At this very moment thousands of ignorant little Valve slaves are flocking to pick up the newest zombie horror game to hit the market--Left 4 Dead. Little do they know that they are about to get home and promptly shout a blood curdling WTF after playing the first chapter of the game. I'm not even going to try and fluff around the edges with this one. It sucks, it's boring, it's repetitive, it looks six years out of date, and it's little more than a bunch of multiplayer maps that can be played in single player. In fact, that's the game's only redeeming quality whatsoever. I'm not going to lie, I had huge expectations for this game, but the reality is a complete joke.

Yesterday like many other slaves to the market, I trudged over to the local Gamestop to pick up my reserved copy of Left 4 Dead. On the way home I was extremely pumped... partially from my recent Fallout 3 high, but also because I knew this was going to be some quality zombie killing action. Holy shit, was I completely wrong! After an hour I was already itching to turn the game off and after two I completely stopped taking the game seriously and started to just wander into zombies in order to let my teammates save me for fun.

In the mood for some survival horror gaming? Do you miss that warm fuzzy feeling you get from cutting off the limbs of your enemies, or that satisfy crunch when you crush their head? If you've been longing for some hot bloody action, Dead Space is definitely the game for you. Having heard nothing about this release in prior months, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but so far I'm extremely happy with what the game has to offer and how it is presented. Simply put, it advertises itself as a straight up survival horror game and it has turned out to be all that and more. The title might be a bit confusing, but Dead Space really is a combination of all four of those elements in one beautiful game. Of course it's far from perfect, few games are these days, yet it delivers on every level from psychological immersion to intense sound to beautifully crisp visuals.

When I bought the game I brought it home fully expecting to be disappointed, or to have another Doom clone that would just be average. Instead, I've been extremely pleased with it and found myself scared on more than one occasion. So, whats to like? It's all in the presentation.

So, you've played STALKER: Clear Sky and after hours of frustration, bugs, patching, and utterly failed game play, you're pissed as all hell. The good news is that if you haven't played the original in awhile, there are three great reasons to give it another spin: Oblivion Lost, Sky4ce, and Float32. As you've probably noticed, many of the top games these days have a huge community mod following. These three in particular stand out as must haves and really overhaul the game to what it was meant to be. In their early stages each promised to enhance varying aspects of the game, but now that they have matured combining them gives STALKER a completely different feel... and for the better!

Let's start with Oblivion Lost 2.2, the latest release as of this article. Designed as a complete reinvention of STALKER, OL adds all the elements they TRIED to use in Clear Sky without success. Faction wars, random deadly blow outs (pictured above), cooperative play, a larger selection of weapons and armor, tweaked game balancing, random and moving anomalies, new enemies, sound and weather overhaul, and a ton of additional features. OL really is STALKER as it should have been from the beginning! I definitely recommend installing this and starting a fresh game. You'll really feel as though Clear Sky was a completely botched attempt at doing what a couple of people implemented for free.