A very solid gameplay and a very cool premise with some bugs.
So, thats why I beg all of you. Give S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a second chance. Is an amazing game, with a very solid structure and an incredible atmosphere.
Lets get rid of the bugs first. My system is a Pentium IV 3.0 GHZ with 1.5 GB RAM DDR400, and a GeForce 7300LE. It seems Stalker doesnt like my card, and as such, the only way I can play without gettin terrible graphic artifacts is on windowed mode. At first I was deeply aggravated. Then I decided to give it a shot.
Well, graphics even on low res are impressive. The fact that the sun is finally taken as a dynamic light source makes the outdoor environments a beautiful sight to see. The bleak colors and gray skies truly immerse you into the oppresive feeling of a long forsaken area, left to rot in oblivion. You cant help but feel that even nature is a survivor there, and that feeling is something you wont get in any other game.
But after the first glance, well, framerates drop. The X-Ray engine is incredibly taxing on any machine, but given the fact that all shadows are dynamic, all textures have parallax mapping and all light sources are dynamic, well, you understand why. So I wasnt really bothered by having to lower the details to the point of having to play using the DX8 renderer.
And even so, the game is stunning. Maybe you wont get the dynamic light effects from before, but the textures still look pretty crisp at 1280x1024, and the environment retains 90% of its capacity to overwhelm. The grass sways with the wind, the weather changes randomly and night follows day (which can make for some VERY hairy situations).
The story has you as the Marked One, an amnesic Stalker (scavengers that dwell in The Zone, which comprehends the area around Chernobyl) who after being rescued has the mission to find a Strelok guy, a Stalker that supposedly made it to the center of The Zone. The legend says that in the center of The Zone there is a Monolith, the Wish Granter. If someone makes a wish there, it will allegedly come true, at the expense of the expansion of The Zone. And so, begins your quest for Strelok and your memory.
As for gameplay, this game is an outstanding merging of RPG and FPS. The inventory system is a lot like Diablo's, with a grid that limits the size of things to carry, and an added weight variable stops you from carrying more weapons than a dreadnought, forcing you to make choices about the weapons you want to take with you. These weapons can be upgraded with silencers and scopes, which can lenghten the life of a weapon. There are also artifacts, product of the different anomalies that plague The Zone, which provide bonuses like enhanced resistance to bullets or other dangers. You can equip 5 of this artifacts at any given time, but most of them have a weak point. For example, the Meat Chunk artifact gives you +200% health, but lowers your resistance to slashing damage and raises your radioactivity meter. This radioactive meter will rise whenever you are close to a dangerous radiation zone, and will increase for the time you remain there. If the bar gets too high, oull start losing health very fast. To fix this, zip up some vodka (which can make you dizzy) or use Antirad medicines. This will lower the bar and stop the health from decreasing.
The only peeve I have with this inventory system is that is a bit cumbersome to loot enemies. You have tosearch their bodies, grab what you need and then exit the inventory. This can be quite a problem on heated skirmishes, which abound on the game. However, the bodies stay forever and are shown on the radar, meaning that you can always loot them later if you wish.
And speaking of skirmishes, the AI is fantastic. It alwats looks for cover, tries to lure you to places where there are more enemies and is constantly attempting to flank you. Some minor quirks pop out here and there, like a stuck enemy or a bandit who just stands there shooting. However, these are very rare, and can hardly be taken in count.
The ballistic system is incredibly realistic. If you thought CS was hard, well, this will be a lot harder (duh...). The bullets are affected by wind (which you can see direction by the way leaves move) gravity and weapon condition. If you shoot too fast the weapon may jam, forcing you to reload. You can use your iron sights to aim, simething very recommendable, given the increased accuracy. Firing in bursts is a must, and ammo is quite scarce. You can buy ammo and weapons from traders, but traders are far in between. However, when you reach one, the supply youll get from them will do just fine.
The game has a very interesting betiary to shoot at. Apart from the usual bandits, mercs and soldiers, there are mutated animals like dogs and boars, with very like-like pack behaviour. Other creepy crawlies include Lurkers (an invisible creature that can only be seen when it attacks) Snorks (mutated Stalkers who are now more beast thatn human) Zombies (no comments) and weirder things that youll have to see for yourselves.
The sound aspect is just outstanding. You can listen to the wind hissing through the trees, the leaves moving on the trees, far screams from distant battles, howls of unspeakable anomalies and a constant yet almost unnoticed music ambients the levels incredibly well.
And oh, the levels.... ALl of them are very open ended, and you can walk around them as you like. True, they only have one entrance and one exit, but the sheer size makes the exploring something quite interesting. Most enemies will drop a "stash directions note" when looted, which can give you access to extra ammo or weapons, if you have the guts to search for them.
And even with all the space, is hard to get lost. A very nice map points you on the general direction of your next task, and with the push of a button you can have acces to a PDA way more effective thatn Doom 3's, since it not only shows you the map of the place you are in, but it also lists all the tasks and side quests (more on the side quests later) and gives you info about local folklore, freaks you encounter and items you gather.
About the side quests, well, there are PLENTY of them. You are free to do them whenever you feel like it, on the order you wish. However, I found many of them were broken, forcing a restart of the game to make them work properly.
Another quirk is the saving system.Nothing weird about it, just the fact that if you have a username with spaces on it, it will not load games. Youll have to rename the file on the saves directory in order to load it again.
But all in all, this a game that has so many interesting features that despite all the bugs and all the quirks, can stand out as unique in the genre, and had it been more polished on the coding department, it would have been a serious contendor to the FPS crown worn by HL2.
A very good game.