Atmosphere can make or break a game, holding your belief steady for the world that the developer wants you to explore. In 2007 two games came along with atmosphere in spades; Stalker and Bioshock. Bioshock for me was a flawed gem. The city of Rapture was enthralling in the beginning, but the undersea environment was quickly wasted in favour of a corridor shooter, losing much of the initial dread. Stalker holds true to the environment throughout the game, offering a truly atmospheric and bleak experience. There are some terrifying moments and the world almost feels real, especially set to the backdrop of the Chernobyl disaster. While the original game was fantastic, I highly recommend installing one of the many mods now available. I personally suggest the L.U.R.K. mod for keeping to the original intent of the game yet adding stealth mechanics with lethal and varied gunplay. "Get out of here Stalker".
This is a very charming game with great artwork, animation and music. The main character's voice is played very well and lends real warmth to the game. The puzzles themselves are quite challenging and I needed to refer to the help system once or twice. The main problem I had was the bugs. There are quite a few conversation sentences that are missing the audio file and the game sometimes went to a black screen after a video sequence and I had to restart to fix it. This also happened right at the end of the game and I couldn't view the credits. As a final word I would say that if you enjoy adventure games and appreciate charming hand-drawn animations (which are perhaps a little rough around the edges, but that is no bad thing) I would recommend giving this a chance.
Thank you so much GOG. This is one of my favourite games of all time, a strategic and detailed beautiful 3D game with realistic damage and a destructible environment. There are weapons and items that can be scavenged from the environment to aid you as resources are limited. Each action must be thought through carefully, both in the real time and turn-based action mode. I can't recommend this highly enough and if my description even slightly interests you then please try it for yourself.
