Great game, that you MUST patch before playing, with one of the best storylines in RPG history.
The FPS aspects of the game are the truly revolutionary aspects of the game. As your character advances, and you spend experience raising your firearms skill and your attributes, you will the recoil from weapons gets less and less, the crosshairs (the area in which any given bullet will hit) will get smaller and smaller. Early in the game the more powerful guns are virtually unusable because of the amount of recoil, and your characters inability to use the gun at any significant range. What is interesting is that with melee and unarmed combat the game designers went in a totally different direction. As your skill and attributes are raised, your character can do more damage, and attack faster. While this may not seem significant, it is actually really intuitive, and very realistic.
Finally, I would like to mention that the year this game came out, it was awarded the Best Level Design by Gamespot. Never heard of best level design? That is because that year Gamespot created that award, just because they knew that this game, which only received a 7.7 from Gamespot, nonetheless deserved to be credited with being one of the great games of the year. And I certainly agree with them. The level that they mention in that award, the Haunted Hotel, is one of the most interesting, most memorable, and just the spookiest level that I have ever played. It is simply an amazing level.
With the necessary patches, and a system considerably more advanced then systems were when this game came out, the game can be smooth and very fun to play, and still visually appealing.
A definite recommend, and a great game. It is up there with Psychonauts as one of the greatest games ever made, that no one you know has played.