S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat Review: A Wasteland Paradise

Game: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat

Developer: GSC Game World

Genre: FPS, Open World, Survival

System: PC

Rated: M (Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence)

As you may know, I am a huge fan of Metro 2033. Some of you are probably tired of me constantly gushing about it over twitter. Anyway I recently decided to play the other video game series about a post-apocalyptic Russia ravaged with mutants and radiation, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Specifically for this review I have played the 2nd game, Call of Pripyat.

Gameplay: As mentioned above, Call of Pripyat ditches the hub-based world of Shadow of Chernobyl for a much more open-ended map divided into three different sectors. This vastly reduces the amount of time the player spends in loading different areas and makes the experience much more enjoyable. The map isn’t that hard to traverse, and it usually won’t take you long to get from one end of a sector to the other.

Gunplay is satisfying, and each weapon handles differently from the next without actually feeling underpowered or overpowered. Guns tend to empty fast, so you’ll have to scavenge what you can from the dead, and having several weapons that use different rounds is always a good idea.

Another new addition Call of Pripyat brings is the ability to customize and improve certain aspects of your weapons and armor at local gunsmiths. These upgrades can vary from increasing how a weapon handles to how accurate or how fast it is to how much your armor protects against bullets or environmental hazards. If you want some of the better upgrades though, you’re going to have to look for toolkits. The toolkits aren’t particularly marked on the map, so you may have to ask around to find them all.

A good way of making money is looking for artifacts in anomalies. Artifacts, besides being worth a lot of money, provide bonuses like giving health regeneration or increasing your maximum weight limit but are also radioactive, so you will most likely want to find a firefly or bubble or other anti-radiation artifacts before you equip any other type of artifact. The process for finding artifacts is, at first, a game of hot and cold, and the artifacts are usually right by deadly anomalies. Eventually you get better detectors which make finding artifacts a heck of a lot easier, particularly if you do a certain side quest that nets you a detector which shows the locations of anomalies as well as artifacts

Story: The story in Call of Pripyat follows Alexander Degtyarev as he goes undercover as a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in order to investigate why five helicopters the military sent into the zone crashed without warning. The main story-line in and of itself isn’t particularly interesting, and the conclusion near the end was woefully unsatisfying. I did find finishing each side quest to be incredibly more satisfying. Listening to the epilogue at the end telling you how your decisions affected the zone will both make you proud that you helped Beard and the Stalkers out in Zaton instead of helping Sultan and make you despise yourself for not killing off that hive of Bloodsuckers when you had the chance.

Final Thoughts: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat is a fun game. Its story isn’t going to win any prizes and the conclusion near the end really was a disappointment, but the side quests and gunplay are good enough to more than make up for it. Even if you aren’t the type of person that has to finish every single quest before moving on with the main storyline, I can guarantee you will have finished a good majority of them by the end of the game.

9/10

Orcs Must Die Review: A Bloody Good Time

Game: Orcs Must Die!

Developer: Robot Entertainment

Genre: Tower Defense/Third-Person shooter.

System played on: PC (Steam)

Rated: T (Blood, gore, violence)



Sometimes you want to play a game with a thought provoking story, an immersive world and well developed characters; other times you just want a game about killing lots and lots of orcs. If you didn't guess by the title, Orcs Must Die! resides in the latter category, and boy does it do a good job at orc killing.


Gameplay: Despite its orc ridden appearance and title, Orcs Must Die! has more in common with Plants vs. Zombies than, say, more orc-focused games like Warhammer and Warcraft. Orcs Must Die Is a Tower Defense game but plays like a fast paced third-person shooter. The game plays very quick and is always focused on the action of the moment. As you proceed through the game, you get new traps after completing each level. After every wave you get a few seconds to set up some traps, and after three rounds you get full breathing room to set up your deadly devices of orc dismemberment for the next couple of waves.

Orcs Must Die! Is more forgiving than other Tower Defense games since if your traps fail to kill off enough orcs, you yourself can take them out by the hundreds with your trusty crossbow, sword and spells. Combat is fluid and fast paced. Placing traps is simple and easy to do; just select the trap and place it. You don't have to go through a pants-load of menus. Just set it and forget it.



Story: The story in Orcs Must Die! is only really made up of a few cut-scenes (less than a handful) dispersed throughout its 24 levels but is entertaining and ends in a surprisingly interesting way. The story in itself isn't the strongest out there, but you will pretty much be having too much fun killing orcs, setting up traps and planning your next strategy to care.
The main character has a few funny quips here and there (usually about his former teacher), but he will mostly repeat jokes that weren't that funny to begin with.


Visuals: Orcs Must Die! lends itself to a more cartoony cell shading which definitely adds spunk that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Even though all of the levels have pretty much the same aesthetic design, they each feel unique, and each level requires you to change up your tactics to fit said level.


Final Thoughts: In the way of replay value, Orcs Must Die! is rather limited to replaying old levels at a higher difficulty, but it is still a fun game that can easily please any Tower Defense or Third-person shooter fan.



9/10