Living fossil.
Also on: @coelacanth@aggregatet.org @coelacanth@piefed.social @coelacanth@fedia.io
Yeah I was pretty upset about Larian for that one. One of the best and most nuanced characters in BG2 reduced to a brainless cartoon caricature. Same goes for
Sarevok, whose entire Throne of Bhaal arc is ignored along with his character. Honestly I hated the whole murder tribunal.
Putting my final touches into my STALKER: Anomaly modlist and creating the last couple of compatibility patches. I think I'll end up at 400 mods which is a nice round number. Hope I'll get to start my playthrough this weekend.
Will also try to get through another chapter of Alan Wake 2, I was on a replay of it when I got derailed but I do want to finish it and finally start the DLCs.
Any time! STALKER is a passion of mine and one of my all time favourite series (as well as a recurring hyperfixation as I'm sure you can tell by now). They are absolutely HUGE in Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Ukraine but really the whole ex-soviet region. Apart from that they have a worldwide cult following and Anomaly and its modpacks have gotten very popular over the past three to four years since they fulfill a single player survival FPS niche better than any other game on the market.
So whether to play the main games or Anomaly is a little bit up to you and what you're after. The main games are more narrative driven, while the focus in Anomaly tends to be on exploration, survival and gear progression. I played the first three before ever playing Anomaly, and I did enjoy learning about the world, factions and characters that way. The story from the first one (Shadow of Chernobyl) is particularly important and is referenced a lot, both in the rest of the games and in Anomaly. However, there are plenty of people who jump right in to Anomaly first because they're much more interested in the open sandbox gameplay.
If you want to try the original games, I don't recommend the recent Enhanced Editions as they are pretty controversial and involved some historical revisionism. I am 100% behind Ukraine but scrubbing everything russian from the games still felt wrong to me. For Shadow of Chernobyl I recommend either the Compatibility Modpack or Memories of the Zone for a Vanilla+ experience or Radiophobia for a complete overhaul. The latter can be pretty difficult though but I've heard they've toned it down since I played it. Still probably best to not play on the harder difficulties. And turn off item radiation.
Call of Pripyat is honestly a really good game and you could just play it as-is. Even though I love the main story and main character of Shadow of Chernobyl I think CoP is the best of the official STALKER games. The best way to play it was a merge of the mods SGM and Gunslinger, but it was only available from a russian forum I can't seem to access right now. The plain SGM mod is still available here though.
Clear Sky honestly has a lot of problems and I think you can safely skip that game. STALKER 2 was a great experience for a diehard fan of the series, but for newer or non fans I would still probably wait until a couple more updates. It's still missing features.
If you are more interested in the sandbox gameplay but still want to know the story and lore first, you can also just watch lore videos on YouTube first and then play your Anomaly modpack of choice: The Complete Story and Lore of the STALKER Series
It's impossible to single out any one mod, in my latest foray into Anomaly this past week I used the H.A.C.R. modpack as a solid foundation and then added a curated selection of about 120 mods on top of it. I'm almost ready to actually start playing I think! 😂
I guess the one mod that distracted me from working on my backlog and pulled me back into Anomaly was this video about "T.A.L.K.E.R.", a mod that lets you talk to NPCs and companions in real time using AI and your microphone. I'm a sucker for immersion and the roleplaying and emergent storytelling aspect of STALKER and so this mod is just right up my alley. I've been having a lot of fun tweaking the AI parameters to get every faction feeling just right.
Otherwise for a beginner the best approach really is to watch that two-part video I linked about modpacks and picking the one that seems most appealing to you. STALKER Anomaly has a modding scene that is almost on the level of Bethesda games, so using a precompiled modpack is the best way to get acquainted with the many mods and get the best possible experience in my opinion.
G.A.M.M.A. is the most popular modpack for a reason - it's constantly updated, feature rich and very well balanced. It can be a bit daunting to learn though as the focus is on scavenging, survival and crafting and there are a lot of systems and subsystems to learn. It does have absolutely fantastic support and documentation though, including a custom in-game guide. But you will spend a lot of time in menus, so be warned.
But really, just watch those videos. Cheeki Breeki goes through the most popular packs much better than I could, and having video helps too.
It basically is. It's a fan made standalone created by a passionate team after GSC (who makes the official STALKER games) open sourced the X-ray Engine.
It's not a mod: you don't need any of the original games to play it. It's a standalone self contained game combining all the maps from the first three games into one and functioning as a stable, unified platform for modders to work on.
You can play it just fine as-is like any other game, but all the precompiled modpacks is where it truly shines.
I have never used backblaze myself and I haven't watched or listened to Critical Role for like 4 years but despite that anytime I see backblaze mentioned I instantly think of Sam Riegel's ad reads. I guess they were worth every penny!
Have you played Anomaly before? I've relapsed back into my old habits of Anomaly modding this past week. Almost have the modlist in order to start playing soon, haha.
The Soulslike mod actually works surprisingly well and is pretty lore-friendly! It's a very cool implementation.
Had this on my watch list for a long time and every new video it keeps looking better. I'm still of two minds about the black-and-white - I get the idea and it works for the theme but I can't decide if it's worth it or if I miss the detail color would add. But at the same time maybe it would make it too bright and cheerful for the setting and story?
Still looks super cool and I'm looking forward to playing it.
There is a Soulslike mod for STALKER: Anomaly... does that count? 😅
Anytime! One thing I appreciate in Jade Empire is that they attempted to do something different with the good/evil dichotomy. It doesn't always come off properly and it's often constrained by the nature of the game (you can't really opt out of the main quest for example) but I appreciate the attempt. Instead of just good/evil they try to make it a "Good Samaritan versus Hardcore Darwinian" dilemma based on opposing philosophies that aren't necessarily good or evil.
I just hope someone takes Nintendo to court over that latest bogus patent so it can get thrown out.
Hm. Honestly the place I would try to get people to start is the original games. They will give the foundation for the lore and the story as well as introduce the world building and characters. They still have a large element of exploration and openness, but it's layered on top of actual story instead of being a pure sandbox. You can probably skip Clear Sky (it has a lot of problems) but both Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat are great.
I don't recommend playing the recent remasters as they censored a lot of stuff. For SoC there is stuff like Compatibility Modpack or Memories of the Zone for a vanilla+ experience or Radiophobia for a complete overhaul.
For CoP the best modpack was the SGM+Gunslinger merge, but I'm not sure where to download it anymore. This link is still up, but I haven't personally tested that so YMMV. Plain SGM is on Moddb (not clear if it includes Gunslinger) and that's probably good enough.
As far as Anomaly goes, the assortment is huge and I really would be wasting your time trying to summarise it when Cheeki Breeki just recently made two excellent videos for people in your shoes: (Part 1 & Part 2). The best way to get the lay of the land is watch those two videos, honestly. I'll give my two cents but it really is just going to be parroting much of the videos.
G.A.M.M.A. is unparalleled when it comes to both balance and the survival gameplay, as well as rate of updates and tech support (their Discord is huge). It's very complicated to learn though, and while their custom in-game guide is fantastic it's still a lot to take in in terms of how to repair weapons and heal injuries and just in general stay alive. The scavenging and gear progression is very satisfying, but at the same time you'll be spending a lot of time in menus. I also have mixed feelings about the Body Health System and medical items.
If you enjoy human-vs-human gunfights more I think E.F.P. and playing Warfare mode is my recommendation. It's been a year or two since I last played that modpack myself but the vision hasn't changed so I don't imagine it will feel much different.
I used to recommend Dark Signal as a more vanilla+ alternative - and it still is fine - but it hasn't been updated for years now so will be lacking the latest innovations. I'm currently using H.A.C.R. as a platform to mod on myself, and it's been excellent for that. Might be a little barbones though if you're not adding stuff yourself. Or maybe I'm just used to the huge 350-500 mod lists at this point 😅
I haven't played enough of the others to comment (I tend to like making my own modlists). Anthology looks very interesting and I'm definitely going to be trying it out myself at some point.
If you ever decide it's time to jump on New Vegas, the Viva New Vegas modlist has Wabbajack support now I believe. So you should be able to install the most stable and baseline recommended modlist with just a couple of clicks.
Caveat is I have not played NG2 on Master Ninja because I already hate myself enough, I don't need more misery . Apart from some single chapter challenge stuff I guess. But I have never felt like pulling off UTs was significantly challenging compared to relying on combos and OTs. You're moving around so much anyway that an on-landing UT is often easy to pull off as long as you have 2 essences in the air.
What I find most fun in NG2 combat is using all the combos from the move list of the various weapons, and using OTs strategically for i-frames. But UT spam just seems so much more efficient and easy.
Maybe Master Ninja is significantly different, I don't know.
Oh there's more than just on DeviantArt, fan games like Pokémon Uranium are full of fakemons that can rival anything Nintendo is putting out.
We need a remaster of that absolute classic.