>>22659310It's not your everyday shooter and it's super immersive. If you want to get into it I suggest you go into it blind and play until Agroprom Underground (around 3 hours of so or gameplay in a game that can easily stretch to 40-50 hours per run) since the hobo phase is kinda sluggish. Agroprom is a fantastic area and you get better guns in it. Suggested difficulty is master because on lower difficulties everyone's damage is reduced (yours included) + some other weird difficulty-tweaking stuff and the game is actually harder. Remember to crouch, peek from cover and always aim for the head and don't use anything other than buckshot ammunition for shotguns in vanilla.
The main beauty of S.T.A.L.K.E.R is how immersive the game is. That and mods, there's a whole bunch of mods to change the game once you replay it, adding new weapons, mutants, changing the story, etc.