I've been overflowing with cash since last holiday season, and, unsurprisingly, have made several bad decisions of the like that commonly accompany newfound burgeosity. Like, impatiently buying Tony Hawk's Project 8 on a whim instead of renting it first. I've also purchased Crackdown - worth it, thanks to the Halo 3 beta, Medieval II: Total War, Killzone: Liberation - awful decision, Lumines II, and, just recently, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. After having my save games deleted by the recent patch, I have not yet finished the game, but I will share my initial thoughts.

The first thing that struck me was utter frustration at the lighting system. It. Needs. OPTIMIZATION. Seriously. My $200 graphics card - yes, I'm proud of it - can handle Half-Life 2 with HDR smoothly as a knife through hot, steaming butter, but this game brutally assassinates my FPS! So, I turn off object dynamic lighting, and instant peace and smooth sailing. But the game looks like crap. My card has shader model 3.0, so why can't it handle the dynamic lighting without lag and crashing? If it can handle Half-Life 2 with HDR - which has much better character and weapon models, I might add - fine, why can't it handle cruddy models with less than HDR?!

 Anyway, now that I'm over that, I can appreciate this game in its true glory: as an art form. This game is art. Not through its gameplay, and certainly not through its presentation, but through the environment the developers have wrought. The AI, by today's mediocre standards, is unfathomably awesome. I have not seen creatures and humans behave so realistically in any other game. And the world they're placed in is enthralling in its detail - horrifying at times, but constantly immersive, audioally and visually.

The AI, as stated, is great, and well-tailored to both humans and creatures. Humans, at leisure and unthreatened, will gather by the fire, belt out tunes on the guitar, chat in Russian, eat, et cetera. If approached at gunpoint, they will act equally hostile, cursing at you and waving you off. But the human AI shines best in combat. If alerted, they will actively seek cover, then seek to destroy you, often flanking and using their commonly superior numbers against you. They will pin you, then advance with whatever deadly tool they have at their disposal, though retreating if outgunned. They never charge at you; only intelligent, realistic actions are taken. Creatures will attack in packs, retreat if wounded, regroup, and attack again. When attacked while alone, dogs will be quick to run away, but soon return en masse. Mutants and zombies charge dumbly, though, which is rather disappointing. Creatures, contrare to humans, best show their AI when idle. They will chew on killed prey, drag corpses off, and protect the carcass of their alpha.

The environments are also amazing. If the lighting effects worked worth a fart, the game would be quite atmospheric. The ambient gunfire and screams of hunted Stalkers in the distance are very creepy, especially when you are alone and the fantastic music isn't playing (it tends to switch off abruptly, causing an occasional jump). The snarls of wild dogs, snorts of giant pigs, and roars of mutants will put your hair on end, but there is one major problem with the audio - the game is lacking in "distance detection" for many sounds. Even if the dog is fifty meters down the road, the bark will sound like it is right behind or before you. This gets quite annoying; I may start to haul anal region towards safety when the snarl I hear is actually from a creature undangerously far away.

While the great outdoors are scary enough, the "main quest" of the game often forces you into dark, dank and dreary corridors, far from any hope of rescue by a wandering ally. The developers pull the standard horror stops on you during these segments; when in big, dark rooms you'll hear a roar and not know where it came from; expected terror ensues. In tight, enclosed spaces you'll hear the pattering of feet or the ting of a boot on metal; expected soiling occurs. Between all the pants changing and wound bandaging, it's a surprise one is able to survive at all.

Anyway, that's all I have for now. These paragraphs will probably be assimilated into a complete review once I have finished the game, and expect more criticism of the difficulty and, of course, the lighting.