Tremendous atmospheric experience let down a little by confusing side-quests and repetitive set-pieces.
And it did!
The architectural design of the compounds, outposts, warehouses, train stations, houses, factories, and labs - is simply amazing. The developers have rendered an extermely believable and immersive environment here that makes you stare in wonder as you progress through 'the zone' to the ultimate destination - Chernobyl NPP - which itself is a work of art as far as digital re-creation goes.
Gamespot awarding this game 'Most Atmospheric Game of 2007' is justified in my mind - I totally agree.
But of course the environment and graphics are not what makes a good game. What about the gameplay? Well let's just say it's solid, a bit quirky, but once you get the hang of it - very enjoyable and lifelike - ie your weapons break, jam, and there are no "uber" weapons around that 1-shot enemies. You have to aim at your targets HEAD and conserve ammo. You have a 50kg carrying limit so you can't carry around tons of weapon or ammo either. Choices like this make the game in my opinion even more immersive and it's a really good thing. If you don't like the limitations, I guess just download a mod that removes them instead of rating the game down due to it's core design principles.
I found that through the game I would have preferred more mutant-killing than constant rival NPC killing. It seemed sometimes a bit of a chore clearing out outpost after outpost of bandits or freedom fighters. Also the side-quests were a bit confusing with the map marker system being innacurate, and the stash system was also broken in that many stashes supposedly containing loot had zero contents in them. And yes I played on patch .5. The primary quest however is done brilliantly and I recommend just concentrating on this to get a good experience. The side quests will just confuse and annoy you.
All in all I enjoyed this game as much as Crysis.