What single player FPS campaign are you playing?

[Ack]

I managed to save Skull and wiped out those Freedom hippies in my game. You've definitely gotten into the meat of the game by now, and the intensity is going to keep ramping up as you continue. Just wait for the forest.

Oh, in vanilla STALKER, the knife is still useful for taking out a few things, like Flesh (the pigs), Snorks (if you can catch them right after they leap and are turning around), and controllers (if you make it close enough). In the later mods, it becomes more useful...except against controllers, who will rape you if you get up close. At least, that's how I remember it.

Of the three, Call of Pripyat is the superior game in my opinion. Clear Sky is more of the same with Shadow of Chernobyl, except with that crappy faction system and what felt like a terrible end game experience. There were some intense moments I had during it, but I've got stories about all three of those games in which they fucked with me.

Oh, and don't worry about your Stalker rating or which ending you get in vanilla STALKER. It's something that screws up a lot.

=============================================

For the record, I just played through Deus Ex 3. It was interesting, and overall I'd say a better experience than the second game. I liked it. In particular I liked the last level, where I finally had the opportunity to open up with that heavy rifle I'd been wanting to use. It's got its interesting array of morality choices, and there is definitely some nice firepower available. The enhancements...well, some of them are gamechangers in my opinion, and its unlikely that you'll be able to get enough praxis points to pick them all up in a single play through.

[Xeogred]

The really annoying thing, is that I think the Freedom mission "Kill the Duty Camp" might be broken for me too... can anyone confirm that one as well? It's still stuck on the second of the three mission points, and the second one is "Kill the Duty Camp" or something, and I haven't been able to find that Freedom guy back at their camp to talk to him or anything. Like I said earlier, I let the Freedom guys do their thing and didn't kill any of the Duty guys, but maybe that was another mistake...

I noticed a knife to the back of a human enemy can be an instant kill. I've been wanting to kill that stalker that's right at the gate of the Freedom camp, but... that's the thing, kill him and the entire camp turns on me. You think I'd be missing any good missions or anything if I just kill them? I've now got the Duty on my Friendly side and got one of their armors, best armor I've had so far I think, though I see some really awesome ones at the bar now... super expensive though.

Anyways I agree about Deus Ex HR. Since I replayed Invisible War directly after, it was still fun, but yeah Deus Ex HR was the better experience and about 3x as long. I still think it almost felt more... Metal Gear Solid than Deus Ex at times, but yeah HR was all around a great game and it'll be great for replaying I'm sure. I'd be down for those devs to make another game, but wait... is the sequel already here? ... lol.

[Pulsar_t]

Really looking forward to Syndicate.. As for HR, the DLC is priced a bit too steeply. I wonder if it uses my savegame? Because I no longer have it And bang on with the MGS (esp. 2)/DXHR similarities.. Even the endings were similar, but nothing tops MGS2's zaniness

Good thing I haven't replayed any MGS yet.. The HD collection is going to be sweet indeed.

[Hobie-wan]

You've definitely gotten into the meat of the game by now, and the intensity is going to keep ramping up as you continue. Just wait for the forest.

Indeed, the forest and the area to the west of it were very cool.

[Xeogred]

I hated it! Well the forest was pretty cool, but other than that... man, radiation and anomalies out the ass in these areas. There was so much Monolith everywhere too, ran low on ammo a lot.

Honestly I didn't hate it, it was a good challenge after things were getting pretty easy for awhile. I just disabled the scorcher or whatever in the underground base of that map, awesome stuff.

Also things keep getting weirder on the technical side. Monsters are "Friendly" status now, and I don't know if this was supposed to happen but mercs starting popping up in the bar. So they're going around killing Stalkers everywhere, get in my face, then I shoot one and then the whole bar (outside of Duty) wanted me dead. lol, wtf.

[Hobie-wan]

So they're going around killing Stalkers everywhere, get in my face, then I shoot one and then the whole bar (outside of Duty) wanted me dead. lol, wtf.

Absolutely positively do not shoot anywhere 'in town' there or everyone will go hostile and you will die.

[Xeogred]

Too late, they couldn't take me though and the Duty faction didn't care at all. Most of the Stalkers on the entire bar map are dead now though thanks to the few mercs that went crazy or something. I'm just glad the actual bar area is still a weapons free safe haven and that's where my biggest stash of excess items is, heh.

[Ack]

Oh no, they can still open up on you in the bar. I've had stuff follow me in there before to the point I had to cower in a back room and pray whatever it was wandered away while gun battles blazed on around me.

Since you're almost there, just be wary of Monolith's snipers, and understand that the actual reactor is NOT a nice place. My first time beating STALKER, I literally booked it through the entire final segment while knocking back vodka like a champ because I was trying to beat my increasing radiation level.

[Xeogred]

I beat it and got some pretty weird ending. As you said that part was NOT fun at all, even with really good armor there were times when I was getting headshotted or something and dying instantly, had to keep the radiation off constantly for awhile, and yeah. It was kind of ruthlessly challenging and not that fun honestly. I liked the stuff outside of the reactor with the helicopters around and stuff, but inside was a pain in the ass. Wish the game had some Rad-Away (or was it Rad-X?) that could give you some temporary immunity to the radiation.

I went with the weird C-C ending, but just watched the other choice on youtube. People seem to be saying these are the true two endings or something? I did get the Decoder at the apartment along the way... I think I used it... not sure, lol.

Great game all around.

[MrPopo]

If you didn't have something horrible happen to your character then you did manage to use the decoder properly.