Death, Taxes, and Chernobyl

Matt's maternal grandfather, our landlord, died yesterday evening. Requiescat in pace. The rental arrangements will, for the time being, be handled by the power of attorney, one of Matt's aunts. In grim irony as to the certainty of things, I was doing my taxes last night as well. The Hope Grant gave me back my entire tuition expense for 2006, which is amazing. I had to eat the cost of books, of course, but still, getting 100% of my tuition back is something I would never have even hoped for. Almost halfway towards a degree and I haven't even touched my GI bill yet; things are looking good for me financially.

My most recent gaming acquisition (on top of the pile of other games I have to finish) is STALKER for the PC, a game in development since 2001, long thought to be vaporware. Think Oblivion with guns and no leveling system.

It takes place in 2012, in the area immediately surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It's mostly a first-person shooter with some RPG elements such as inventory management, the need to eat, trading with NPCs, and so on. All in all, the game nails the dreary post-apocalyptic feel of games like Fallout but with a Russian ribbon of flavor running through it. The only thing you really need to know about STALKER, however, is that you can get blitzed on vodka and then immediately go shoot at zombies that have guns of their own. There's much more depth than that, but I thought such a scenario bore mention.

The game has its quirks and bugs, but I've been spared from the latter. It had me in its grip for the better part of this past weekend and I'm looking forward to playing some more tonight.