroom. No joke. The worst that I got from it was minor connection issues, but that can be fixed by simply finding another server.



The gameplay is what it's all about. Frenzied combat with a whole armory of weapons. Epic games got this part just right. Every kill you make is, simply put, satisfying. Things take a twist for the better when you download the free "Titan" content pack and upgrade to UT3 black.

The map design is flat-out awesome. Sure, it's all pretty standard deathmatch fare but the appearance of them all is just spectacular. One of my favourites would be [name forgotten], in which you're hopping through portals to reach a tropical waterfall, a high-up tower in a tech city, and a frozen wasteland in the middle of nowhere. There's a few low-grav maps to be found, as well - One has you dueling atop a series of asteroids linked together by a series of bridges.

Now the Mutators, a returning function is where things get awesome. You can change all of the gameplay variables such as making only headshots kill or giving everyone big heads. The best of the bunch is the Titan, which allows players to transform into hulking behemoths with even bigger guns. It's hilarious seeing 2-3 titans duke it out across a huge bridge in vehicle CTF.

I haven't commented on the vehicles yet, have I? Well, their design is as spectacular as the levels. A new faction, the Necris, have their own personal assortment of war of the worlds tripods, weird flyer thingies, and a ball. That's right, a ball. It bowls into people at the speed of sound.



Every texture in UT3 is very well drawn, as well as every model being very well rendered. There's an odd touch to the graphics that I can't put my finger on that makes everything seem antiquated. It's weird. Maybe there's too much bloom. Still, though - the graphics are all very good, and there's parts of the game that look simply beautiful. Now with graphics like that, you'd be expecting some high system requirements. Nope. Everything is bizarrely configurable. Of course, this leads to on-the-fly rendering so when starting a game you'll just have to wait a moment. That just comes with the engine though.



The sound design also fits quite well. Every sound effect matches it's place very well, and there's mighty fine selection of frantic combat music that plays when the shooting begins. I don't really have much to comment about on this subject.


Like I mentioned earlier UT3 features a map editor, which has also been used to develop mods and the like. Snowreal is a funny example with players snowboarding down mountains in a race.



UT3 doesn't bring alot new to the FPS world, but that's not a bad thing. It does very well with and improves on what it's got.


Presentation - 7.9 A hashed together campaign and somewhat unexplained world don't detract much.

Graphics - 8.6 Fantastic design and spectacular locales are backed by low system requirements.

Sound - 8.5 Very good! That's it.

Gameplay - 8.8 It's frantic, it's crazy, and it's a lot of fun.

Overall - 8.5


-leo

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

RIGHT, ZOG THE WHOLE REVIEW - I HAVE CONCLUDED THAT OBLIVION LOST JUST SUCKS.




!HOLD IT!

This review was conducted using Oblivion Lost, a huge modification to the game which restored alot of cut and lost content. If I get something wrong from the vanilla version, then don't blame me.



What happened?


S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is another one of those games that just sat in development hell for years, with the developers planning to make a quality product upon it's very, very late release.

Oh, they had a late release alright. But "quality" doesn't fit.

Yeah.


The story of stalker focuses around the "Zone of Alienation", located in Chernobyl. The whole premise is that after the accident happened the place turned into a genuine hell filled with bandits, mutants, wild creatures and deadly pockets of radiation. You play as the "Marked One", a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. That stands for "Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber". You are one of many, as there's lots of other stalkers in the zone. Not everyone is friendly, some won't mind you, and others will gun you down on sight.


Since the whole premise of the game is focused around a giant nuclear accident, there's plenty of angry mutants which are out for blood. Alot of the designs were very clever; alot of them are genuinely pretty creepy. There's the dwarves, these stumpy little bastards who will blast you away with concentrated bursts of air. Watch for the brown coats and glowing eyes. One that I also liked was the, uh... I never actually caught it's name. It's some sort of invisible monster that appears only as a floating ball of electricity. The creature itself appears to be missing legs and just hovers around on it's awesomeness, throwing stuff at you.

Yeah, that's it.


The gameplay was where everything fell flat on it's face purely because of the difficulty. Seriously, someone had real fun messing the difficulty up.

The game could be considered a very primitive version of fallout 3, considering it's setting and ideas as well as it's style of gameplay. There's a section of stealth elements which are a fairly neat idea but they're a little too tricky to pull of successfully, as everyone just spots you and shoots you in the face. The shootouts are where it picks up a little, as the AI is actually really good. They'll take cover, aim carefully, and even try to flank you. This is a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, it's good that they have a competent AI but adding that to all the other difficulty problems is a serious issue. It really doesn't help that about 10 bullets is enough to kill you, and you'll be facing groups of 6-10 enemies at once.


There's a hunger system.

F#@k.


Every single bullet that hits you causes you to start bleeding which results in you constantly losing health. And it's not just bullets, anything with teeth, claws, or a weapon will cause you to start bleeding. And the bleeding doesn't stop. You have to get bandages for that and FOR CHRIST'S SAKE keep these is good supply! They're far too hard to find.

And then there's the radiation. If you don't have armor with a gasmask you're completely screwed. Gasmask armor also helps with the Anomalies, weird visual distortions that turn out to be vicious. When you put everything together you just don't have fun because of the pure difficulty of keeping everything in check.


On a different note, the sound design wasn't too shabby. The game was seriously lacking in music (no, really. I can't remember any music playing.) which is a bit sad as I always like a good tune while I'm blowing things up. As the game is focused around the whole chernobyl accident, as you can expect, it would be pretty scary. As such, you'll hear a good set of clings, clangs, and clongs to go with the spooky atmosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of foley was used as there's some fairly good sound effects when you're not exploring underground laboratories infested with angry monsters. The sound design works very well with all the other elements in the game. Except for the gameplay.


Stalker was a bit lacking in the visual department, with some blurry textures and outdated effects. Character models were simplistic and blocky. It's all governed by a somewhat dull physics engine that causes ragdolls to twist, turn, and jump about. The game's also a goddamn resource hog, with some quite ridiculous system requirements. It's pulled a bit of an unreal tournament 3 as the graphics are very configurable, though. That's a plus.

A few parts of the game are told through some pre-rendered cinematics. They don't look too bad, but I've seen better.


It's worth noting that stalker is big. Really big. The Zone is actually a really big area and it's filled with more side quests than I can count. It's mostly just tedious stuff like kill stuff over there, run from point A to point B but it's nice to have a big amount of other stuff to do. I'll be damned if I can figure out what the plot is, though. Apparently, you're supposed to kill the Strelok. Who he is, why you want to kill him is far beyond me.


S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl definitely didn't reach my expectations. They weren't even all that high. The sheer difficulty steers the game off course and into a ditch.


Design - 7.9 Spooky monsters and a good atmosphere make the game fairly exciting.

Graphics - 7 I've seen better, I've seen worse..

Gameplay - 5.0 The difficulty. Seriously.

Sound - 7.8 Good sound effects keep the game in check, but the lack of music is problematic.

Overall - 6.8