Hey guys, I bought the STALKER series on GOG (back when it came out yo). And now I'm looking for THE BEST STALKER EXPERIENCE.

I got a couple of questions about it. Answers are appreciated.

1) Consider the 3 games in original form (unmodded). I've gathered that CoP is the best game of the three. Should I play all 3 in order or should I just play the last one (CoP)? Basically, in terms of game design, how different are SoC, CS from CoP?

2) If the answer to 1) is that they're basically the same game, and you add the best vanilla mods to each, does CoP+ remain the best of the three? By the way, mods that add game features which were originally intended but not implemented, I still count as vanilla mods.

Play them in this order:

SoC
CoP
CS (as its a prequel it can spoil the story of SoC - and is probably best played after CoP as well, or you can play it after SoC if you prefer).

THEN

Play LOST ALPHA: http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha

I would actually say SoC is the best game in terms of story, atmosphere and gameplay, but CoP had an updated engine which some preferred - its a much emptier game.