Should've also mentioned there are no less than 32 levels, all the way from Chernobyl NPP to the Great Swamps, Cordon and Darkscape. My first task as a Mercenary was to eliminate a target in Darkscape. Haven't even reached the area. Barely got my hands on a better weapon, IL 86, after storming through 11 maps. As a comparison, I also started a game as Monolith and found the IL 86 in less than 5 minutes as a random drop in Pripyat.
Back to the Merc savefile, I'm off to Darkscape. Haha, oh damn. We were fighting several boars near the Rookie Village, when Petka (one of my companions) saves my life with a well placed shot. From the back a couple more boars and now Petka is down - luckily I had a medkit on me. But wait, Yashka (the other merc) is in serious trouble with another monster. Trying to save him too, I walk straight into an anomaly. Lost to the Zone. :D
The AI of the NPCs is decent enough. Companions will heal one another if a medkit is available. Neutrals will do the same and at times even help your teammates. They'll check bodies for loot and comment about it.
Pripyat at night is pure terror without proper headgear. Monolith and zombified stalkers everywhere, controllers, snorks, pseudogiants... Darkscape is mostly a forest riddled with anomalies - good luck navigating that in complete darkness.
The quests outside Story mode are nothing to write home about - clear this area, kill that mutant, eliminate a target, fetch a certain item. But overall it's great fun.

Not sure what to play next. Finished Rogue Trooper a couple nights ago - I really enjoyed it.

Toyed around with starting Morrowind again, see if I can get through the game this time. I suspect I'll never finish it.

That Call of Chernobyl mod sounds like fun. Will need to look into it next time I get to a place with a decent 'net connection.

Wouldn't mind also looking into some other Mount and Blade mods. Ditto 'net connection.

I am trying to get myself unstuck and progress, into AnotherMetroid2Remake! I have a hard time down in the factory, where you get the speed-booster; damn!

Last weekend I finally managed to get back to Skyrim and finish the Dawnguard Campaign and finish getting all the achievements. Having played Morrowind and Oblivion just before, I felt that Skyrim had the most fun systems, even if they were not as flexible nor complex as Morrowind.

I mean, from Morrowind to Oblivion, most of the design changes seemed to be focused in removing exploits from the earlier game. And that didn't result in better, more fun gameplay most of the times. Skyrim's design changes seemed much more focused in making the game more fun to play. I did have to install community patches on all three games, because Bethesda is clinically unable to produce games that aren't a buggy mess.

With the Elder Scrolls games out of the way, I finally began taking on some of my backlog: I've just started Max Payne 3 and got the latest Tomb Raider reboot installed as well.

Though I have been enjoying the fake Rio de Janeiro like São Paulo in MP3, I have to say that the story isn't my favorite part of the game so far (Max seems a bit flanderised in his "I'm drunk and I'm suicidal" behavior) specially since every door seems to be a cut-scene in the game.

I've also been playing SFV, Tekken 7, that SF 30th anniversary collection and some Mega Drive games from SEGA's steam collection here and there.

3:23 A.M., somewhere in Pripyat. A psi-storm starts. Luckily, we are inside a building. On the flip side, this building is way too close to the Monolith base. It's not like we have a choice at this moment. Suddenly, a Monolith soldier rushes into the building, running for his life. Obviously too concerned to save his own skin, he ignores us completely and goes up the stairs.
4:03, the storm has passed. Time to press forward, towards the Nuclear Power Plant.
Few minutes past 5 we arrive at CNPP. Scouting the surroundings I notice a large mutant in the distance and I'm thinking "Not another pseudogiant... Time to put the guns to use." Getting closer to the beast I realize I made a mistake - this was no pseudogiant, but a chimera. "Bring it on!" The damn thing took several shots to the face without even flinching. But in the end we put it down.
Further down the road a battlezone: Monolith facing pseudodogs and a second chimera. Looking back I see an electrical anomaly moving quickly towards us... "Time to leave this place." So we run past the Monolith and the mutants, until reaching a safe spot. Only then I turn around and notice what's left behind... the anomaly took care of everything.

Started another game of Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition on PS3. This time I am trying to go with walkthroughs for all NPC quests/interactions and without Master Key and with INT/Faith build. In first day, Asylum Demon, Taurus Demon, Bell Gargoyles and Capra Demon down. I die much less than in my first game, but yeah, still far away from Let's Play videos :D Bell Gargoyles were piss easy when you can talk with NPCs. You can summon two of them, which could easily take care of the boss, even if you just sit at the entrance and watch them fight. Capra Demon was a bitch as always, but no rage quit this time :D

The most challenging part of the run was the first encounter with Patches in the Catacombs right after Capra Demon, before talking to Rhea of Thorolund. The is no available divine weapon at that time, so you have to do suicide run against the first Undead Mage (and kill him) to be able to move forward. The next three of them, can be taken care of with ranged combat, so it gets little bit easier, but you have to consult map all the time, if you do not know where they are located. Still this place has killed me yesterday most of the time, but I was able to access also smith Vamos and Gravelord Servant Covenant, and join it.

Next in line The Depths and farming 7 more Eye of Death from basilisk, and upgrade the covenant to level 2 for a miracle required for one trophy. Then the Gaping Dragon.

Finished The Testament of Sherlock Holmes the other day and really liked it. I thought the story was good and the puzzles were great. It was a nice long game. Can't wait to play the others.

More Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition on PS3. I have followed my own all NPC quest and interaction and followed into The Depths. The main goal was to get all items and enough Eyes of Dead drops, to be able to upgrade Gravelord Covenant to level 2 to get one more Miracle required for the Trophy. When I had enough, I have also farmed few more humanities, because, there is encounter with first Black Phantom NPC, which can drop nice sword and shield, and Humanity boosts it's droprate. Not enough of boost for me, it did not drop :( I will have two more chances to get them. I have to fight him in off-line mode, because as soon as I have turned into Human, I got invaded by some clown, who killed me before I found the NPC.

Right after that, I have killed the area boss Gaping Dragon, and went back to The Catacombs, for covenant Miracle. As soon as I had it, I abandoned it through the NPC and then went forward to Darkroot Garden to kill the Moonlight Butterfly. I used an NPC summon, which made the fight easy as pie. After that, I have joined Forest Hunter Covenant for the chance to get the Ring of Fog. I have spent about hour or two leeching PvP, because most of the guys there were PvP builds at Soul Level 125, so my only chance to get the kill, was to be matched with another PvP maniac. My Soul Level was 30 at the time. But now I am the happy owner of shiny Ring of Fog, which will be tremendous help for the Blighttown and Anor Londo. And around 40k souls from winning the three matches required for the ring, which were promptly used to upgrade my Pyromancy Flame to +10 and buying of ring to boost my spell damage.

I made few attempts against Sif, but being to late, I was to tired to do any proper attempt, so after few deaths, I have decided to go to the bed, and play more Souls tomorrow or later, depending on my work schedule.

Playing my NES MINI and I have a question:

Is is cheating to use a map for Legend of Zelda and Metroid?

You really don't need it for Metroid (which I have won when I was a kid) because there are only maybe 2 or 3 hidden items and it's a pretty standard layout, but Zelda is different (which I have never gotten more than ten minutes into).
There is hidden shit everywhere and it's so easy to get lost. You go into a dungeon, spend forever exploring it, only to find out you needed something on the other side of the map to finish the dungeon. Metroid spared it's players of that.

I'd really love to play this game through once to say I did, but I can't do it without help.

i played eso recently (at vvardenfell) and stuck on the questline, it just suddenly no story quest to do after helping the god

Metroid 2. I'm down to about 24 metroids left. Only thing I'm not crazy about with this game so far is that when your health gets low, it's really tedious to grind for health pick-ups from enemies. Rather more tedious than the original game. There are some full recharge spots located here and there but they're far enough apart that it's equally annoying to have to backtrack to them and then get back to the spot you were working on.

Fallout: New Vegas. Some Fiends (obviously under influence) are attacking an armed to the teeth Courier and his two followers. What a joke.
Anyway, cleared two vaults (34 and 22) and I have to say it's a relief. I found Vault 34 far more challenging: constant radiation (burned through my supply of RadAway), tight corridors, a large number of enemies and at the end a dilemma. Good times. Time to head back home... "High-roller suite!"
I love the music inside the Presidential Suite at Lucky 38. Radiation Storm. "You see the remains of: Loser. You have received a large dose of radiation."

I know I don't really need any DRM'ed games - I've got a backlog that would give a vampire stress,
but....
Resident Evil 4 (HD, Windows) is just too awesome! (=now playing)

Cultist Simulator and I'm impressed. I spend hours on that, and only when I snap out of it I realise that I've been starring at a screen filled with cards all along. It's like snapping out of a book, and realising you've only been looking at tiny black fonts on a grey page. Cultist's Simulator's cards are a language of their own. Like a book, they are ot where the acton takes place. And like a book, it takes more room in you, invades you more than any graphic representation can. Which is fortunate, because the lovecraftian tone -even more than tolkien's- is precisely one that gets defeated by any graphic representation.