It was incredibly atmospheric even though it lack very detailed descriptions, it is all very nicely conveyed trough the charcathers, and having read it i can only now see how both the movie and the games lack in atmosphere compared to the book.
Haven't seen the movie (yet), but I think the games do a pretty good job capturing it, especially if you play some mods that make anomalies fully invisible or leave only very subtle clues of their presence... or even randomly placed. Not to mention the goddamn bloodsuckers. The thing I really think the game lacked was the rogueish culture. Everything felt way too military/mercenary... but given the shift in setting and the needs of an action game, that's entirely acceptable to me.
That's the thing, after you get some equipment things pretty much wind down to BOO!! effect horror and it becomes an ordinary shooter, what i would really want is the game retaining that pressure and horror of the Zone no matter how awesomely equipped you are, anomalies should stay somewhat rare, in certain places and become insanely deadly, the best suit protecting you once at most.Now this could make gameplay tedious with constant trips to repair your stuff, but it could be solved with a party system of sorts where you travel with your mates, find stuff, sell it each of you has some sort of skill beneficial to the team.Also guns should be toned down a lot, not the firepower itself but more their frequency so that finding a working weapon is quite an acomplishment.
But that would probably require a big change in the story of the Zone since military, mercenaries and bandits are very established by now, unless the sequel is actually the prequel in which case they can do some very neat stuff with the Zone itself aswell as with the people.
Also,
one of the rare songs that make me smile like a dumb fool ^^