Sanctum 2 and Train Valley 2

Build things before time runs out!

Sanctum 2

This one to four player cooperative game is a first person tower defense where you will be scrambling to build walls, often in serpentine patterns, to force the waves of alien scum to pass right beside your variety of turrets. Block their path however and they'll just pick a wall to break! The game feels pretty ridiculous and floaty but at least you have something to do when you run out of resources to build stuff... you can shoot things directly! Right in their weak spot! It's ok, but obviously super shallow and there are many better cooperative games out there.

Train Valley 2

In this game you are given a small map and some money per level to build railways to connect workers to their labor sites, and you need to be careful to not let your trains derail or crash into each other as that costs lots of money to repair! Strangely, letting people die is ok since they naturally replenish but running out of money is a game over. Honestly I have not run into such a bad interface though. Connecting tracks is tedious, erasing tracks is tedious, and the fricking tutorial itself often derails your learning literally as it gets in the way at the worst possible times. Not recommended at all!

Station Lockdown

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Turns out R4wEC, my new ecuadorian friend, had a lot of quests to complete in the Lubech station area so I decided to help him out - killing dogs and brownies mainly while keeping an eye out for spare parts wherever we travelled. He also advised me to steer clear of the Last_Light clan as they were "looters", an interesting assessment. It was slow going - back and forth in the mist but it was good to have someone watching my back and vice versa. Made a little money selling mutant parts at the Police Station but my funds were drying up pretty quick due to the price of ammo. Really need to find more "arts" soon.

They fetch a lot of money!

We were also both given a task to courier some documents to "the second post" wherever that was, but more alarmingly the gate guards today did NOT want us to exit this area due to the horrible mutants outside. Interesting indeed as I didn't think the gate would be "one way". Not a big deal however as we just took the tunnels underneath the wall, a quick trip since I had previously explored the whole of this underground area.

Once top side we decided to try again for "the city", blasting the mutts that got in the way and carefully avoiding wind and fire anomalies on the road. An encounter with a lone stalker of the First_Light faction startled R4wEC a little until I pointed out they were probably different clans. Got lucky on our approach as none of the other stalkers at the village us till we were in the protection of the guard zone. I say lucky because some of them were packing some scoped high-powered rifles, and we would have been easy pickings coming down the open road during the day like we did. In any case we made it and R4wEC went to get some shut eye while I headed to the chef for some chow.

Crisscross Scouting

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

The next day I decided to try finish a few more quests at the Station so I made my way back towards the apartment complex via a different route, encountering Revenants! These zombie guys were a little scary but alone were still no match against automatic rifles. I eventually came across a "gate guard" manning a large metal fence to a walled off zone. He let me through back into the misty dusk of the Station area where I then proceeded to sweep through the various sectors in the grid, killing a lot more brownies in my house to house searches.

Someone should have put this sign up. :P

A fenced-off section in the North East was home to large numbers of mutants too, dangerous due to the numbers they came in be they rats, brownies or spiders in the playground.

Eventually I found the Palace of Culture which I had somehow missed earlier) which had the entrance to the underground beside it. Followed the stairs down into the Labyrinth to
find it wasn't at all as mazey as I had first hought. It was big, but easily navigatable. Once outside I explored to the edges of the train track to the South finding only more large packs of wild dogs roaming the streets.

After spending the night with the next gate guards I awoke to the sound of gunfire - another stalker named R4wEC was shooting down the mischevious canines so I went to help him. We partied up and decided to try head for "the city" but on the way there encountered a pair of other stalkers heading the opposite way, giving us a warning that a duo of well-armed bandits waited up ahead. Just as well as my new companion had tasks to complete in the Station area anyway, so we hoofed it to the nearest gate and returned to the fog.

Journey to the City

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

There was a lot more traffic at the station today as I counted seven other stalkers talking amongst themselves, doing business or just passing through. Loaded up some ammo then took a task to find out what brownies eat. Fortunately for me, it's not people - as a wandering one managed to knock me out after my gun jammed. After getting it repaired and getting healed up I was running quite low on money and ammo so I thought I'd try go for an ammo stash I heard about hidden somewhere in a nearby warehouse. The place now acted as a giant dog pen though, with those mutated mutts all over the place. Killed a few before the sound of a heavy rifle scared the bejeezus out of me. It was a polish pro-stalker named Pioyer and he was showing an american "newbie" called Emile the ropes. I asked if I could loot the heads since they were leaving them behind and he said it was fine. He also said that I should tag along - I didn't find the ammo stash but I did find a teacher.

A teacher with a heavy machinegun.

He took us to a field near the police station to show us anomalies, explaining the whirling death ones were very dangerous and how to retrieve "arts" (artifacts) - suggesting we purchase a magnetic grip when we are able. He offered to take us to the next part of the city (which he called "the city") but Emile refused, wanting to train up first. I was game to do so, but he took one look at me and said I needed gear first. Emile left us to return to hunting dogs while we returned to the station where my new benefactor outfitted me with 10k rubles, leggings, a vest, a hat, and most importantly an AK47 with 700 rounds of ammo! Just as we were preparing to leave my old frenemy, Null25 showed up, having been similarly outfitted by someone else and now belonging to the "Last Light" faction, and asked if he can tag along. I had previously told Pioyer of my last encounter so he knew I wanted to avoid him. This didn't stop Null25 from following us though, leaving me somewhat uneasy.

The trip took us past the police station and a graveyard to another guarded building. This one had stairs down which we took into some spooky looking tunnels. While we were at it Pioyer taught me how to sprint. The tunnels branched out into a bloody labyrinth in the next section and Pioyer pulled me aside down one tunnel and made us wait for a few minutes. We could hear Null25 calling out for our position and in truth I felt bad leaving him out there but I would have felt worse bringing him along. I can only hope he simply turned around and went back to the station. After many turns we eventually came to stairs going up which led us to the middle of a field in an apartment block complex, and the bright sunlight was a good change from the mists of the first area. "Ready your AK," said Pioyer - confirming that we had come to a dangerous place; however this wasn't "the city" Pioyer was referring to.

Those aren't just ordinary dust devils.

Welcome to Lubech

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Eventually the train pulled to a stop at an old looking station surrounded by heavy mist. There were a number of homeless people outside, as well as some well armed security personel. I instinctively checked for my pack but remembered that I had lost pretty much all my gear (and money) catching the damn train in the first place. A man called "Blacksmith" told me where I was, at the city of Lubech - which I've never heard of before... maybe the zone was expanding? He also handed me a map and gave me directions to another guy inside the station proper who was equiping "newbies" with a small medkit and a small pistol with 100 rounds. The interior was pretty well setup, they had electricity, a bar, an apothecary, a number of shops and a courier bank system in place - anything you stored in one bank could be delivered to another as long as your standing at the other end was high enough. Still, this place was quite deserted. Maybe the other guys who came on the train had already moved out?

Having received my "care package" I took a walk out into the streets of perpetual dusk. It reminded me of Silent Hill. Little mutated rats scurried around in the tall grass that was overgrowing the place, and the small delapidated wooden homes nearby were now occupied by little malevolent imps called Brownies. Two bullets were enough to take those fast moving freaks down though, and some houses had random spare parts I could collect for later crafting. Behind the houses I found large packs of mutant puppies - zombie dogs who I used as target practice, and took their heads back to a homeless guy collecting them. The rubles I earned were barely enough to buy back the ammo I had used though so I took a job to deliver a message to a nearby police station in hopes it would pay better. The streets were mostly inhabited by the mutant dogs, but the cop shop wasn't that far away. The building was also guarded by security but had less facilities within, though I did find the clan registar upstairs. There was little money in the task I did though, and with no ammo vendor here I decided to head back to the station before I ran too low.

If pyramid head shows up, I'm outta here.

After restocking I decided to try explore the streets to the south while looking for spare TV parts for another homeless dude. Threw rocks (out of bolts) to make sure no anomalies were ahead of me and carefully avoided a cluster or rats beside a burned out car. I hadn't gotten very far when suddenly I was being shot at! I turned around to see another stalker/bandit named Null25 shooting at me from near point blank! Fortunately these pistols are crap, so I managed to survive and empty a clip in his direction. Decided to make a run for it while he took cover, but it wasn't long before he and his bullets were after me again though (at least it looked like it) so I carefully positioned myself on the street to bait him to take cover behind the burned out car and soon enough he did. Not sure if my plan worked, but between me shooting him and the rat pack that should have been nibling his feet he retreated back into the station. I used the opportunity to do the same. Once inside the guards deterred any futher shooting and he apologized for shooting at me, thinking I was a bandit. Told him not to worry about it and decided to spend the rest of the day resting up indoors, under the watchful eye of the guards.