Recent reviews by Captain Planets

I've played this gem on-and-off since the OG DOS version of VGAP3 in the 90s. This game picks up all of that goodness and adds plenty of quality of life features for newer players (that, so far, seem to be entirely optional but do take a little digging to disable). If you want to throw yourself into the ranked matches then you can, otherwise you can set yourself up a little skirmish in a sandbox of your own and the community is so delightfully supportive either way.

The perfect lovechild of some awkward three-way between STALKER, Tarkov and Necesse.

Cons (out of the way first): Mouse input is a little (but noticeably) laggy and the bindings don't include a "turn left/right" option, thereby excluding the ability to play keyboard only.

Pros: otherwise amazing port of the game, all the bells and whistles they wanted to add are entirely optional. Highly recommend playing with Andrew Hulshult's IDKFA soundtrack. Even if that's the only thing you change, it's *entirely* worth it for the replay.

GGs, id :D

Highly enjoyable instalment in the series, but still second-best to Shadow of Chernobyl. This game has a lot of new features such as gear modding and a sandbox postgame mode; but it doesn't change the fact that for the most part the large maps are just bereft of action. The janky critter-spawning of the original inadvertently kept the player on their toes. You never knew when somewhere would repopulate or where. Action in Call of Pripyat, on the other hand, is confined to clearly defined (and equally avoidable) points of interest, all bandits are now neutral and it is entirely too easy to make do a few quests to make money entirely redundant.

Exploration is just as richly rewarded as it was in SoC, and if you stick around Pripyat for the postgame then there kinda enough to do to justify said exploration. There's also an implied plotline around the postgame that I sorely wish had been developed more. Otherwise it's another document hunt on rails. Worth playing, for sure, but don't expect it to be more immersive than SoC.

At least it isn't Clear Sky!

Alongside Doom as one of my all-time favourite games and still the best of the series. Highly modable, but still seriously enjoyable vanilla. I'll play through it at least once each year or so. The Steam version seems to have had a few little scripting fixes too, such as making the cordon bridge guards interactive rather than just shooting at me as they did in the (patched) OG DVD version of the game.

This gem combines the best features of certain other games in just the way I never knew I had been hoping to find. Highly intuitive and easy to set up things like automated villages. The difficulty can range from "walk in the park" to "makes Tarkov look like a walk in the park" as desired. There's also a budding modding community already.

All of which has me thoroughly excited to see what the final form of this game looks like!

Literally the ONLY Bethesda-era Fallout title to actually *just run* on a modern PC and allow you to play with whatever frickin' controls you please without the need to mod *anything*... and it wasn't even made by Bethesda -_-

I was *really* looking forward to taking this for a spin until I discovered that it keeps multiple sets of bindings active simultaneously. You can't disable one set or another (or seemingly change them all to the same thing), so you end up with a key doing up to 3 things at once. What's the actual point of customisable key bindings if the game is going to override it with two other arbitrarily chosen sets of bindings?

It's like Diablo 3 but actually fun and doesn't overstay its welcome. Thoroughly recommend!

One doesn't need Nostalgia Glasses to enjoy this classic. It was a technical achievement back in 1996 but it remained as iconic as DOOM because the gameplay is so fluid, the mouse control is unbeatable and the atmosphere is chilling and solitary. The levels haven't aged badly at all and this game today is just as enjoyable as something like DOOM 2016.

Then you factor in the remaster. The remaster has some quirks that I don't like: the weapon bob is removed and some monsters' AI and pathing haven't worked well in a few places but overall it is still a very fresh coat of eldritch paint that doesn't make it any less enjoyable!

UPDATE: Cannot be completed on the EE Nightmare mode because of the arbitrary health limit of 50%. Enemies on the final map push the player's position forcing them back into a space with no health or ammo. Aforementioned health cap prevents player from rocket jumping to avoid this rubbish.