Before playing this game, I thought that the best part was the TC, but I was very wrong. Despite the fact that this is the third game in a row (and as we know, sequels are often worse than the originals), I liked it much more than TC and amazed me with many things.
1) Choice - There are many quests in this game that can be solved in different ways with correspondingly different outcomes. For example, you can greatly shake the fragile peace between Duty and Freedom.
2) Large(!) living(!) open world - Although the developers failed to create a seamless world (although the fragmentation of locations fits perfectly into the plot), they managed to create 3 truly large locations that are different from each other not only by the names of the area, but also by the appearance, architecture, etc. Now let's talk about the liveliness of this world. In this part you can find stalkers walking freely around the Zone. Now they are not just dummies who live so that the GG, on the way to the “Important Character,” glances at them, but now they are real Stalkers: Wandering around the Zone, testing anomalies while exchanging remarks with each other, fighting with mutants and raking from warring factions , and for a fee, some can take the rich but lazy Degtyarev to one of the important points in the location. Speaking of anomalies. In this part these are masterpieces of art. ground anomalies are a whole complex of small anomalies that, like a bouquet, are wrapped in a unique landscape of the area around the anomalies.
3) Memorable quests and characters - There are a lot of interesting personalities in the game, from Noah, whom everyone considers crazy, to the gullible Vano, who could not repay the debt because the interest grew faster than he managed to collect the required amount. Quests are also a different story. There are quests with a vampire stalker, with former Monolithians who have completely erased a couple of years from their memory and now an extremely intelligent group of stalkers in the garb of fanatics asks the GG to find them shelter among the stalkers on Yanov, with the legend about the Oasis, etc. They stick in your memory for a long time.
4) Diplomacy. For a long time I wanted to find an RPG in which everything could be settled through negotiations. Even though not everything in Stalker can be adjusted this way, the percentage of quests resolved through negotiations is large enough to warrant the inclusion of this item.
Oh, I have to feel sorry for those who will read this. I would also like to separately analyze a lot of other things, but I’ve already written so much. Definitely worth playing. In conclusion, I would like to talk about something interesting. At first I wanted to complete the game without killing stalkers (zombified ones also affect the “stalkers killed” counter). I wanted to do this out of curiosity. I went through the entire Zaton and Jupiter without killing anyone, while putting together a team of 4 people to go to Pripyat and receiving 4 achievements for completing side quest lines. The first thing that caught my eye was that the easy difficulty level in ZP is much easier than the same level in CH, which only played into my hands. The most difficult task was collecting data in the “Ashes” anomaly when crowds of zombies were advancing, and there was no one else left except the data collector and me. I found a way out. Having stocked up with a sea of first aid kits, bandages and antirads, I ran around these zombies, diverting attention to myself the entire time I was collecting data. Plus I used an interesting feature. The zombies sometimes shot at me and hit others, thereby killing them. Using this trick I completed the mission with 5 enemies on my tail. Then he made his way to Pripyat, having lost everyone, and almost anticipating the success of his masochistic plan, but alas, his dreams were killed by the cruel reality. During the capture of the Gauss Cannon, it was necessary to kill the schizo. This had to be done, I overcame the sadness, reasoning that “well, okay. I’ll finish with one killed,” but at the location with X18 I howled from the number of enemies who, attacking en masse, greatly worsened my health. After this, the counter of killed stalkers rose sharply. Although I understand that having memorized the location of the rooms and stairs, I could easily not have to kill anyone here, but it would have taken too much time. I think I’ll do that when I replay it (I’ll fulfill my blue dream as an idiot) (By the way, after that my conscience began to gnaw at me for the dead four companions in the tunnel, so I replayed the mission and saved everyone))