The only task in Pripyat for SoC that I can remember is [spoiler alert] getting the decoder to open the hidden door. Hardly minor.  

I, and most of the free world, heartily disagree that Clear Sky was better. It took some good ideas from the SoC mods, but isn't nearly as good as the first with some essential mods. Unfortunately there's aren't mods available to bring CS to the level that SoC achieved. Call of Pripyat has me interest for now, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm still trying out the different mods, but none of them add enough guns, or at least many of my favorites yet.

I've been playing the good Front Mission games (as in, not Evolved), the 3 Homeworld games, Sword of the Stars, Stalker Call of Pripyat, Armada II, Morrowind, X3 (About wet my pants after playing the B5 demo), a few of the older Total War games after beating Shogun 2 (which doesn't have much replay-ability for me), Sims Medieval (until the magic wore off, now I'll probably never touch it again), and  I reinstalled Sins yesterday but didn't get past the menu screen. I have a pile of games behind me that are still shrink wrapped that I haven't gotten into yet, but those will probably sit a few more months for me to get to.

Well, I had *heard* that it was a minor task...but I was just so fed up with the game that I couldn't be bothered. But now that I've heard *glitch spoiler ahead!* that you can repeatedly throw a gauss rifle at the hinge of the secret door to force it open, I might be compelled to reinstall and load my save right in front of the Wish Granter. *end glitch spoiler*

I realize I'm in the rather small minority that prefers Clear Sky, but I can't think of a single thing that was significantly better in SoC. The ending linearity of Clear Sky did suck, but SoC's was only marginally better (in the sense that, you probably knew there was no coming back). I suppose some people might prefer the fact that there are more mutants in SoC and some creepier places, but I guess I'm more of a people-killer and I like the open swaths of land to roam and loot. And while this is a criticism of both games, the devs need to stop with the dramatic setpieces to end the game. It just doesn't gel with the rest of the game.

But the faction wars? A really good idea. Upgradeable guns? Yes, please! Artifacts aren't just laying everywhere and requires risk and exploration? Fantastic.

Please don't misunderstand me- SoC is a really good game and definitely worth picking up. I just think that, if I were to give Clear Sky a 9, I'd give SoC an 8 or 8.5.

(I should note that I played both games with their 'Complete' mods....perhaps vanilla SoC kicks the crap out of vanilla Clear Sky)

Games of the moment:

Death Track Resurrection (remake of an old game from when I was a kid, sweet nostalgia, not all that good a game if you haven't got the old memories to go with it);

The Sanctum beta (with a buddy, it's definitely co-op);

King's Bounty (Diggin' the cartoony graphics, like the earlier Heroes of Might & Magic, a game for hardcore HoMM-mechanics fans, otherwise will probably bore you before you finish);

SimsMedieval (not everybody's cup of tea, should really try and demo it first before paying the chunk of change they want -- I enjoy it because I get a kick out of designing Sims and sending them on quests).

Aveyond: Twilight Something or Other (picked it up on sale, I played the first hour or so and am digging the retro-ness. Seems like a decent story. My first real foray into any of the RPG Maker st!ff. I hope it continues to keep my interest!).

Zenith Chronicles (Sometimes I just want to come home and let a cute girl ride me while I blow fire at st!ff).

Master of Orion II (permanently installed. None better has yet been made. Don't argue. You know it's true.)

Recettear (Permanently installed. It's so blixxed cute I can't delete it. I play it at least once a month.)

Poker Night at the Inventory (Permanently installed for when I can't get together with buds for poker, but want to play. I don't play this without beer or liquor. It's a hoot if you know the characters.)

Dwarf Fortress (Love-hate relationship. If you don't know, don't ask.)

That's a pretty big list. I tend to hop around a lot. I've got a deep game library and go in and out of it depending on mood.

In the docket:

DA-2 replay. I really enjoyed the DA-2 story. Game was tight, but suffered from the Mass Effect 1-like lack of original maps. Still, I liked it more than DA-1, though I admit the later was superior in design. I'm waiting for a patch before playing it again as a different character class.

Elemental: War of Magic (waiting on the 1.3 patch for the random events/hopefully dynasty stuff; that plus the bug fixes should make it much more fun to play);

Runaway: Dream of the Turtle (AVG, played the first one some years ago, was funny, am looking forward to this game, the second in the series).

PORTAL 2 (Okay, so who doesn't plan on playing Portal 2 later this month? Only the people whose budgets are, like mine, being busted by a great gaming year. Hard to complain about that, right? This year is rockin'!).

Scrapland (on Impulse sale a couple days ago, looked intriguing, so I had an Impulse buy).

Most looking forward to:

The next Carpe Fulgur release;

Mass Effect III;

Achron (http://www.achrongame.com -- RTS, but can move back in time and change stuff, you changes propagate forward in a time wave!!);

more kick-ass unexpected Indie releases.

Holding out hope for: Fallen Enchantress, the next Elder Scrolls game.

Cheers,

-MrBats

P.S. Holy Smokes, a new Mechwarrior game for the PC??!?! I knew I read forums for a reason! Huzzah!

Dwarf fortress, AI wars, Tropico 3 AbsPow, Perihelion

No, hehe. I admit there are some big differences between DoW 1 and CoH, but these do not make them nothing alike. Both are RT strategies, right? Both are set for smaller scale battles, theyre no SupCom or Sins in this regard, you rely on packs of different kinds of infantry supplemented with occasional tank, mech, etc... In both you need to get hold of the strategic points all over the map. In DoW you have heroes and commanders, in CoH you have those doctrines... I suppose both game have morale... The most important difference as i said is the more tactical approach of CoH, where you need to place precisely your static defenses and units in regard to their lines of sight and terrain, you can do suppression fire, take cover, the environment is destructible etc... it all makes for slower and kind of richer gameplay...but i prefered faster, more direct DoW.

 Overall i would say CoH is the middleground between DoW1 and DoW2, in some aspects more like 1 (base building), in other more like 2 (tactical aspects). But definitely not "nothing like" 1.

Same here, also playing Assasins Creed Brotherhood on PC and Ghost Recon Shadow Wars on 3ds.

The thing is, DoW1 isn't like CoH in anything other than a superficial manner. Commanders/Heroes don't radically change your gameplay style or what units are available to you in DoW1. Doctrines do in CoH.

I'll also point out that numerous things about CoH (destructible cover, suppression, directional cover) are not present in the original DoW1, which was also more oriented for large-scale battles. It's no SupCom, but DoW1 is probably closer to a C&C game than CoH.

I think Relic should have just taken CoH, added melee, and made it take place in the 41st Millennium to make DoW2.  That would have been far superior to the DoW2 Relic actually made.

Well, the thing is, there are multiple mechanics present in DoW2 that have no representation whatsoever in CoH, like jump infantry, teleportation, tunneling, the leaping-over-cover thing Hormagaunts do.

While I wait for a good moment to jump back into Elemental (waiting for the flurry of patches to trickle down, then I can get back to modding when I have some fre time), I hopped back into some GalCivII: Twilight Of The Arnor.  I had not done the campaign yet, so I am doing so now.  So far, I think that the Dread Lords campaign was more compelling to me (mostly because of those 'artifact' ships you get to cruise around in).

Also grabbed a new copy of Renegade: Battle For Jacob's Star recently (old DOS game).  I enjoyed playing through it again, but definitely don't care as much for keyboard commands as I used to.  I've grown to enjoy clicking with the mouse instead of doing the keyboard thing in my old age...

I'm not a MMO guy (among other things, I have bandwidth limitations on my mobile internet that a MMO would chew up in short order), so I tend to gravitate towards solo, turn based games such as TripleA.

You got me there.  Those things could have been added to CoH if Relic wanted to.  Instead we got DoW2 which completely fails to inspire me in the same way CoH does.  DoW2 just feels like a smaller version of CoH with more capping than combat.

I've been playing the heck out of Armada 2526 the last few months, especially since I became a beta-tester for the soon-to-be-released expansion Supernova.  It was already a fun 4x title before, but the expansion really improves upon the vanilla game. 

SHIFT 2, F1 2010 last weekend and I even started Elemental game... but after about 50-100 turns I just got 'meh' feeling and quit.

I always play Total Annihilation: Kingdoms and I will likely never stop playing it. If you wish your buff to be kicked online on this game, PM me in TA:Kingdoms Community (http://kingdoms.heavenforum.org/). I am always ready to face someone in TAK!

Serious Sam 2 is also a game I always return. However, I have only the Demo verison right now, I had rented the full version a few years ago but I obviously had to return it. Fortunately, I have played several epic Lan co-op Serious Sam 2 matches with my friend at internet cafes!

I play Hedgewars (http://hedgewars.org/) which is a Worms-like game, but I don't think I am still good enough to face online opponents...

I been playing Jagged Alliance Back in Action last few days while waiting for next beta patch for FE. Also I am playing Path of Exile beta a bit whenever a fun new patch comes but get bored fast each time.