they have fixed just about everything that was wrong with Stalker

how do you know, have you played ClearSky beta or what? 0_o

stalker got patched, sp is enjoyable and spirit is a bitter game-hater :P 

Is it? I remember that the PDA thing drove me nuts, the map, the textstuff/missions/infos. And of course the "surprise spawn right in your face" enemies. 

If even spd calls you a bitter game-hater, you're really beyond remedy.. 

TBH I get a bit frustrated with Stalker too. And the map is about at usefull as a dogs chopped off tail. Navigation - just follow the arrow on the minimap...
And you have to quicksave all of the time too, cause 'realistic' combat = dead in 2 seconds. I'll be creeping through some basement, and - OK - I can see a haze in the room, but it doesnt stay in any specific place, so fair enough, I move forwards, the all of a sudden BOOM!!!! Im dead. So I quickload (already back in the same area) - repeat until I get lucky enough to survive.

The game is pretty addictive though, what it lacks in perfection I think it makes up in immersion. Feels like a real adventure! Took me a while to figure out how the task system works, as a result I completed a few tasks but was unable to collect my reward because the option to timed out.

None the less I can see me playing this one through! Not enough good shooters out these days. I was tempted by Blacksite: Area51, but apparently that sucks.

Roll on Aliens: Colonial Marine! :D 

the pda map and the spawns were fixed in the first patch a ~year ago. patch is a must

I played it on the max difficulty w/o any loading I got as far as 4th map. yeah it was hard, but Im hardcore! 

Imagine a small plastic bag full of them. Puppy ones. And putting said bag in a jacket pocket. And someone else searching something from the pocket and accidentally putting their hand in the bag.
Happened to my cousin. The one who looks a bit like pope's gf. 

And you get zero trade value for them, the only thing they're good for is synthesizing anti-rad serum. Bah! 

Now I remember, that things were fixed but old savegames were rendered useless or something.
Well, I will play it once I am through with Diablo 2 (again...). 

With all others, the savegames continued to work. Some spawning issues still remained in patch 1.0001 or 1.0002. Or at least situations in which respawning enemies spoilt some of the fun. For example, every time I returned to the garbage from Agroprom, there used to be new bandits attacking the hangar. Eventually, I ignored them so the stalkers there would be killed.

Retried the game recently with patch 1.0004 (the two newer only contain fixes for MP), because the majority of mods only support this version. However, all the mod packs I tested kind of sucked in one way or another. Either they featured too many critical modifications, or too few. Too bad. I just play it again without any mods.. 

Seems ok. Sometimes the task system seems buggy, but never commits a real error. 

oh yeah most stalker mods blow
like 'super realism awesome gfx mod!' = broken game balance and economy (yeah gun prices from real world - great idea!) and 1000% bloom intensity for graphics improvements. "fuk dat!" (� sagat) 

Harvey Smith's review of Half-Life
http://www.planetdeusex.com/witchboy/articles/halflifereview.shtml

I guess the other articles are as readworthy. 

excellent stuff there. Game reviews are almost never like this. This is actually more of a pondering post analysis that would not fit as a review/preview, so it's not fair to compare to magazine stuff.. but still. 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=1517

Im also trying to play this weird thing
~4hrs in and there is no "game" so far. just reading and long walking ;| 

Sounds very interesting, reading those reviews.

Also sounds like it's better that you're trying to play it, rather than me ;) 

That review was more about System Shock and Thief than Half-Life. 

by a guy who worked on System Shock and DeusEX :))) 

he is better known for what he has screwed up. 

it's great, most of his points are very valid.

Now that i think of it, hl2 did everything wrong he mentions as the dangers of the stuff in hl ;) 

Not This is one of the best ways to create such coherency-the world is not a single-file trail through the woods, but a looping, contiguous labyrinth? check.

No But now the combinations of elements in the room provide a new twist.? check.

Not gives the player just enough ammo to cause him to pause and consider? check.

Cut scenes that are the exact opposite of being interesting, not too long or common and they do not stop the player from moving around in the game world.? check. 

This one has some basic between-round survival management, where you are searching the nearby town to find weapons and survivors. And you occasionally have to travel to the next town, using supplies you found to make the trip. It's a good way to join the zombie survival premise of the game with the typical shooter features of buying/upgrading/repairing between levels.

http://armorgames.com/play/1443/the-last-stand-2 

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14232680/gears-of-war-2/videos/gears2_reveal_050908.html

looks excellent! :D 

... for someone to make a video game about Uwe's boxing, that would be cool. 

Huge war machines are fighting and they depend on one guy sitting on the back with a small machine gun for defence. How about putting a gun on the thing?

It's arcadey all right.

The lighting on the huge models doesn't seem right either when they move right at the start at the one minute mark.

But looks very cool otherwise. 

Those are derricks, not war machines. They transport things.