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

Absolutely perhaps one of my favorite gameplay experiences. I fairly well bounced off of the original which I may never play. But for whatever reason I stuck with this one.

I guess it's easy to describe what kind of game it is. It's harder to describe how I enjoyed it. At a high level it's an open world shooter with solid RPG elements. With lots of kind of immersive sim elements. There's a bit of survival stuff in there. You have random roving monsters as well as various factions of humans interacting in the world. You might come across random gunfights or just a dude hunting.

It's a cool game because you're thrust into this incredibly hostile world with very few resources. And you're given a super vague mission and directions. And you can kind of just do whatever. You can eke out a living doing small time world with formal quests. Or just go exploring to see if you can find some loot to sell to someone. You turn that into better gear so you can go into more dangerous locales. And it just expands from there. You end up turning into this incredibly well geared killing machine.

Another cool part of it is just the ominous ever present dangerous of the area. It's very grim with very few colors. And seemingly perpetually kind of dark. The dark is truly terrifying. Because there are monstrosities. The first time you come upon them you shit your pants. And that's a good reaction because they will fuck you up absolutely. You're so lacking in good weapons and even ammo in the beginning that running into many areas is instant death.

Oh what a wonderful game I could go on and on. There's also some story and lore behind everything that trickles out which is cool and keeps you a bit more grounded in the simulation. But overall just the exploration and so forth is wonderful.