Reviews - DarKWerX

There are few, so damned few which hit nearly every sweet spot. Although some are calling CoP better (hint: it isn't), Call of Pripyat has a far more simplistic storyline, & requires less though than ShoC. The perks of what the newer games added, certainly didn't make up for what they took away. Both CoP & Clear Sky feel like cut & paste, cookie cutter games when measured against ShoC. The atmosphere is distinctly lacking when compared & contrasted to what is, in my humble opinion, the best S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Shadow of Chernobyl.

Sure, it was heavily bugged upon release, but even vanilla is pretty solid now-a-days. Those days are long passed however, and on a personal note, I think you can rightfully level blame at THQ, instead of GSC for the release condition. I've owned every single release since either day one (2007), or 1 week after release in the case of CoP, and I still play them each at least a couple of play-through's a year. Mostly ShoC, if I'm to be quite honest, it get's most of my attention to this very day (although I haven't played the plain Jane version of any in quite some time, I spend most of my time running the little heard of *in the English speaking mod world* Russian mods for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. these days).

Technically, I'd rate it a 9.6 out of 10. If I'm to be totally honest, I can only think of 15, or perhaps fewer, games I'd rate as well, or better. Most that come to mind of those, are from Bethesda.