User blog:Byte Me/If this is next Sunday, where the hell was I on Thursday?

Every Stalker's dream is a new dream

 * Thanx to Dez0wave for what they have done within and as an extension to the STALKER canon. Why? Because the published Shadow of Chernobyl game had been seriously nerfed by its release.
 * Certainly the much diminished SoC Zone had lots of action, plenty of it being lethal, but where were the Zombies that were such a tourist trap in the (axed) Dead City? How come the Lab X-18 mission completes with Barkeep taking "Lab X-18 documents part 4"?
 * What happened to the first three parts? (Oh, you mean there's five? how's THAT work out?)
 * Without Des0wave's re-imagining of SoC, NONE of this would be outside of an obsolete Build from a now-defunct GameDev company.

But wait, there's more
And so on for 26 levels and labs.
 * He needs to sleep..
 * There are more "dreams" for the 'Marked One',
 * He can drive about the levels..
 * There are some mighty strange artifacts on the board..
 * And if this is last Wednesday wth happened to Yantar? Where's X16 all of a sudden?
 * ..and does anyone have a handle on the nearest Blowout shelter plz?

Does it all work?

 * Well, you can get to the (enigmatic) 'real' ending(S) and I've seen one 'improper' ending so far, so... YES.
 * Some if not all of the PDA "phone-a-client" tasks FAIL, although I did manage to buy a Cat's head at one stage. Since then every attempt to provide/buy for/from a client has run into noncompletion difficulties.
 * Most side-missions complete but there's zip in the way of Brownie points from Lukash as far as his faction is concerned (but he does give nice loot for his mission) and I'm still trying to get a mission from Greben back in Yantar. No luck there..

Favourite levels

 * If it isn't the Underground then it has to be the CNPP itself as I tool around in my UAZ on the hunt for the Monolith defenders.
 * Mighty fond of X16 too. Tastes differ.

Overall, Huuuge thanks to the Dev team for the long awaited (non-canon) Shadow of Chernobyl game that we have missed being able to play.

Gripes

 * The artifact re-balancing is way out of whack. There are 58 artys ffs... The highly useful Springs and Battery placements that eventually prove so useful in SoC for repairs have not only been nerfed into uselessness, but with the exception of the one Electro Battery in the Agroprom Lake (yeah - it's still there) they've been removed from the board entirely. No 'Empties' or 'Full-Empties' for you then..
 * Not only this, but the associated spawning zones for these gems are now the medium strength Radiation zones. To add insult to injury - they just don't spawn - (but you saw that coming hmmm?)
 * There are just too many of the exceptionally useless Green Parasites all over the place. Worth 500 Ru anywhere -- woo hoo...
 * The Yantar Anomaly Fields pump out a constant stream of Slimes, all other spawn possibilities are ignored and the Field in Cordon just seems bugged, or maybe just 'artifact blocked' by the giant urchin organism that jumps and will squish you if you're so stupid as to go and stand under it.