I found Stalker SoC to be...

One of the scariest games I've played, did anyone else also feel this way? The game didn't even try to intentionally scare me with monsters jumping out of doors or vents *cough deadspace* and I would have found that much less scary than stalkers ability to just creep the hell out of me with its atmosphere alone.

I definitely find it to be one of the more unsettling games I've played. It isn't your traditional "horror" game, but the atmosphere, the difficulty, the ambience, the lighting, the general feeling of being alone, the realistic take on the post-apocalyptic genre (and I use the term "realistic" loosely.) If you get really into the game, and play it alone with the lights out, it can really get to you at times.

I kind of agree. It was not so much scary as it was tense for me, but I guess that would be similar. It's just a game that keeps you on your toes.

I'm not that terribly far, but it's not very scary yet. Does it get scarier?

It's really difficult though, especially before I figured out anything but head shots was a waste of ammo.

Yeah, the entire game is freaking creepy. I just played it over again with the Complete 2009 and weapon mod and it still scares the s*** out of me.

There is nothing more scary than you being in the zone in the middle of the night with very little ammo and a flashlight.lawlessx

I must be living under a rock or something cause I never heard of Stalker till the steam summer sale.

I almost crapped my pants when I first met a controller.

Yeah, the game can get pretty scary at times.

The labs were the most tense parts for me.
I didn't run into being scared at night in the game because I first played the game unpatched, and the nights were really bright, so when I played modded version I already knew the level by the back of my hand.

I'm not that terribly far, but it's not very scary yet. Does it get scarier?

It's really difficult though, especially before I figured out anything but head shots was a waste of ammo.

magnax1

Depends how far you are... Some people blow through to the Wild Territory in a few hours, whereas others take hours to get out of Cordon (Neither is necessarily to do with having difficulty... Just the pace you play it)

Body shots can be fine... It's just that at the beginning, pistols (and sawn-off shotguns at any range) don't go through the light armour of enemies.
Once you get the first assault rifles (AK-74, AK-74u) you can get pretty effective body shots against bandits, but when you run into the military you should probably have some trouble penetrating their armour again.
I usually avoid body shots anyway though... If the enemy flinches from one you have a bit to aim though...