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[dirkzen]

In my neverending search for that 'perfect game', I've developed a certain taste for games.
I enjoy first person shooters.
I enjoy open-ended sandbox style games.
I enjoy games with quests that let me approach them in my own way,  without limits or restrictions or anyone holding my hand.
Most of all, I absolutley love those games that just suck you in through immersion and atmosphere.

Stalker somehow manages to satisfy me on all of these points, while at the same time giving me even more to chew on.

The atmosphere is bleak and drab,  with burnt down buildings and rusty cars, grey skies and rain, managing to make you feel lonley as hell, even when you're sitting around the fire with other fellow Stalkers.
Theres this heavy, opressive feeling of dread that weighs down on your shoulders at all times.
Its not scary in a cheap 'jump out and BOO'  sort of way.  It slowly builds up,  until you find yourself purposfully thrusting yourself into every dark corner of the game,  just wanting to get the scare over with. 
Its even more drab and depressing than Fallout...  but at the same time,  life is all around you.
In this game, the environment isn't centered around you.   Sure, theres' a few scripted events here and there to spice things up now and then, but for the most part..  you're not the one in control.  You just happen to be a person tossed into a system thats already doing its thing,  and doesn't care wether you're there or not.
Animals hunt each other.  Other Stalkers trade and loot and fight for survival just like you are.

If you don't know what to play, and need an idea... or even if you haven't tried out this series before..  I highly recommend it.

[Toady Two]

There is already a big thread about the series on this board. It's been on the first page a while ago IIRC.

You should check out some of the mods. Apart from visual enhancements and bugfixes mods can provide balance overhauls that make additional playthroughs more interesting.

[dogstile]

Out of curiosity and i'll ask here because why not, its on the first page. Is there a mod that allows you to pay other stalkers to accompany you?

I'd love to take a team of my own into the labs, but the game doesn't let me do that.

[Svampapa]

I still don't understand why praise keeps raining on this broken, broken game. Then again... I ain't eastern block.

[nenjin]

Neither am I. You can appreciate what a game did while acknowledging it had a lot of problems. Stalker may always be slightly broken without help, but by the time CoP came out, the game was pretty much fully realized.

Put it this way. It felt a lot more honest in its treatment of a world than Fallout 3+ did.

[dogstile]

I've been playing it without any sort of mod (the only one i've tried is complete) and i've never seen any brokenness. It crashed... once, I suppose.

So I haven't got a clue how it's broken.

[nenjin]

The quest system/stash system isn't buggy and poorly designed? I don't think I've ever seen that part of the game work well. I had the game at release and it had more than a few issues.

[Gunner-Chan]

The only serious problem base stalker has is the stash bug, that being that searching a stash before you unlock it can cause it to stay empty after unlocking it. Quests? The random quests are bullshit and give nearly nothing to finish them anyway, the broken part about them is they're an afterthought. The base quests for me, even stock and un-modded have never broke for me.

Complete fixes most of the bugs and re-adds some content the game benefits from, without making the game into something it's not supposed to be. So I'd recommend that for other playthroughs. It also lets you get your weapons and armor fixed, which is something the other games add and Shadow of Chernobyl desperately needs.

[dogstile]

Eh, the quest system has always worked for me. Must be you guys. Tis unfortunate really.

[Svampapa]

I did ever only play the first game. Maybe that's where I went wrong? 

"Get out of here. STALKER!"

[Gunner-Chan]

Not really. Clear sky and Call of Prypyat really would only appeal to people that beat the first one. To be honest they're more of the same, with some slight improvements (And in some cases new problems, silly upgrades in clear sky anyone?).

Most of the benefit of playing Clear sky is more backstory. And CoP is an attempt to make it more open world but they ended up making the actual world too small when you aren't actually doing something important.

[Cecilff2]

Eh, the quest system has always worked for me. Must be you guys. Tis unfortunate really.

In the original unpatched version.  If you enter the sewers to agroprom without talking to mole first, you can never advance that quest.  It will be broken forever and you can never complete the main questline.

Thats the only instance I've run into though.