Syndica - Second Thoughts

It's not often that you get to really relive something from years and years ago, but Command & Conquer 3 is about as close as you can get in gaming. The cut-scenes are cheesy, the gameplay is direct, and the feeling of the game is identical to the old stuff. I've been playing until I can't play anymore, and it's a great game. Time really seems to fly by.

Tonight I was reminded of the infamous Warzone.com and how Nick Fisher (trixter) completely sold everyone, including GameFan Online, down the drain. Can't believe that was so many years ago. This is the site where a lot of very popular blogs and fan sites either got their start or served as a pitstop at one point in their existences. Voodoo Extreme, Blue's News, Something Awful. I wonder what old Nick Fisher is up to these days, outside of probably being an asshole to everyone in his new online game of choice.

Is Halo this generation's Star Wars? While I saw Star Wars as a kid, the movies did come out before my time and I never saw a single one of them in the theater. I guess that's why I really don't care about the movies at all. Halo, on the other hand, invokes the same kind of response from me that people seem to get when remembering great movies, books, music, etc of the past. Just a few chords of Halo's soundtrack, and all the memories start rushing back.

I'll get to Borat soon, but I'm sure no one's waiting on my advice. On the other hand, I did promise to talk a little about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (hereafter referred to as Stalker to keep me sane). The game has an incredible sense of atmosphere to it. While the graphics definitely are a bit out of date due to the long development cycle, the combination of music, effects, and environment make Stalker a different experience from anything I've played before. Stalker gets a lot of its charm from the fact that it was developed in the Ukraine by people who probably grew up hearing stories about Chernobyl and had their own ideas about what happens in the 30km zone that no one is allowed to enter. I even read recently that a real life Stalker (think scavenger) saw some of the game at their offices and was very impressed with how the game shed light on the situation.

The gameplay is very difficult. If you like your games extremely easy, you may want to find your way to another game. I usually prefer easier games, but Stalker is so compelling that I can't stop playing (despite what the malfunctioning xfire would have you believe). So compelled, actually, that I applied the recent patch and started completely over to get the intended experience. After the patch, the game is even harder...

But that aside, Stalker addresses the uncertainty behind Chernobyl in a way that couldn't be satisfied by your standard id corridor shooter or people who simply visited the site to take photographs. The ability to explore, and run into radiation that you have to back away from, for example, keeps the game from being standard FPS fare. Instead the game treads almost closer to an RPG than it does something like Doom 3 or even Half-life 2. It's only $29.99 shipped from Amazon and worth every penny.

Labels: games