Game tester pay

The events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat unfold shortly after the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered about the open path to the Zone center, the government decides to hold a large-scale military "Fairway" operation aimed to take the CNPP under control.

According to the operations plan, the first military group is to conduct an air scouting of the territory to map out the detailed layouts of anomalous fields location. Thereafter, making use of the maps, the main military forces are to be dispatched.

Despite thorough preparations, the operation fails. Most of the avant-garde helicopters crash. In order to collect information on reasons behind the operation failure, Ukraines Security Service send their agent into the Zone center.
From now on everything depends on the player.

Photorealistic exclusion Zone – Pripyat town, Yanov railway station, Jupiter factory, Kopachi village and more, recreated by their true-to-life prototypes.
New story, a number of unique characters.
Extended system of side quests.
New monsters: Chimera and Burer. New behaviour and abilities for all monsters.
New A-Life system, created using the players best-liked elements of the first two games in series.
Emissions considerably influence the world of the Zone.
Sleep function added into the game.
New players interface.
Possibility to continue the game after completion in a freeplay mode.
The game is developed on X-Ray engine v.1.6

One of the things I remember most fondly about the post-crash era of videogaming was the emergence of publishers with distinct visual personalities.  On the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, everything tended to look about the same -- there wasnt enough graphical flexibility to allow for much distinction, and while some designers were better than others at getting the most out of the hardware, everyone was wearing the same straitjacket.  When the 8-bit NES came along, suddenly there were enough pixels and colors available to suggest cuteness and grittiness, sharpness and subtlety; Super Mario Bros. looked distinctly different from Metal Gear and Mega Man.

I was reminded of this in the negative sense this week, as I fired up Masayas L-Dis, a 1991 CD-ROM shoot-em-up for the Japanese PC Engine.  Ive only played a few of Masayas games, and my general impression of the companys work has been less than stellar; its not so much that their games were bad, as that they were undistinguished.  I have no sense of Masayas "personality", so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Nippon Computer Systems games division came up with a pretty strong game this time around.


The story is slightly more interesting than the standard ship-plus-stone-chinned-pilot-versus-universe conceit.  The games prologue introduces us to two young students, a boy and a girl, whose after-school chalk-drawing session is interrupted by evil forces from another dimension:


Whatever this entity is, it manages to kidnap the girl, and transform the kids drawings into an array of villains.  We pick one of three weapons options, and were off to battle!


The game looks really good, with bright cartoon graphics and smooth animation, though there is a little bit of sprite-priority sloppiness causing flying enemies to move "between" ground-based foes and the background layer.  The CD-Audio soundtrack cooks along nicely if unmemorably, and we get to face a good variety of small enemies and several bosses per level.  The difficulty is also pitched well -- while I never quite managed to beat the first level during a quick sample of the game, I got consistently better and at least managed to make it TO the third boss with lives left.



The design is intentionally loose and silly -- all of the powerups are announced in a high-pitched childs voice, and nothing is taken seriously; weapons include ladies footwear flung haphazardly at the enemy.  The early part of the first level features a colorful sunset and a giant flying sharkish submarine:



Eventually we reach the apparent end of the level, and face a clam monster who initially faces the wrong way and is frightened of all the gunfire aimed at his backside:


After beating the clambot, we are transported into a strange dimension, with a bit of background parallax, to face this bug-eyed robot villain:


L-Dis isnt a spectacular game or a forgotten classic, but its completely competent and pleasant to play, and its colorful visuals make for a nice change of pace from the usual 2-D side-scrolling shooters that were so common on the PC Engine.  I will probably spend more time with this little cute-em-up when I sit down to play just for fun.

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This ones worth picking up -- you might be able to find it for sale here.