The best Sci-Fi/Horror game ever created
After you choose the difficulty and start a new game a short movie about the Zone will appear (you can skip it by pressing ESC),the game will begin on a Hill near the Boiler anomaly.It's a bit frustrating that you begin the game with low-end gear like a Sunrise bodysuit and a damaged AKS-74U,not to mention the low quantity of medkits,ammo,drugs.
Some missions are pretty pointless because they have nothing to do with the story line but it's still a good way to spend your time in to the 'Zone'.
Depending on your actions during the game (side-missions,important NPCs alive) the ending movie of the game can have bad scenes,good scenes or a mix; for example you will have secondary missions like solving the conflict between Sultan and Beard or destroying the Bloodsucker lair at Krug Antenna Complex,if you don't do them the bad ending will occur or if you make them you will have a good ending.
If you want to make money to buy new weapons or new armor then the best way is to find and sell 'artifacts',you won't make a lot of money by doing missions (the missions are badly paid,they're paid between 1200-10000 RU).
Even if you have some cash don't be so happy because rare weapons/armors like the ones sold from Nimble are very expensive but it's worth the price.Upgrades for weapons/armors are very very expensive even if you do the missions for the weapon technicians (which will give you a bit of discount),this game has 2 weapon technicians: Cardan on Skadovsk and Nitro at Yanov Station.
Armors and weapons are very frustrating because they break/jam very easy (even when fully upgrading) and the cost of repair is pretty high.
Weapons have very low damage,especially assault rifles,pistols,grenades.For killing a bloodsucker you need to waste about 60-80 assault rifle/pistol bullets also grenades have ridiculously low damage,you need 2 RGD-5/F1 grenades to kill a Snork or 3 for a Controller.Not to mention the Chimera or Pseudogiant,they can take over 100-150 assault rifle bullets before they die (which can be frustrating if you run out of ammo and you will have to kill them using the knife.
Some weapons are terribly inaccurate,most of the bullets will miss if you fire full-auto,it's highly recommended to fire in bursts with all weapons.
Stashes are pretty hard to find and they have low-end gear,don't waste your time on searching stashes because they're useless (you won't get enough ammo from them),some stashes are very hard to reach because some of them are stuck in the 3D geometry and you will have to use a lot of grenades to get the stuff out.To be more exactly,the most valuable stashes in the game are the ones with Gauss rifle batteries,VOG-25 grenades,M209 grenades or RPG-7 rockets,i repeat: don't waste your time on other stashes.
If you want to survive in this game without using money/health hacks then you will have to strictly conserve your ammo/items.Ammo and health-packs are very scarce in this game,traders won't sell ammo in big quantities.
In order to get acces to rare ammo/attachments/weapons/items you will have to get achievements like 'One of Ours' ,'A friend of Duty','A wealthy client' which will cause all traders to sell you more 'high-end' stuff.
The games has graphics similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky and they're a huge improvement in comparison with S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl,graphics in this game are good but they're not the best in 2009.
Textures are pretty blurry even with anisotropic-filtering/anti-aliasing maxed out,which can make the game look a bit unimpressive.
Sounds in this game are good but not the best,some weapons sound like air-soft toys,not to mention the bad explosion sounds.Voice acting in this game is very bad,a lot of broken English and misspelled words during dialogs/cut-scenes.
AI (artificial intelligence) is not so good,sometimes NPCs (non player characters) do pretty dumb things like rag-doll walking or pointless moves.
The game is very boring if you don't do any mission,walking and exploring can sometimes become tedious.Gun-fights are rare in this game,the last mission called 'Evacuation' is the most intense gun-fight in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series.Sometimes you will have to kill bandits/stalkers just to satisfy your FPS action thirst.
During free-play you have nothing to do,you just walk/travel between zones and hope that a horde of mutants/zombie will attack you,otherwise the game is 100 % boring.
The most boring part of the game is free-play (if you choose to remain in zone after the final mission in Pripyat called 'Evacuation').During free-play you can do all side-quests that you forgot to do during the campaign.
If you want to understand this game you will have to play it 2-3 times before you will know how 'things' are going on in the unstable 'Zone'.
Also this is one of the most stable game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series,i didn't encountered grave bugs or glitches,i want to mention the great optimization of the game (you can play this game even on a low-end PC at pretty good graphic details).
PRO:
-very atmospheric (the weather,the sky)
-good environment (trees,plants,cliffs,realistic buildings,ground)
-a variety of weapons and ammunition
-a variety of weapon upgrades and attachments
-a variety of armors and upgrades for them
-a variety of items (food,artifacts,detectors,drinks,med-kits,drugs)
-a lot of mutant types (Blind dog,Pseudodog,Psy-dog,Snork,Bloodsucker,Boar,Burer,Flesh,Chimera,Controller,Poltergeist,Pyrogeist,Rodent)
-good zombie-killing action
-stable and good optimization
-a lot of missions to do,107 missions (campaign quests and secondary quests)
-3 open world maps to explore (Zaton,Yanov,Pripyat)
-intense artifact searching,navigating trough anomalies using a Svarog detector or a bolt
CONS:
-unimpressive graphics for a 2009 game
-environment lighting is cheap even on full dynamic lighting or enhanced dynamic lighting
-some stashes are almost unreachable
-dumb AI (artificial intelligence)
-lack of often FPS action (gun-fights)
-bad voice acting
-bad weapon sounds
-expensive gear (ammo,armor,items,weapons)
-expensive upgrades for weapons/armor
-low damage weapons