Someone please tell me why the original is so great. I'm not seeing it.
"You can finish the game however you like!!!"
I see a bunch of guards guarding a building. If I try to sneak they find me, so I have to kill them. I then find a bulldozer next to a computer system and I can't disable the blue Tesla bolts coming out of the thing no matter what I try. Every walkthrough presumes I did a billion different things. Oh, and apparently I was expected to have dived into the water, realize that it doesn't kill me unlike every other FPS, and get supplies and binoculars and shit.
Seriously, everyone except me and Tom Chick love this game. All I'm seeing is a stupid "get into this building" mission with shitty voice acting, character I don't care about and a crowbar I've apparently missed because the light levels are so FUCKING low.
It's a clunky slow FPS with good dialog and RPG elements. S.T.A.L.K.E.R is essentially superior up to the end. Basically, the real blood and guts reason that it's so fucking good, is because it's an FPS with an inventory that lets you use dialog trees, do quests, and enjoy yourself between the FPS stuff. S.T.A.L.K.E.R doesn't do the dialog as well either.
It was one of the earlier RPGs to let you plug people in the fucking face. The intro drags a little, but it picks up.