Delayed Responsibility

A giant Claw Machine! digging into a quarry. I look on, modded pistol in hand.

From Sleeper Hit, I bring you my delighted review of Call of Pripyat. Read on:

I was, and am, incredibly taken with the Stalker games. To a lot of players and reviewers these are fiddly, overly finicky PC games that specialize in bad acting, bad writing, and a seriously retrograde sense of game design (see the cutscenes, quest and map system, and the complete lack of vital information, at points).

Of course, I look at all that and see the most convincing, “atmospheric” (if you’ll permit me that term) game I’ve played recently. As any good Stalker game must, Call of Pripyat tasks you with exploring, mastering, and respecting the wasted, irradiated zone of land surrounding Chernobyl, called, appropriately, “The Zone.” In previous games anomalies were semi-random, floating, often invisible distortions that damaged your avatar in various ways. They were often accompanied by radiation. In Pripyat, “Anomalies” are now huge, environmentally integrated objects in the world. A giant tear through the earth, a clawed hole in a hill (as if attacked by a giant hand), or any number of otherworldly landmarks will confront your hero. Within and about these blights float anomalies. They range from fiery geysers to black hole-like distortions, and while not all of them are deadly (instantaneously), they often conspire to weaken or kill your character.

Exciting, no? Head on over to the review, and find out more exciting things relating to Pripyat than you thought you’d ever need to know. Link.