I don't know if I'm just getting old or if it takes something really special to make me want to play a game again but S.T.A.L.K.E.R doesn't. Graphically, yes its quite good especially indoors. For some reason most of the outdoor graphics looked a little dated. Having said that I wont play it again soon doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it, as a matter of fact it was very good. The amount of exploring one can do is amazing! Every area has nooks and crannies everywhere, quite a big world which tells me that this was a very ambitious project but was released a little early. The developers released a patch shortly after its debut because the game had quite a few bugs. I read that ATI users had some major problems. I on the other hand had only a couple of minor crashes which I think I can attribute to my nVidia Graphics. (I've always preferred nVidia over ATI). Restricting the weight of weapons and other items in your inventory keeps you busy dropping superfluous gear and adds to the realism in the game, even the toughest soldier (or Stalker) would find it difficult to carry 50 KGs of stuff around on his back. Next time I play it, I might give the artifacts a bit of a miss except for a couple of anti-rad ones and a good health regenerating item. The learning curve is quite substantial and even on the easiest mode (Novice) I found it hard. The AI was quite impressive. I guess I award most of the points for the sheer length of the game. If you have read any of my other comments you will know what I'm talking about, a lot of games that come out these days are way too short. There were about three extremely hard parts in the game, a couple were timed so you had to get the job done or fail within a matter of a few short minutes and if you didn't have the right gear in the form of Armor or weaponry, you had to backtrack and find your correct arsenal. This was quite appealing to me and allowed me to finish other side objectives whilst upgrading my Personal Defense Apparatus, (PDA). Thers even a nod to Half-life in there somewhere (I didn't find it) with a PDA belonging to a MR Gordon Freeman! Overall I have to say that yes its a great game and to contradict what I said earlier...I'll definitely play it again comradski!!. RATCAT
