Bought this.

Like the Graphics, and the free-roaming, the tackling people for loot stuff, the atmosphere etc.

Dont like: (deep breath)

The fact that people no-longer carry money. (wasn't there money when you searched bodies before?)
The fact that many "missions" are broken and incompletable
The fact that it KEEPS CRASHING TO THE DESKTOP REGARDLESS OF WHICHEVER PATCH IS APPLIED, OR EVEN COMMUNITY "FIXES" WHICH DONT WORK EITHER.

Fucking waste of �30. 

I gave it a last chance when the fifth patch was released. But alas, the game still crashed. And not only that - it also gave me my first ever bluescreen on XP. Didn't even know there were such things. Lowering the video settings seems to increase the stability somewhat, but why play on low settings only because a game is so poorly made.

NPCs never carried lootable money, I think. They only had some to buy stuff from you. Ricky, have you played SOC? If not, you should - it's much less frustrating. 

And found similar problems. Although I found the missions to be a bit more stable. I've been debating playing it again, because I hear there's the "Oblivion: Lost" mod, or something, which basically fixes everything.

The thing is I paid �5 for SoC, and din't feel ripped off at all! Yet today I see that Far Cry 2 is out, even in the shops in my tiny town, and if I had known that CS was going to be such a fucking cock-tease let down, I would have waited and bough that instead.
I paid �4 for Far Cry 1 a few months back, and really enjoyed it! I would definately pay �30 for FC2, simply on the basis of my experience of the first game.

There have been a few releases of late which caught my eye, and more just over the horizon:

Crysis - Warhead
Stalker CS (GRRRRRR!)
Far Cry 2

and soon

Fallout 3

Of those four, why did I have to buy the shit one?!?! 

Ah yes, played this recently, too.
While it was pretty short, had an anti-climatic ending and no map that really stood out, I somehow enjoyed it more than Crysis. Kind of odd really. Maybe because the Psycho character had such a cool accent.

Gameplay is pretty much the same as in Crysis, only more linear. Half-way through, there's a train ride sequence with turrent combat which seemed to be the most special or new aspect of the game as compared to its predecessor, but I didn't like it that much.

The performance was better than in Crysis on high settings. I suppose that was because many environmental details were turned into mapobjects with a limited distance of visibility - as a result, all those things, e.g. stones, constantly popped up some 10 meters before me as I was moving forward. Looked pretty silly, but I could live with it regarding the potential perfomance boost. 

Don't worry, they all suck in one way or another. 

Despite the game being gorgeous, I just can't play through it, it's sooooooo boring. =\ 

i tried it, but there's some wierd bug with the AI... the game would run smooth when no npcs were 'chasing me' but as soon as i entered into combat with npcs, the game would keep slowing down as if the AI searching was doing something wrong. 

is the fact that I have this game that has been released in a state where it is in-completable. I read one review today which said that it was almost reviewed without even being completed.

I mean the game has a story. I would quite like to see how it pans out! And it's not because my machine isn't up to scratch!

I really feel ripped off. It's like buying a car only to find that that you can't drive it.

Where do I go to demand my money back? 

Doom3 crashes my PC for some reason and I haven't bothered to fix it yet - got sucked back into DOW.

So I can't play through Doom3 again, irritating. 

Played some more (25-30%).
The engine is kind of nice. It's a vast open world with fast loading times and no perceivanble in-between loading (except when fast-travelling). Details and theme are generally good, but it also looks very samey in many places. Buildings and areas of special interest often feel too artificially cluttered, messy and worn-down.
I wonder what Stalker could've been like with this engine, though I guess its large industrial ruins crammed with details would have had to be drastically simplified.
A cool feature is the spreading of fire from explosions and molotov cocktails to grass and trees which sometimes burns semi-large areas. The water doesn't look so good. There isn't even splashing or ripple when walking/driving through and when bullets hit the surface.

What really sucks is the fact that the player can't jump over many obstacles that don't look insurmountable. This is particularly annoying if one has to walk around rock formations or along riverbanks for some time only because so much stuff is unclimbable (even if there's no risk of getting stuck or whatever).
I like that there's no crosshair (optional - disabled by default) and no permanent HUD.

The game's main problem, however, is that it becomes somewhat boring quickly, because the missions are repetitive and there's not much going on in terms of main story yet. Maybe it picks up later on, but so far I don't find it overly immersive. Could also be a bit related to obvious elements of consolization.
Also, perhaps I missed something, but what exactly does this game have to do with Far Cry? I mean, it would be cool if suddenly monsters dropped in for an "ah, right" reaction, but I doubt this is going to happen. Wouldn't be so bad really, it might spice the combats up, as enemy (and buddy) AI is average at best. More often than not, enemies just stand there waiting for me to pick them off, or they crash their cars back and forth into every wall or object available. Though it can also make for some laughs: one of my buddies once ran up a cliff, telling me to follow her or something and then suddenly jumped down and died. Maybe it was a hint at things to come? 

Yeah, I agree with most of what negke just said.

Guess it's a bit similar to Assassin's Creed in that aspect, there seems to be alot going for it when you first start off, but you quickly realise that it doesn't have much depth. It really lacks mission diversity.

A few other complaints I have with it are:
The headbob when you run is just horrible, makes my head hurt when I run too much.
The way they integrated the map is interesting, as the player actually takes it out like a weapon, but when you're looking for something (like diamonds) it's always in your face and really annoying, I'd much rather have a minimap.
The dissapearing HUD is ok, but not for me, I'd rather have that info visible at all time + a minimap.

All in all it's not a bad game, plenty of fun to be had, but it gets boring long before you reach the end. As the comparison is inevitable, I think it's a better game than Crysis / Crysis Warhead, even though the engine isn't as pretty. 

I like the headbobbing and blurring. Somehow feels more realistic (dunno if it is).

The animations are nice too, e.g. unjamming a gun, getting into vehicles, map view inside the cars.. Nothing special really, but for some reason I always tend to compare such things to HL2's telekinesis thing.
Agree about the map taking up too much of the view - it should be lowered to the bottom of the screen when moving. 

With:

"Oblivion: Lost 2.2"
and
"Worldwide patch 1.0005"

It Works!!! No CTD yet, my gun shoots straight, people die when you shoot them.
Also the main improvement is the mutant presence. Makes the game feel more exciting and unpredictable, some of the mutants are fucking scary!

I just hope they hurry up and do the same thing for Clear Sky. It is pathetic that it takes community members a couple of years to finish a game which should have been finished in the first place.

Far Cry 2 - saw it for �25 in Morrisons supermarket. Probably decide I can afford it on Thursday.... 

Yeah, the animations are great, Ubisoft have some really talented animators (this is also vissible in the Prince of Persia games and Assassin's Creed).
I pick up used guns just to watch the unjamming animation. 

So far negke is pretty correct. I, however, really like the engine. I think the world is one of the most beautiful I've seen. I often find myself not paying attention and just looking at the world and end up getting shot or driving off road.

Other than that, the missions are just "go here, kill people" so far, but the firefights are usually really intense. My experience is different from negke's, where enemies have flanked me to smoke me out, and have tried to drag wounded soldiers back out of the firefight. Maybe there's a difference in AI when playing on different skill settings?

So far I've had a bunch of "whoa" moments where something unexpected happened.

Last night while trying to destroy a convoy AK47s I blew up the truck with a grenade, first by stopping the convoy which were all gathered together on the side of the road. After killing the soldiers, I threw a grenade under the truck. I thought I was far enough away but because all the trucks were so close together the explosion was huge and sent one of the trucks way into the air, crashing down on my head.

I was pissed. :( 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/271-S-T-A-L-K-E-R-Clear-Sky

I actually think this guy has played it too, y'know... 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/24-Call-of-Duty-4 

I saw it in a shop and everything. Wanna buy it. So far I've resisted the temptation. Im re-playing SoC ATM, so I'll wait. To many good games = no time for mapping. (Which is still trickling along BTW) 

from a lot of different places. Though to be honest most of the people complaining were die-hard fallout - fallout 2 fans.

Im firmly on the fence on this one, if they release a demo (which I think they are not) then I will give it a go. 

But it's getting 'universal acclaim' over on metacritic. Most of those scoring lower saying they wanted to play another game, the typical whiney bullshit

<rant>
It's your fucking job to play games, deal with it. If you don't want to play a tennis game tough shit, you're getting paid to do it, don't write a bad review because you want to play a footbal game.
</rant>

And it sounds alot better than the usual tripe.

But $50 in these hard times . . . 

i would agree that 99% of the negativity towards Fallout 3 seems to be coming from Fallout1/2 fanboy faggots, bitter that Bethesda have stamped their trademark approach on it. That said, I wish Bethesda would just cough up and hire some fuckers who can animate worth a damn. 

"I wish Bethesda would just cough up and hire some fuckers who can animate worth a damn"

Yeah, they really do not seem to have improved the animations at all from the standard they had in Oblivion, which to be fair was wooden at best.

I also heard (dont know if its true) that Fallout 3 has a "point of no return" similar to the Stalker games, so if you are buying FA3 for the sandbox game, be wary of that and do some research to avoid disappointment.

Now then, Dead Space pc controls are fucked up I hear, far cry 2 looks pretty but is dull in the gameplay department, is the only thing to look forward to this Christmas Left 4 Dead? 

I wish Bethesda would just cough up and hire some fuckers who can animate worth a damn

man, i was really hoping it wouldn't be another repeat of this. oblivion animations sucked. morrowind animations sucked. you think these guys would learn-- or are they somehow not aware that their animators are shit? 

...to the anims, but I played for a while last night and am thoroughly enjoying it so far (just exited the vault-slash-training area).

I'm biased though; I've never played a Bethsoft RPG I haven't enjoyed--I even got a kick out of the horribly broken auto-generated dungeons in Daggerfall. :)

They've reportedly fixed one of the biggest shit parts of Oblivion, which was the auto-leveling enemies. The VATS turn-based combat option is interesting...

I suspect I'll sink a silly number of hours into this. 

it's probably the best post-ap game for a while, so i'll probably end up playing it anyway.