14 DAY TRIAL // After making its localized release in the CIS, on October 2, 2009, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat has finally made its way across the ocean to North America, leaving only Europe and Australia waiting. The game is pretty much another S.T.A.L.K.E.R. iteration, with mainly the same ground rules, rules that have been slightly tweaked. Aside from the obvious visual improvement, the gameplay has also received a bit of polishing, with the one thing that will affect us the most being trading.
Damaged weapons can no longer be sold to vendors, and must be first repaired, repair that usually costs if not as much as we'd get from selling the weapon, then pretty close to it. Weapon upgrades have also returned, and each of the three tier upgrades will require that we get a different set of tools for the local gunsmith to work with. We can also place special orders for unique items, but the price was too steep for me after just a few hours of gameplay.
The title also features a more elaborate information network, as intelligence is a commodity that can be traded, as well as purchased. You can pay to get intel on a certain mission, sparing you the hassle of scavenging through the world for that one needed item, but you can also sell information you come across if you feel like it's not a persuading tip. Mercenaries drop PDAs, papers and documents are left abandoned in old bases and there's almost always someone around willing to pay good money for them.
Aside from this, the Zone is pretty much the same, except for the Emissions. These are periodic events, in which the entire Zone is flooded with a huge amount of radiation, and you need to find shelter to survive. Antibiotics and special medicine are an alternative if you're caught in the open, with nothing to provide protection from the Emissions, but the best thing to do is to look for a solid building, a basement, or your good, old-fashioned hole in the ground.
The gameplay is just as addictive as in Clear Sky, keeping you always on the lookout for new weapons, ammo for them and upgrade parts, so the title should keep any RPG fan busy for quite a while, while the first-person shooter is enough to keep a fan of the genre distracted from all the statistics and quests.