S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

One of the best open world FPS ever made. One of the most immersive and atmospheric games ever made. SoC takes place in the 'Zone' around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant wherein, after a fictional second explosion, strange things happen. The military cordons off the area, Mutans appear, people lose their minds, objects with unexplainable properties are found, even the laws of physics change in certain areas – and what the hell is going on in those old soviet underground laboratories? (If you've been to Chernobyl or seen pictures of it, you can tell that the devs went to great lengths to make SoC look very authentic.) Only the very adventurous or the desperate venture into the 'Zone' to find riches beyond comprehension, the fulfillment of their innermost wishes or simply death. I strongly urge everyone to read the novel "Roadside Picnic" before playing the game as it will enhance your experience of the 'Zone' immensely and would push SoC to a six-star game... Almost every aspect of the game can be tweaked with a simple text editor and thanks to an active community everything is well documented. So even a total noob can change the game to his or her liking. I recommend installing the "Complete"-mod - you'll get a HUGE improvement in terms of graphical fidelity. Or you can use the "Oblivion Lost"-mod which adds numerous things and enhances the gameplay even further.

As the first of the games, it's pretty rough since it had a troubled development cycle (2001-2007!), but don't let that turn you off. This is one of the most atmospheric and memorable FPSsurvival-horror games you will ever find. For the modern folk, think Amnesia crossed with a little bit of Skyrim with guns. I'd recommend going to the PC Gaming Wiki (use your search engine) to download the modsbug fixes needed to make this game stable, pretty, and fresh. You will not forget this one soon. "GET OUT OF HERE STALKER!"

Gog.com released STALKER! This is the one series I have most wanted to see a DRM-free gog release of. For the uninitiated, STALKER does not fit nicely into any one category of game, if you come expecting a Half Life 2 or Call of Duty and the like then STALKER may disappoint, because it was never that. Even the Metro series is far more conventional then STALKER. So why play STALKER? Atmosphere. These games, even in there vanilla builds, manage to create such rich open environments of urban decay the likes of which I have never again experienced. Wear headphones, set the graphics to max, and enjoy. My only recommendation is to do a little reading on how to play, both the manual and Dawnrazor73's excellent Zone Survival Guide can really help you grasp the somewhat foreign mechanics of these classics. Beware of spoilers in the latter though. Finally, I do not believe there is any "true" way of playing these games, between the bugs in the initial releases and the incredibly diverse mods out there -- just pick something and run with it. If you do not like it, pick something else. The Zone calls...

Please do not play this masterpiece with Complete 2009/2012. In addition to being outdated and riddled with bugs, it makes the game far too easy. You should rather play it with Zone Reclamation Project and some graphic mods such as Absolute Nature/Absolute Structures if you think it looks dated. Now, all of my favorite games are more or less from 1994 to 2000, with a few exceptions in the recent years. Shadow of Chernobyl is one of these exceptions. The atmosphere is extremely thick, the Zone is very dangerous and almost everything out there is out to kill you, even the environment itself with various anomalies and radiation pockets, as you can imagine. Gunplay is very good, the exploration feels rewarding and the sheer amount of caches around will make you search places from top to bottom. You can gather artifacts in anomaly fields you can either equip or sell, these usually give you boosts but you can get irradiated in the process. STALKER is not an RPG even if it has very light RPG systems; quests, dialogue trees and some stats. You do not level up and you'll be constantly looking for better weapons and armor. Explore lush, radioactive areas, visit underground and secret soviet laboratories, scared of something that might jump out of the shadows to get you, scavenge weapons and equipment, run around the vast wilderness, hunt mutant creatures, discover the secret of the Chernobyl NPP and more importantly: kill Strelok.