Reviews - DangerDav

Call of Pripyat: Redux is an excellent all round mod that brings serious intensity to gunfights, be it against STALKERS, Zombies or Mutants!

Redux is a wonderful looking mod, courtesy of Atmosfear i'm sure. It runs smoothly, with steady frames and no crashes so far. The visuals and sound effects are very immersive, they really help to pull you into the game and personally, I think that the firearms sound incredible.

Redux however, is not without a few issues, one I found to be quite glaring. For instance, the Abakan Assault Rifle seems to disobey the 65% sellable quota for Owl. Mutants seem to solely target you, even with other STALKERS around opening fire on them. Worst of all, is a problem that's seen in many mods. The realism of this mod is a blast! Firefights are intense, fast paced and deadly, Mutants are simply not to be trifled with. Take them down at a distance or get the hell out of there, they are as dangerous as ever. Realism, however, does not mean killing a STALKER or a Zombie, and getting 1-3 rounds. I can not begin to describe how infuriating it is, to kill an NPC that's just reloaded his gun and get no ammo out of it. To silently eliminate a STALKER and find he has no ammo in his gun and 1 bullet in his pack. For me, this simple gripe made the mod unplayable until I edited the drops. There's no realism in people wandering around in such a dangerous, hostile territory carrying 1/4 of a magazine for their empty guns. It's easily fixed however and very easy to balance into the game. Even with my edits, it's still one of the greatest challenges I have experienced in a STALKER game.

All round, Redux is a fantastic mod. The random weapon system for all STALKERS, I love it! The intensity, the immersion and the heart pumping gun battles are A grade material that will keep me coming back to the sadly small Call of Pripyat.

A solid 8/10 from me, subject to change with 2.0. I can easily call it one of the best mods for CoP available!

Stalkersoup is definitely heading in the right direction. There's plenty of new content to bring back the old fans and a whole lot more to do within the various new areas. There's also new weapons, mutants, artifacts, anomalies and more!

The mod however, is in beta. There is always a need for a bit of leeway when it comes to handling a beta but there are a few things that really should be looked at, beta or none. There's crashes to desktop in plenty here. It may just be my system which is XP/4GB Ram/Powerful but aging video card but I can not run this at all on Enhanced Dynamic or Object Lighting. Any attempt is met with an automatic crash with no bug report or error, I must play on Static to get into the game. I'm a little confused as my PC has no issue playing OGSE, LURK and Complete 2009 on maxed out settings at a steady 60fps.

Perhaps my biggest issues with this mod is the patch. If you use the latest patch, it breaks the mod completely, requiring you to copy over the incredibly enormous gamedata folder all over again. Long load times? That's fine, it's a huge mod but NO patch should completely break the game.

This mod is showing a lot of promise and I eagerly anticipate the balancing/optimizing that is sure to come. For now though, it's playable albeit with a bit of difficulty.

I recommend it to STALKER fans, but you had better be one patient s.o.b.

3079 is an excellent game. It's unique, fun and can really suck you in!

3079 has a whole heap of wonderful features. The randomly generated worlds, the solid feel of a war raging around you and the one of my favourites, the stats. So many different items with different abilities to help boost the field you want. I had one game where all I bought was jump height and movement speed, I felt like Superman! I also like the combat and the sense of progression as you get better at skills.

There are some things I don't like. Enemy fighters can be a pain, they can crash into you, or anything for that matter without a problem. If you're in a fighter and you so much as touch another solid object BOOM! I find as well that the game sometimes just stops, forcing me to close it with Task Manager. This has lost me quite a few good items now!

Thankfully, the game is fun to play over and over, it starts fast, loads faster and runs smoothly. The various missions are entertaining and the Multiplayer is incredibly fun!

I did just recently finish the game for the first time and unfortunately I must say that the back end of the game and the end sequence, were incredibly frustrating and difficult. I won't spoil it, but it's rough. Losing an item on death can be a real pain when fighting a final boss that only 1 type of weapon can hurt...

Overall I rate this game an 8/10. The freezes and the end sequence were the 2 big killers for me but they weren't enough to stop me playing. Definitely worth the money you'll pay for it and 100% recommended. Kudos to the dev and keep up the good work.

Oblivion Lost 2010 is one hell of a mod.

Right off the bat is the Russian voices, subtitles and graphic enhancements. They all work incredibly well together to make the zone very immersive once again.

The new content (and old content that made it back) are once again a joy to behold and there's nothing quite like desperately trying to fight off waves of Military as they attack the Rookie Village.

The sounds and animations work well and the gunplay is excellent. I especially like that Wolf gives you a different weapon, i'm a sucker for Bolt Action Rifles.

I did find that even on minimum graphics, the mod will still crash to desktop here and there, especially when changing areas but I am yet to meet a mod that is 100% stable so no points off for that. Crashes are a part of Stalkers charm!

Things I would have liked to see is increased mutant numbers, be it default or just an option and I know it's probably really hard, but i'd like to see some of the Old levels make it back too.

An excellent mod, I can't rate it against many others right now as I am playing Complete/OL 2010/ LURK/ Old Good Stalker Evolution all together to see which I like most but I can say that Oblivion Lost is putting up one hell of a fight. It has definitely won out in a few fields so far, the excellent sway and flow of First Person topped with incredible gunplay and variety has made it a prime contender. I always love to see the old mutants get back too! Nothing like mowing down unarmed zombies!

Keep up the excellent work, you're making unique moments for me in my favourite game and that deserves some thanks.

Complete 2009 was one of the several mods I tried after chucking Stalker on my new PC and it has definitely taken first place.

The atmosphere and polish are excellent, I love that not only do the guns look amazing, they are perfectly synced in with fire/reload sounds.

The graphics are wonderful and really bring the Zone to life, from a viciously loud storm in the middle of the night to the morning sun peeking through heavy clouds. The lighting and terrain work well together, offering a graphical experience i've not seen bested in other mods.

I understand that the complete mods don't swing this way but I would love to see even a few of the custom weapons brought into the game. The vanilla weapons, as noted above, look and sound great and it would be awesome to see that on a few of the custom models (Like the P90 :P)

Last of all, i'd like to comment on the Realistic Weapons addon. This has to be one of the best additions to Stalker of all time. The intensity and fear it can bring to a firefight is absolutely spectacular, be it trading 9x18 rounds with Bandits or opening up on a Monolith Soldier with a HK G36. It makes the guns feel much more real and there's nothing I like more than being able to use a favourite weapon all game instead of trailing the upgrade path to victory.

Overall I give Complete 2009 a 9 out of 10, though really 9.5 would have been more my choice. It hits all the right notes in Combat, Graphics, Gameplay, atmosphere, immersion and is to date, my favourite Stalker SoC mod.