I want to finish it some day but I also kind of get sick of it quickly whenever I try to play it for extended periods and actually do main story missions.
Fucking around in the open world and fishing and hunting and all that is great though.
Even better, Remedy themselves are! Rockstar are publishing it though as they own the rights to the IP. I’m super curious about how they’ll turn out, especially with James McCaffrey’s passing.
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.
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.
Mapocolops is one of the best Let’s Players out there. Always engages with the story and tries to pay attention, likes reading everything and getting immersed, very genuine while still managing to be very entertaining in an authentic way instead of contrived and faked. Also regularly plays retro games, which is very refreshing and sets him apart a bit.
This year in particular has been absolutely insane. I’ve played more releases the same year they launched this year than any in recent memory and still feel like I’ve missed out.
Very short and sweet article. If anyone wants to read more there is a longer elaboration by the same author here: “I Told Him I Loved Him, Because I Do”. Worth a read.
Great review, as always I love your content! You mentioned a higher price point but I don’t think you mentioned the actual price anywhere in the review. Or did I miss it? I guess it’s just a quick search away.
I haven’t watched it myself yet but I’ve heard a lot of good things about Mapocolops playthrough of it and I’ve watched plenty enough of his other Let’s Plays to vouch for him in general.
I’m glad it’s good. Probably going to try to hold off until a sale because I’ve got my backlog full already but man, I’m tempted. Reviews sound great and a part of me wants to honour Itagaki by immediately getting in over my head in NG4 on Master Ninja.
I think I might have relapsed. Send help. Everything was going so well, I was playing through the Final Draft of Alan Wake 2 and having the time of my life, and then I clicked on a video YouTube recommended in my feed that looked interesting and the familiar old craving kicked in. Suddenly a week had passed by and I was deep in the rabbit hole again.
So this week I’ve mostly been modding STALKER: Anomaly. There’s been so many new mods and modpacks and even engine optimization released since I played it last and I’m having a blast getting reacquainted, this time basing my modlist on the H.A.C.R. pack which seems to be a flexible and solid base. I’ve already added about 30 mods to it.
I also have to give special mention to the mod and video that kicked it all off - TALKER. It transcribes your voice talking into the mic, and uses AI to give responses from characters in game and it’s actually just so much fun to use, especially for someone like me who loves the role-play and emergent narratives and storytelling of Anomaly. Right now I haven’t even started a full playthrough yet as I’m still tweaking parameters for the AI to fine tune the prompts given to each faction as well as adding to the list of unique personalities.
If you’re an Anomaly player, I definitely recommend checking out TALKER, even though setting it up is a little annoying.
Both NOLF 1&2 and Contract JACK are available on the website above, patched and fixed to work on modern machines.
YMMV but when I tried NOLF 1 for the first time earlier this year I sadly found the gameplay so poorly aged I wasn’t having enough fun to make myself finish it - despite the setting, theme and writing being quite fun.
I might give it another shot at some point though, it was a critic’s darling back in the day and I’d like to be able to say I have played it.
The upshot is that since nobody knows whether they own it or not there is nobody bothering to actively enforce copyright, so you can just download the games for free if you want on NOLFrevival.