jjawinte

Like so many of you, I've been playing a wide variety of game genres for a long time now. Ultimately, I happen to prefer a good immersive FPS with a solid progressive storyline any day. Survival Horror first, secondly something with an RP element to it as well ( preferably both ). I've always sought out great combat action with some strategic flexibity, but equally important are all the critical elements which truly make any game worthwhile, but for my intents here I'm going with the topic of difficulty.

Each game varies in it's inherent standard level of difficulty and many offer more than the regular three. Depending on the title, there may be as many as 5 or 6. We generally take the first run on " normal " or an equivilant and work up from there, pretty much happy with challenging ourselves enough to keep our replays interesting. How many times can you really do this before your installing a new title though ?

I've not so recently realized that It wasn't the games I'm playing that were giving me that " ho-hum " feeling - it's that i just wasn't getting the satisfaction that I used to playing this way. I needed to see just how much I could improve my overall playing skills. I needed a difficulty level very close to " WTF Insane ". Games that are deliberately designed to be so hard as to make you sweaty, pissed, swearing and punching your monitor after only a couple of hours aren't made. But luckily for me a mod was.

I love the STALKER franchise, bugs, debates and all. Played them all with various mods 3-4 times each easily. The " Call of Pripyat " is the best yet in all regards except for combat. The feature allowing for upgrading weapons and armor soon have you wandering around just looking for a fight..any fight...

In steps Beac ( and friends ), developer of the " S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat: Redux " mod Desura.com . If your not familiar with it, check it out. If not to use it, then to better understand the projects goal, which is realism. It's hard - fucking hard and not for everyone by any means ! And I just love it ! I have never played anything that forced me to realize just how lame my comfortable old game play style really was. I was forced to completely reconsider my approaches to the RP FPS and adapt various new game-wide strategies just to survive for a couple of missions ! And that's just the start...

Since then though, I've begun to understand how good I used to think I was and just how much better I can potentially become playing at this level of difficulty. I swear and bitch a lot while I'm playing it, but I'm having a blast playing again just for the sake of having it. I encourage everyone to either do a mod like this for your favorite if you can or play one that's way outside your comfort zone. The game-play doesn't so much get stale as we do. Get the fun back !