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argurotoxosI've been watching more Let's Plays* during meals than playing any games. Though I upgraded to the latest Thief II patch, I hadn't even been playing any Thief fan missions.
This past weekend I started up The Dark Mod on my newest laptop to finish a mission, "The Transaction" by Sotha, that I started months ago. It wasn't a very clean playthrough, but coming back to stealth play was a lovely experience. I've been playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl about once a month and slowly making progress. While I quite like the atmosphere and environments, sometimes the gameplay wears on me and I tend to run away from enemies as often as I confront them. The strangest thing about that game, however, is the NPC interface, which is so rudimentary that it feels misplaced, like it came out of the 1990s, when everything else is clearly 2000s.
*FenPhoenix's Thief II: The Metal Age, shadyparadox's Myst III: Exile, and Dilandau3000's Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity (which I played years ago and is much less exciting than I remember).
The priest's quarters in a Builder temple from Sotha's "The Transaction". This screencap was slightly sized down and the gamma was adjusted. For comparison, see the screencap below, from Fidcal's "Thief's Den", to see how much my resolution increased between laptops.
From S.T.A.L.K.E.R. -- the vehicle graveyard in Garbage. I love the weather effects and day/night cycles, though the downpour in this screencap isn't very clear.
One of many abandoned and worn buildings.
At Cordon near the start of the game. Look at that sky!
When I see a landscape like this, I want to run around and explore everything. My favourite thing about Shadow of Chernobyl thus far is that it largely takes place in wide, outdoor areas. It's a very pleasant change of pace from the mostly-urban and building-focused design of most games. It's not an accident that almost all of my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. screencaps are of landscapes, and not of action scenes, or even with a weapon drawn.
(On a related note, I've always wished there were more outdoor Pagan-centric Thief fan missions, such as Thief II's "Trail of Blood".)
This past weekend I started up The Dark Mod on my newest laptop to finish a mission, "The Transaction" by Sotha, that I started months ago. It wasn't a very clean playthrough, but coming back to stealth play was a lovely experience. I've been playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl about once a month and slowly making progress. While I quite like the atmosphere and environments, sometimes the gameplay wears on me and I tend to run away from enemies as often as I confront them. The strangest thing about that game, however, is the NPC interface, which is so rudimentary that it feels misplaced, like it came out of the 1990s, when everything else is clearly 2000s.
*FenPhoenix's Thief II: The Metal Age, shadyparadox's Myst III: Exile, and Dilandau3000's Star Trek: The Next Generation - A Final Unity (which I played years ago and is much less exciting than I remember).
The priest's quarters in a Builder temple from Sotha's "The Transaction". This screencap was slightly sized down and the gamma was adjusted. For comparison, see the screencap below, from Fidcal's "Thief's Den", to see how much my resolution increased between laptops.
From S.T.A.L.K.E.R. -- the vehicle graveyard in Garbage. I love the weather effects and day/night cycles, though the downpour in this screencap isn't very clear.
One of many abandoned and worn buildings.
At Cordon near the start of the game. Look at that sky!
When I see a landscape like this, I want to run around and explore everything. My favourite thing about Shadow of Chernobyl thus far is that it largely takes place in wide, outdoor areas. It's a very pleasant change of pace from the mostly-urban and building-focused design of most games. It's not an accident that almost all of my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. screencaps are of landscapes, and not of action scenes, or even with a weapon drawn.
(On a related note, I've always wished there were more outdoor Pagan-centric Thief fan missions, such as Thief II's "Trail of Blood".)
