In the year 2007, my go-to PC titles were Oblivion and Orange box. This year? So far it’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which is a funny little game. By no means would I stop you from saying that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a mashup of Oblivion and Half-Life 2, but you might get dirty looks from someone. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is this really janky RPG/FPS hybrid, brewed in the belly of the Ukraine, in the vein of Dues Ex; it’s two pieces of shaved wood stuck together with glue–no varnish. And I think that maybe in a less tolerant universe, that could be a real problem. Well, maybe it is a problem.

It’s hard to remember back, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was announced when the decade was still fresh and PC gaming wasn’t some totally laughable fool’s pastime. I remember one morning in particular, I awoke to find an issue of PC Gamer stuck to my back–I had become a human bookmark for a preview, or an interview, or something, with the lead developer or PR prestidigitator, and the premise of the game was this: you’re a merc, hunting and scavenging in the unsafe wastelands shaped by the Chernobyl disaster. And the premise remained unchanged up to its eventual release in 07. In a way, leaving so many elements unchanged, the thing is a time capsule of gaming. It really feels as if it was kept in a drawer for 4 years upon its completion.

So it’s a little like Oblivion; you find yourself in the body of ‘the marked one,’ and the missions you choose, the weapons you take with you, the way in which you approach alliances, the time of day you execute your schemes, the choice seems to be more or less yours. Unlike Oblivion, it fails at being open world, which seems to be a half-attempt of the game. Slogging through the deadly clouds of radiation designed to keep you on the path reveals a low wall of trees, marking the edge of the universe. Staring into that fake, pixelated zone where the skybox meets the roughage, you can almost hear the pathetic voice of a long-forgotten guardian, begging you to turn back.

“Please,” he whimpers, “play the game.” And so, with a tear, I do. And I continue to do so, by the way.

Where it succeeds is its combat, I think. And also the RPGness of it all. While the graphics might be a little dumb (for this we can thank the X-ray engine, designed around DX9, but I should stop being so picky), the actual gameplay is pretty tight. Pseudo-openness aside, there’s a FPS experience that’s immersive in a very Half-Life 2 sort of way. And then, back to Oblivion, you’ve got this totally serviceable inventory and mission system. It’s almost Diablo 2 in its simplicity. And of course it borrows heavily from Gears.

I’m very taken by it. I’m even drawn in by its flaws. There’s something–a feeling–uncompromising and heavy about this game. I’m gunna have to spend a lot more time with it before I can fully integrate its philosophy with my brain.