Even late, Stalker can give you some great unexpected moments together with a superb and involving atmosphere.
You're Marked One, called this way because you have been found unconscious and when you wake up, you just can't remember anything about yourself. The only thing you know is that was a mission in your PDA: "Kill Strelok". Then the game begins and makes you feel exactly how someone feels after losing the memory: lost. You don't know where to go, who is enemy or friend and you can't even remember who is this guy named Strelok!
In the beginning, the history seems to be something very captivating, which will make you play just to know what came next. But this isn't true. The history leaves much to be desired, making a poor development of it through the game, don't making any deepening, just staying in "surface". The history will be told through conversations, documents and through Marked One's PDA, but what he'll write in his PDA isn't enough to make you understand what's happening or happened, leaving many questions without answers. And the documents, which were supposed to explain many things, the game just don't let you know what have inside and Marked One seems very disinterested in know what's inside.
Talking about the PDA, it's a good increase to Stalker, because many things happen and the PDA can keep you updated about everything. Well, almost everything, because, the Diary, fails to tell you the history satisfactorily and is "contaminated" with some minor bugs. But the mission organizer is very efficient, making them be easy to understand and what to do next, when and where. And we have the encyclopedia, which will help us many times, because it brings many information about The Zone, like the mutations and anomalies descriptions, guide of artifacts and more.
More than organize all these information, the PDA brings other functions that can be useful (like the map) or useless (like the ranking system). The map will be very useful, because The Zone is huge and have many places to go, and bring a good amount of information. But, sometimes, will bug (in the Chernobyl area, Marked One marker don't appear in the map). You have a mini map too, which can make your life much easier. Another useful function is the Contact System, where you can see in your PDA anyone who have a PDA that is close to you. This is extremely useful, because they appear in your mini map, and the mini map have a little meter, which counts how much PDA's are close to you. If in your mini map appears a yellow point, it's because that PDA user is neutral; if the point is green, the user is your friend. But the meter counts the enemy PDA's too, but they don't appear in the mini map (only if you see him, and for a short time). This mean: if in your meter tell to you that in the area have ten PDA's users, but only seven appears in your map, probably the other three are enemies and they're close! So, you have to stay alert. Or if you want, you can also open your PDA and see the Contact's list, that show's to you everyone that is close to you, even the enemies.
Now, the useless functions. In true, they're not useless, but bad implemented. The ranking system is a great idea, mainly in the beginning, when you're in a low rank. But soon you'll notice that the rank don't change until the final and change only because somebody in the Top 20 was died. And you don't win anything of special with the ranking system. In the rank, everybody is classified with numbers, that reflects the points you have made, and you make points killing another stalkers and killing mutations, collecting artifacts and completing missions. This is called Statistic System (that will also set your reputation), but is also bad implemented. The system don't make the correct count and can be a little confusing in the beginning and in the middle of the game don't make any difference, because the game don't bring anything that make you want see your scores (like a online comparison with another players or a online rank).
The actors don't have any sympathy, making them very artificial, with a low interaction. If someone dies, nobody cares and it will not make difference, nobody will notice even if he was necessary to complete a mission. But the voice acting is amazing great, with both English and Russian voices.
Then we notice the AI, which lack in many aspects. Even when they talk, play guitar, laugh, eat and drink around a bonfire this don't mean that the AI is smart. Like I said before, they don't care if a friend die and they even don't care if he was been shot and stand lying in the ground, waiting for help. Nobody will help him. Some others problems with AI can be very ridiculous too, like this: if some stalker is walking in the road and in front of him have a anomaly, the AI is unable to detect that anomaly and he'll just walk to the death! I don't know if this is true, but I have never seen any other character in Stalker using health items. They just receive damage until fall dead. Some times they can also fire behind walls, without see you, making you stay desperate, because you're already hidden but the enemy stay hitting you!
But almost all combats are satisfactory, making you pass through many unexpected moments, like to encounter a group of bandits and some another group of mutant creatures and at night, with some radioactive spots and anomalies. You probably will have a bad time trying to get out of that mess. The weapons just work fine, but they can sound weird. But we can get a great variety of them. The aiming is hard, making you fire many times before start hitting something, special in the beginning, that the weapons have a poor accuracy and low damage. You can also use grenades that are very effective against large groups of enemies. You can even use a grenade to make an enemy get out of his cover.
Sometimes, you'll see Stalkers fighting against bandits, mutants hunting something… in the beginning can be a surprise sees that The Zone lives its own life without us. But many moments will just repeat and repeat (like the bandits trying to invade the Garbage base) everytime you pass by. Other times, you'll just stay tired to have to kill the same enemies every time you try to pass in the same areas. And the factions don't fight so often, only in a few moments and when you have to participate. This is bad because their rivalry should give more action in the middle of The Zone, and this don't happen.
The damage system is very realistic. If a bullet hit you or you stand close to an explosion or even a dog bite you, you will start to bleed depending of how much damage you're receiving or depending of the attack you're receiving. If you don't use a bondage, you will just bleed, making you lose life. Depending of the bleeding level (have many intensities), you can even bleed to death.
The inventory is very realistic, making the game more difficult. Marked One can access at any time his inventory, even in middle of the combat. You can only carry 50 kg without losing to much your stamina, and when you reach the 60 kg, you can't move. You can equip a pistol and a main weapon that can be a shotgun or a sub-machine gun to a sniper rifle. You can equip an armored suit too, that will help a lot, mainly in the middle to the end of the game.
There some health items too, like first aid and food. Talking in food, if you stand a long time without eat, Marked One will start to feel hunger and start to die slowly. He'll start to stay with a blurry view, the stamina will finish more often and if this situation persists, the view stay more dark and will be more and more dark until he die. Not only the view, but the accuracy, health, resistance and stamina will decrease too.
Sometimes, you'll pass through some radioactive areas that in the beginning aren't a problem. But when you advancing in the game, you start to approach the center of The Zone, and the radioactive spots will stay more common and then you got one more problem: the radiation. To end the effects of radiation, you can use some items that can counter the radiation effects, like the vodka. If you don't take care drinking, you can even stay drunk, and Marked One is very affected by the alcohol effects.
To complete the Marked One inventory, we have the artifacts. They can be found in some places, usually near of some anomaly and with others stalkers. You can equip five of them, making many combinations, because all the artifacts give many different bonus and attributes to Marked One, giving more fire resistance or more health points, for example, and can also bring a penalty for using them. Example: some artifact can give you 300 health points, but give -30% of electric resistance too. But others can just give you 5% of explosion protection, without any penalty.
When you kill another Stalker (and even an mutant), you can come close and search the body for items, like weapons, bullets, med kits, food, drink, artifacts, grenades. Sometimes, when you click in the body to search items, you'll have access to the PDA of who you're searching. In most of times, that PDA will contain information about hidden treasures and equipments, which will be marked in the map with a purple circle. Can be boxes, trees, a barrel or even a tombstone. And walk in The Zone is extremely fun. So many places to explore, and everytime you reach a new place, you see something new, like new stalkers, new creatures, new anomalies, items, artifacts...
Marked One is a little restricted when talking about movements. He can be slow, but this is fine, because Stalker isn't a 'running and shot' game. It's more like a tactical shooter, where you have to find cover and fire behind them, because some few shots are more than enough to kill Marked One, mainly in the head, and the AI have an impressive accuracy, even at night or shooting behind cover. So, you have to take care in combats, mainly when facing many enemies alone at the same time.
To improve Marked One accuracy, you can crouch. Stalker have two types: the normal crouch and the slow crouch, which you need to be first in the normal crouch to perform a low crouch, making you press two buttons in your keyboard. In beginning is a little confusing make it, but it's easily learned. Marked One can also drag the body of any dead stalker, but strangely, he can't drag a mutant body and can't move others objects, like chairs, crates and other little objects.
Stalker also brings a noise meter and a "perception" meter. The noise meter show to you how much noise you're making. Almost anything you do in Stalker make a noise, like reload a weapon, walk, run, open your inventory, move through some vegetation, jump and even when using the night vision goggles. In another way, the "perception" meter show if someone is seeing you or not. When the meter is empty, this mean that no enemy is seeing you (this don't counts when a friend or a neutral being is seeing you) and when is moving to up, mean that some enemy is almost to see you, and when the meter is full, means that any enemy is clearly seeing you. Even with this system, is very hard to make an infiltration in a enemy base (for example), because the AI can easily detect you, even when is so dark.
Now that I have talked about of almost all the elements of Stalker, I'll talk about the best: the atmosphere. Like I said before, the AI don't interact very well with Marked One, giving the impression that you're extremely alone most of the time, specially at night or inside a laboratory (that in my opinion, are the best and the most exciting moments of Stalker). More the abandoned appearance of everything makes the atmosphere look more intense and creepy. And the rain? The rain is amazing good! With great lightning and water effects more sounds that just make the best rain in all the games that I had played, and just increase the Stalker's atmosphere. The vegetation can also put the immersion in higher levels and make the abandoned appearance increase too, because it's in everywhere. Even Stalker don't being a horror game, in many moments and aspects, you'll feel that you're playing a horror game!
Now I think that is enough. Later and in some aspects overtaken, Stalker can give you some amazing moments with great combats and unexpected moments together with a superb adn creepy atmosphere, making your adrenaline goes up easily. Unfortunately, Stalker develops badly its history, dimming what could have been something much more engaging.
Stalker also tries to be a very open "long timed game" (sandbox game), but fails in many aspects to bring new moments in The Zone that, later in the game, will just look repetitive. Luckily, the community just loved the great atmosphere of Stalker and produced an impressive number of modifications to it. And in this review I didn't mentioned them because Stalker deserves be finished first in its natural way and in another with some of the many modifications, giving to Stalker another life. Many of the problems that I mentioned above are corrected in the mods. So, if you didn't like it in the first time, try to use some of the modifications and you'll see what I'm talking about. I recommend these ones: Float 32, Naturemod and StalkerSkies, also, some mod to change the sounds and the PDA. And, if you really want a new Stalker, try this one: Oblivion Lost. I have to warning you that all the modifications can make the game stay very unstable, making all types of problems appear.
Because of that, I have to give two scores for Stalker. 8,5 without the mods and 9,0 with the mods.
Ps: For the mods, try this site http://stalker.filefront.com/
# 1º revision#
Ps²: In 2009, a superb version of Stalker was launched by the community, called Shadow of Chernobyl Complete 2009. I did not played this version yet, but is acclaimed the best version from the series, even better than Call of Pripyat and Clear Sky and even better then the original version, of course.