Such an immersive universe is rare to find in FPS games.....
without add-ons (except official patches) the game is very good, the sounds are great, the atmosphere UNPARALLELED, my friend was amazed how accurate the game was in terms of depicting the dark east European setting , and I could not agree more.....
list (for those who like lists)
1-Graphics -----8
2-Sound------11
3-Atmosphere-----11
4-game play-----9
5-Replay value----8 (oh yah you will play it 10 times over)
well in term of graphics the game still looks great even now (2011), so your eyes won't fall off if you play it.
A little side note that I MUST put here is that the game becomes even better with the Oblivion lost mod, its a MUST have for this game and it adds lots of stuff that were axed because of time constrains the developers suffered, more weapons, monsters (were originally going to be in game but no time left to put them), artifacts, armor, and missions.
The mod just adds MORE to an already great game.
play stalker and try the mod as well you will NOT regret it, I know I did not :D
and play it on insane difficulty for best results