Picked this game up yesterday for £15 second hand and it's pretty good. It's the prequel to STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl which was full of bugs and glitches. This game comes with a new story, and a few updates on the graphics engine. I followed Shadow of Chernobyl through the development stages, however once released after numerous drawbacks, the multiplayer portion of the game was almost unplayable and the single player was a little buggy. The developers over at GSC Game World have released this in hope of reviving the game which was expected to be so good. I haven't played on it for long, but from what I see the multiplayer has been fixed, a new story has been created for single player(although very similar to it's predecessor) and basically the game has just had a revamp.The game is based in Chernobyl, around a nuclear plant in which a reactor exploded(TRUE). However they have took the effects to the extremes, by creating a huge radioactive quarantined area full of mutated creatures, anomalies and other weird things. You fight other groups of Stalkers which have somehow made it into the area to find artifacts which they can sell in the real world. Anyway the story is pretty good, but what strikes me most is the atmosphere. The game has amazing atmosphere, it makes you feel like your almost alone in a radioactive wasteland, the weather and environment changing around you.
It's a FPS/RPG so it's a choice based game on survival and combat. The graphics are nothing special but it really doesn't matter because the game is so interesting.
I'll give it a 8/10 overall, and call it a day as I'm writing this in a rush.