What single player FPS campaign are you playing?

[Ack]

Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat are actually stand alone games, not expansions. That said, Clear Sky is pretty much a regurgitation of the original Shadow of Chernobyl with a couple of new areas, a modification system for weapons, and a faction system that GSC wanted to implement in the original but didn't get to. While some of my favorite experiences playing the series actually came from Clear Sky, it's ultimately just slightly modified rehash of the original and is generally considered the weakest of the series. It also ends with a horrendous railroading of the player.

Call of Pripyat however completely redoes the Zone. Instead of numerous smaller sections, CoP features three much larger areas with a central "town" for stalkers to visit. You effectively accept quests and go exploring, where you may stumble across random stashes, fields of anomalies and artifacts, other stalkers wandering the landscape, etc. The weapon mod system has been changed a bit and improved in my opinion, a couple new enemies were added, AI was improved overall, and random emissions from the reactor will occur which will lead to artifacts reappearing around the map.

Personally, I think the first is the best, but Call of Pripyat built on it in ways that I liked a lot. It's obvious too that the devs were paying attention to the mod community based on what they implemented. Also you have a greater chance of discovering some strange stuff due to the openness of the world. I remember at one point in the second large area seeing what I thought was a bandit walking down the street. I snuck up and surprised him by bursting out of a bush, only to discover it was actually a controller that I was now pointblank with. I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could past the "town" area with traders and the like. Later I returned to the "town" and discovered bodies of stalkers everywhere; the controller had tried to follow me and slaughtered at least half a dozen guys before going down.

[Exhuminator]

I remember at one point in the second large area seeing what I thought was a bandit walking down the street. I snuck up and surprised him by bursting out of a bush, only to discover it was actually a controller that I was now pointblank with. I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could past the "town" area with traders and the like. Later I returned to the "town" and discovered bodies of stalkers everywhere; the controller had tried to follow me and slaughtered at least half a dozen guys before going down.

I love emergent gameplay like that. Thanks for the breakdown Ack. I'll skip Clear Sky and kick it with Call of Pripyat eventually. I've got the GOG version.

[MrPopo]

Ack gave a pretty good summary. Call of Pripyat is definitely worth playing. I think my favorite thing about it was there were large areas riddled with anomalies that you then had to navigate your way through to get some sort of reward (either a sweet gun or some nice artifacts).

[Xeogred]

I keep forgetting about Call of Pripyat as well. Last I tried playing it (maybe on my last PC) it wasn't working too well for some reason so I only got like an hour in. I'll have to give it a shot and assume there's maybe some good "Complete" mods for it now too? However I did notice it felt like they changed the combat just enough to feel different... and maybe not as awesome? Who knows. Now I definitely want to play CoP asap.

A Deus Ex / Unreal level beginning track if I'd say so, I remember instantly drowning in the atmosphere... until the game kept crashing.


I played a bit of Clear Sky and yeah, I have no regrets in giving up on that one. It's totally different and not in a good way. But as Ack said, I always hear great things about CoP but most seem to prefer the original.

[MrPopo]

I actually got CoP at release and started off with one of the "Complete" style mods that had been quickly ported from the Russian version.

[Xeogred]

So Game Informer's podcast lately has been doing this Game Club, ie Together Retro-esque thing lately with some games over a span of some episodes, and they're hitting up Deus Ex Human Revolution now.

The reception on their end has been strongly... negative.
"This is the game we loved in 2011?"

Made me think of Exhum's recent experience going through it. I guess there's no denying it's not perfect and there are things I dislike about the gameplay, but I think a lot of other strengths redeem it tenfold for me. There is no denying the gunplay in the original Deus Ex is just flat out terrible haha, but I love it and still go back to it for everything else.

I've been thinking of replaying HR myself before Mankind Divided drops, but I'm not sure. The game burns me out by the time I reach the end of it so I wonder if it would diminish Mankind Divided. The hacking really gets to me big time, but it's practically required because of all the exp you get from it. Not a fan of the 3rd person elements at all either, which stupidly carried over to Thief 4 as well. The last time I replayed it was with the Wii U version when that came out, so I guess it's been 2-3 years or something.

Dishonored comparisons were inevitable between their crew and I think they just kind of confirm my suspicions that that game ... does do a lot of things a lot better. It's arguable a bit less on the RPG elements and NPC stuff, kind of like the original Deus Ex vs Thief or System Shock 2, so they are different flavors, but yeah. Dishonored just continues to feel like a flawless masterpiece in my eyes. With the exception that the rewards system is unfairly unbalanced, with there being very limited options for non-lethal, but doing high chaos gets you the bad ending. They mentioned that as both a weakness to Deus Ex HR and Dishonored. Luckily Arkane has mentioned that they took that criticism to heart and Dishonored 2 will probably be more rewarding on both sides.

I'm just rambling but I'm just super curious to see how things shakedown between Mankind Divided and Dishonored 2. While Mankind Divided is a bit more my thing at a glance, Dishonored 2 might be the real deal in the long run. Watching new trailers for both games is kind of shocking, with Dishonored 2 oozing with style, but Mankind Divided is looking kind of ... vanilla and plain.

[Ack]

Human Revolution came out five years ago?

Where does the time go?

[Xeogred]

In fairness it had the Wii U release in late 2013 along with the Directors Cut, so it feels like it's still been out more recently.

I wrapped up both the Doom 3 expansions yesterday and Metro 2033. Both Metro games can easily be played together and feel like one big game. I'm not sure which I liked more. 2033 seems to focus a bit more on the monster stuff and had more surface areas which I love, whereas Last Light focused more on the politics with the factions, though it's second half started getting pretty supernatural as well. Both games easily had some damn good endings for sure. My friend tells me they are or want to make a third game so hopefully it happens, I'm finally a fan.

Doom 3's The Lost Mission almost looks current gen with how insanely detailed the levels are. It has less frustrating parts than Resurrection of Evil, but that one had some cool new locations and environments. Both are a nice bonus if you're a fan of the main game. They also have a Super Shotgun, but it doesn't seem that good to me.

I definitely want Doom 4-2, but I'd also love to get an Old Blood / RoE styled expansion too. Just ANYTHING, I NEED MORE!

[Exhuminator]

Dishonored just continues to feel like a flawless masterpiece in my eyes.

I can't remember right now, but did you play through Thief 1 & 2?

[Xeogred]

How could you forget I'm one of the few here who'd type up pages about them?

I've played and beaten all four.

Dishonored is the ultimate successor to those games in every way. Just straight up feels like something Looking Glass would make in 2012.