So I wake up next to my lady friend and some cuddlage happens. Shortly afterwards, she reaches over for her laptop and boots up Portal. Win.

Anyone old enough to remember the entirety of the 90's surely will have heard of the legendary band Five Iron Frenzy. Actually, that's not true because nobody listened to what I did 20-ish years ago. Five Iron Frenzy is one of the most talented ska bands to ever walk the face of the earth and they managed to garner one of the largest fanbases of any band in the history of the world.

New Song:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odyr5GaHPy0&list=FLdW1UWmaLP82k1Y4hilGvOw&feature=mh_lolz

http://fiveironfrenzy.com/

I'm excited :)

The conversation went something like this:

Killshot: Name a game under $20 on Steam

Me (with absolutely no hesitation): STALKER: Call of Pripyat

KS: Check your Steam gifts. Merry Christmas.

Me: Wait, just like that?

KS: Yep.

Me: Sweet, thanks!

--------------------------------Mini-ish Review-------------------------------------------------

My internet caps around 180 kbps download speed so I just finished downloading a few hours ago. Call of Pripyat is the closest thing to a sequel that STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl had. The STALKER series is primarily known for being incredibly buggy, though not as bad as many games such as Call of Cthulu; for an immersive open-worldy-survival-horror-shooter-RPG-stealthy experience, and for not being very well known. Shadow of Chernobyl (SoC) is one of my all-time favorite shooters and is one of the best games I've ever played. Add to that a dedicated fan base that released the STALKER Complete 2009 mod that fixed 90% of the glitches, bugs, and AI wonkiness and you've got an incredible gaming experience and one of the more varied ways to spend a gaming session.

Call of Pripyat (CoP), from my 3-ish hours of playing on one of the higher difficulites, is a good successor to SoC, but suffers from some pacing issues. In SoC, the game paces the weapons you earn by very slowly introducing you to the weaponry inside the zone (the wasteland around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP)) by throwing a few guys your way with the new weaponry and in order to maximize its use you'd have to save it until you had enough ammo to fight with it. CoP, on the other hand, introduced me to one of the most powerful weapons-- actually, several of them, in the first hour of play. I found the .45 semi on a random zombie when I had only 3 total kills in the game and I found my personal favorite weapon, the Russian equivalent of the American M4 rifle, within the second hour, literally lying on the ground in a small village...not that I'm complaining that I get my favorite gun in the game right off the bat.

Another issue I have is that it introduces too much of the fauna to the player too quickly. SoC started the player by facing feral dogs, pseudo dogs (essentially jackals on steroids), wild boars, and "mutants", which are essentally cream puffs with legs and they're really kind of gross looking. Needless to say there are guys with guns who want what you have pretty badly. CoP, however, started me facing zombies, something that isn't introduced for many hours into SoC. In fact, the first zombies in SoC are found more than half way through the game.

Within the hour I received a quest to eliminate a camp of Bloodsuckers, quite arguably the most terrifying enemies in any game ever. Bloodsuckers don't actualy suck blood and they resemble Mind Flayers if you're old and remember any of the 80's like me and they remain invisible until they're pretty much ready to whack your face off with their claws. The pacing in SoC didn't show many Bloodsuckers until the sawmill area, approximately 30 percent through the game (a lone Bloodsucker can be found in the underground area).

The HUD has been redesigned and you can now hold four quick consumables in your shortcut...thingy...and this makes the process of removing radiation and chemical poisoning a little easier-- that is, provided you've set the proper items to the shortcuts, and a number of helpful notifications appear when you need to be alerted to something such as radiation or bleeding and whatnot.

The inventory screen is much simpler, too, and now only takes up half of the screen. You're able to equip apparently any two weapons to two inventory slots, body armor, and head gear; all of which can be upgraded with an impressive number of choices which was a pleasant surprise. Following in the example of STALKER Complete, SGC has implemented a repair system that allows you to keep your weapons longer instead of having to toss them when they get dirty and worn down. This I like.

Visually, the game runs on what appears to be a modified X-Ray Engine, the infamous SoC engine that used to crash in some really hilarious ways. Most of the crash fixes involved loading your game after a crash, doing pretty much anything (a quest, shooting something, jumping a different way), and then trying again.

Anyway, the game is a great deal of fun, anyone looking for an immersive, lengthy, and exciting game should check out either Shadow of Chernobyl or Call of Pripyat, both are on PC and will run on almost any computer.

Preliminary score: 8.5/10 Not as good as SoC but better than many games I've played in a while.

Another internet picture of internet derpology.

Full-Sized Original:http://www.gamespot.com/users/dubel_07/view_image_original?id=aYdashsn7hif4RHjnA

More pictures...

http://www.gamespot.com/users/dubel_07/view_image_original?id=P4ML4kgn7hif4Rzvlg

Blacked-out stuff is my meager attempts atanonymity

http://www.gamespot.com/users/dubel_07/view_image_original?id=NoMJtBkk7hif4Rvklg

Word Choice. 'Nuff said.

I'm super hung-over from last night's escapades so I'm going to let you do all the writing for me.

Full-sized link:http://www.gamespot.com/users/dubel_07/view_image_original?id=a4cB7kkm7hif5hHhlA

I smell a conspiracy...

So not sure why but I was reading the review of Oblivion or Eldar Scrolls IV: Oblivion if you're pretentious and I noticed something very odd...

Now, everything I had said about Oblivion before has now been rescinded and I should give it another go since it is related to Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind if you're pretentious, again), Battlefield 3, Discipline and Bible Black. If you are unfamiliar with Battlefield 3 I love you and we are now best friends; if you have never heard of Discipline or Bible Black, you are not the only one. These two games are hentai games-- long story short, they're porn games. This means that Oblivion is an RPG (like Morrowind), a shooter filled with cinema-like qualities (like BF3) and has lots and lots of sex (like Bible Black and Discipline) and I must own it now.

Full-sized pic:http://www.gamespot.com/users/dubel_07/view_image_original?id=NoFb4Bwl7hif5h_mlA

So, tomorrow I've been here 7 years...

"Campaign is disappointing and dull"

Totally called this one.