Matewis: Cataclysm : Dark Days Ahead. Pretty damn fun and pretty painless to get past the basics. My previous character tried to flee from a wolf by jumping into a pickup but couldn't close the door in time :P And my current character just smashed open a crate and very weirdly discovered some dynamite and C4.
This sounds all kinds of awesome and right up my alley - in dev game? Already released but not here?
Anyway, I finally fired up STALKER Call of Pripyat. These games are just amazing. There's nothing quite like gearing up and heading out into the wasteland.
I don't know if it's because I now "know" how to play STALKER, or if Pripyat is a bit more forthcoming with good weapons but this one feels a lot easier than Shadow of Chernobyl. Granted, I'm still on the first map (I'm assuming there's more than one? The first area is divided into "zones" and I'm on the second one, but it's technically all on one map) so I suppose that could be why it's not too tough yet.
I fired up some youtube videos and a couple of wiki pages to get a quick refresher on the first game. I played it a year or so ago and had forgotten some of the details about the Zone (spoiler stuff so I won't get into it). I think I have a decent grasp on where I left off - can't wait to see how this one turns out.
I told myself I wouldn't play Clear Sky because the Faction stuff sounds like a lot of constantly respawning baddies pouring out of monster closets. But if I'm still loving this series at the end of Pripyat as much as I am now, I might not have a choice about heading back out into the Zone eventually... and I *guess* the game does have somewhat frequent respawns already so it can't be THAT bad, right?