Here you go JDR a little update. I've made it to Duty's stronghold and now I'm doing the quests at The Bar. I have to say I'm impressed with this mod. I expected at least one quest to be broken due to the amount of new stuff they put in, but so far every quest is intact.
There is too much added content to even begin listing, but I'll try
The new mutants/monsters I've ran across are zombies, mutant kitties, some kind of psuedo blinking dog (I don't remember if they had that in the vanilla version but they sure are annoying when they blink out of existance and then back in), long armed zombies (they have another name but that is basically what they are), and mutant rats.
Zombies are a little annoying because after you kill them the first time they'll get back up and you have to kill them again. I've tried shooting and stabbing them when they are on the ground but it doesn't do anything until they stand back up. Normally they stay down the second time they fall but I've had one get back up three times. They're not very many of them but so far they are logically spawned like in the swamps or abandoned buildings. I've had a couple spawn after a blowout near the beginning camp, but they weren't in the camp. They were on the outskirts of it. The sentry saw them and they guys there took them out with only one loss on their side.
The big kitties are tougher than they look, well they look like a mutant cougar so maybe I should say they are as tough as they look. They attack with three or four of them together.
The dogs are just as tough as in the orginal but now they won't run away forever. One thing I hated was chasing down those dogs for miles. I'll be a monkey's uncle if the AI doesn't have one attack you straight on while some of the others try to get behind you or flank you.
The human opponents can now use grenades and they are pretty good with them too. When a grenade is thrown a "G" will show up on the minimap and if you don't move your behind quick enough you'll be hamburger. Basically anytime you see someone throw something or a G pops up on the minimap run!!!
The human AI is a little better but if you're in a building and they're outside they'll still come in one at a time. It doesn't matter if they're are five bodies by the door. Outside or underground the AI seems good. It will try to find cover and normally won't go out in the open stupidly.
Tons of new weapons, but the most interesting new concept they've added is recipes. You can get recipes that allow you to transmutate. I haven't done it yet but the recipes consist of finding a certain artifact and throwing it in a specific anomaly, wait a few hours (you have a sleeping bag that allows you to pass the time quickly in 1, 3, 5 hours or rest until healed) and there is supposed to be a new object in it or it transforms you. I'm still not sure about how it exactly works. That will be what I try next.
You now can get hungry, but it isn't annoying in any way. You just have to eat some food once or twice a day. A fork and knife icon will pop up when you're hungry.
The blowouts are all over the place now and they are a lot different from the original. Everything will go red, the earth will shake for a long time. You better run your butt off into a house or you'll take some damage during the end of the blowout. The damage normally isn't enough to kill you but your radiation level will rise in increments and your health will lower. The first time this happened I just woke up and everything went red. I saw the "loner" stalkers running like the devil was on their tail, then all hell broke loose. Mostly it isn't damaging it just adds a sense of danger to the zone. Also it's pretty cool to see how the AI will send everyone into buildings as fast as they can run. I just follow these guys whenever a blowout happens. These blowouts happen about once every day or two days. Not too much to be annoying, it's just right to add to the atmosphere of the game.
Vehicles are ok. No real bugs with them other than they will keep flying in the air if they hit an anomly that throws them in the air. You just jump out when that happens but the car keeps flying. Then after the anomaly is over it will fall back to the ground. I'm pretty sure all cars are indestructable, but I might be mistaken. I took a grenade hit in one and I died but not the car
I mostly use cars to quickly backtrack to a trader or a certain zone.
The different factions will attack each other from time to time and you'll get a radio message saying who is attacking who and where. You can go in and help out or ignore it, either way it has never broken any quests by killing off a main character.
All in all I think I'll play this mod before I buy Clear Sky. It has added a lot to the atmosphere of the game. It really has turned my second run through of this game into basically a whole new game. I think this is what the devs where trying to do in the first place. The whole zone feels alive with it's own agenda that you have nothing to do with. Mutants attacking mutants or humans. Factions vying for power in the zone.
There are tons of stuff I'm probably missing and will post more after I've gone through the science area and killed the big ugly boss their
All of this has been done on the Elite level. The readme recomends the Hell level but I'm just not a headshot master in FPS, so I chose the one right before hell.
Oh one last thing, night is dark. I mean really dark. You need a flashlight to see, but if you turn on the flashlight other critters and humans see that instantly. With the flashlight turned off you can sneak up close and shoot them before they see you if you're careful. If you don't want to do any sneaking all you have to do is sleep until it's daylight. The weather effects are nice also, but I think they had rain and fog in the original.
Link to Oblivion lost 2.2 download
http://stalker.filefront.com/file/Oblivion_Lost_22_for_1005;93039
