Like back in the days, but looks better. I always preferred the athmosphere and Hub-like progression to the later titles.
This game is my Deus Ex, I keep coming back to it. I want to warn first-timers: The game has been modded back and forth, but if you have never played a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game before, I recommend you keep to the vanilla game plus a bug-fixing-mod like the "Zone Reclamation Project" or "ZRP". I have played the vanilla game back when I was young (harhar) and then later with various mods that set out to improve graphics and tweak vanilla gameplay, like the Complete mod. My take is: these mods are unnecessary to get into the series and can even take away from the atmosphere. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s main problem is, as someone else stated, that it's an old game based on an even older engine. The graphics, especially the lighting, hold up well IMHO even without any mods (considering their age) but the game sadly came before global illumination and other advanced lighting techniques became feasible and it shows. Animations are awkward. The human AI likes to sneak up behind you (good!) but shows fair amounts of stupidity. Monster AI could be better. The music is mesmerizing and the sound design shows lots of potential but falls technically short every other corner. Everything about the game screams raw and "ambitious but understaffed". It's astounding really just how good the game is despite it's flaws. And this is where mods come in. I recommend you stay away from graphics mods. Exchanging vanilla textures and animations, toggling options in the depths of the engine or rolling post-processing over it aren't improvements, IMHO. They are more lipstick on a pig. The game will look old, feel raw and animate awkwardly no matter what you do. Mods making the AI smarter usually don't. And there is one gameplay tweak in particular that I want to warn people of: the ability of traders to repair things, like in the Complete mod. This absolutely kills the scavenge-for-equipment aspect and a big part of the atmosphere of the game. Avoid it for a first playthrough!
game. I concur with fossilfern's review. I found this game magical back in the days, quicksaving every few steps because I was so scared. I recently played it again and while most of the horror moments are gone, the gunfights and AI are as fantastic as ever. Now, I suggest you play the demo first if you can still find it. It will vastly increase the creepiness because you'll recognize the rooms you'll be going through, they just aren't connected the way you remember them. I'm not sure if this was done intentionally by the developers, but I found that very, very uncanny.
