S.T.A.L.K.E.R shows that even bug ridden games can be good.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R is just one of those games where everything comes together perfectly. Sure, it can be glitchy as hell and the shooting at times is way off but the grim atmosphere of the zone and the rewarding feeling of accomplishment when taking out a big group of enemies is just too good to miss.
Story
Now i'll be honest, I lost interest in the story part way through but i'll try and summarise what I remember. You play as a character simply known as "Marked One" and right at the start of the game a truck you are steers off the road and crashes. A stalker comes and finds that you are the only one alive. You wake up and don't remember a thing and your PDA is flashing "kill strelok." Through the course of the game you'll run into different factions and be able to do the odd jobs for them but the side missions don't really have any effect on the main storyline.
Presentation
Now, I've been playing this game on medium settings so I haven't been able to see what the games output is like at max settings but to me the graphics take a backseat to the atmosphere. The developers have managed to capture the feeling of a area surrounding a meltdown zone so well that who cares about the graphics.
There are a few problems though, mostly with menus and the map system, sometimes in this game i'd find myself wandering toward what should be my objective when there'd be nothing there and it'd turn out to get to that objective i'd have to find a underground entrance which would be a bit further away and surrounded by enemies which isn't exactly good if you're low on health. The other problem I have is only a small one but I wish when opening up the inventory menu the game would pause, but it's no big deal, most of the time.
Gameplay
The game plays like your standard non-linear FPS but with a lite RPG system added to it. The shooting is a bit off and takes a while to get used to but once you get it down you're good to go. The RPG mechanics are mostly related to items and trading with other characters.
The free roaming aspect isn't as free as i'd like but it's good enough, often enough you'll try to venture to a part of the map and you'll just die from radiation poisoning, at times it does feel like you're put on a set path to get to your objective.
The main story quests are very interesting, one of my personal favourites was venturing into an abandoned lab which was filled with monsters who like to just jump out of nowhere. Another thing I found interesting was stashes. Now when you kill a enemy human nine times out of ten you'll get their secret stash marked on your map, alot of the times their stashes were minor things but if you keep searching you'll probably end up finding something helpful.
While playing this game you will become best friends with the quicksave button because this game at times can be really hard especially in conditions where it's you against a big group of enemies as at times they'll just come out behind you out of nowhere and later in the game the enemies are extremly powerful and hard to take down.
Overall, S.T.A.L.K.E.R is a very good game that doesn't allow it's bugs to get the best of it. It has great atmosphere, a very large enviroment for you to traverse and lots of side missions so if you enjoy shooters with a RPG twist or RPGs with a shooter twist then this is the game for you...just get used to pressing F6 alot.
