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

The first game was inspired by 2 different things, Roadside Picnic, and the Stalker film from 1979. It almost had more delays than Duke Nukem Forever. The developers are fans of Half-life (You can find a dead bootleg Gordon Freeman in a parking lot tunnel near a Desert Eagle) Excellent atmosphere, rich, immersive world. Lovable fellow STALKERS, and even lovable enemy STALKERS (those bandits are very silly and charming, BANDIT RADIO!) Relatively realistic weapon handling (I used to think how often they jam was a little bs, then me and my bro was firing his handgun at targets, and it jammed literally every other shot. I then appreciated STALKER's weapon system even more. The jam RNG can be a little stupid though. Like X-COM RNG stupid. It's a little janky at times, might want to get a mod or two. Also, check out S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly on Moddb. A really substantial mod that combines the 3 games' maps, has a new quest, and then some.

The term "rough diamond" describes the STALKER series well. After numerous postpones and ultimately even content cuts, the first STALKER game was released in fairly broken shape in late 00s. However thanks to the helpful developers and the passion of the numerous fans, the game got soon fixed into stable form, and nowadays it has gotten two sequels and numerous big fan-made mods. On DX9 & higher lighting-modes these games look stunning, and the dynamic A-Life AI keeps Zone "alive" 24/7. Throw the difficulty to max, disable crosshair, and jump into the mysterious and deadly world of STALKER! See more info at : http://pastebin.com/FUPEbLiv Don't give up in the beginning! The starting gear kinda sucks and first area is... a bit boring for some. So what ARE the STALKER games then? -First-Person- survival -shooter games. -Open-ended world with some pre-determined, scripted sections. Changing weather and day/night cycles. -Your character needs to eat, and getting hit may cause varying levels of bleeding. 1 shot may kill at best. -Focus on FPS gameplay, with physics-affected bullet trajectories, multiple ammo types and upgrading options for all guns. -Some RPG-like elements, such as weight-limited inventory and resistance statistics. No leveling-up or collecting EXP, it's all real-time action! -Loosely based on the Russian "Roadside Picnic" -novel, and the "Stalker" movie based on it. The games take place in the area known as the Zone, which is more twisted version of the real-life Zone of Alienation, the closed area around the exploded Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant in Ukraine. Unexplainable stuff starts happening in the area, it gets closed down by military. Few nutcases start breaking in to the place and smuggle out artifacts with logic defying effects, which eventually causes a "gold rush" into the area. These people illegally infiltrating the Zone become dubbed as STALKERS, short for Scavengers - Trespassers - Adventurers - Loners - Killers - Explorers - Robbers.

Amazing story, amazing atmosphere, hard-but-fair difficulty, open world. This is PC gaming rolled up in a single game.

loved this game , loads of atmosphere and still one of the best open world shooters . 10 stars ( Classic )

The STALKER games (the original trilogy) are masterpieces. Simple as that. Yes, the budgets were not that high, and bugs were present, but the soul of these games are just incredible, and the bugs/issues have been resolved by the incredibly passionate community. The STALKER games are the most atmospheric games that I have ever played (and I have played many games) with such incredible world design and environmental story telling. To understand the STALKER games, think of Fallout meets Deus Ex meets Far Cry set in the Chernobyl area of Ukraine with subtle supernatural elements made by actual Ukraine developers for extra authenticity and heavily inspired by the movie STALKER (which is in turn inspired by the novel "A Roadside Picnic"). There are just no other games like the STALKER games. The games are so unique: melancholic, philosophical, noir, artistic, fun, exploratory, action-packed, RPG, just everything in one that "just works". The games are ridiculously addictive and engrossing with tight gameplay and perfect pacing/scope. The trilogy is in my top five games of all time (having played close to 35 years of many many games). The passion of the communities for these games is also astronomical and totally rightfully so. STALKER - Anomaly and many other STALKER mods are always pretty much the most popular mods on ModDB and there are such incredible communities built around these games. It is extremely difficult to put into words what experiencing STALKER (especially the original Shadow Of Chernobyl for the first time) is like, it is magical and something so unique. Just pure masterpieces born from passionate developers and so different from traditional "western games" so to speak. Like so different, but still familiar...difficult to put into words. Those other fellow STALKERS that "get it" know that once the Zone has you...it never lets you go, and few other games ever make you feel and have an experience like the STALKER trilogy.