EDIT: This is also playable on Steam Deck/Linux with Proton!

After 11 years of owning this game and it sitting in my library, I finally decided to sit down and play all the games before S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 releases (and before I actually try to play the Anomaly mod pack, as intended by the devs). And after all this time & attempts at getting into it... I finally get it. This is absolutely one of the best Survival FPS games ever created.

It does what the 3D fallout games do but better (gameplay, story, environments, music, characters/factions). I'd say the main difference is that the world feels so lively compared to Fallout. It feels like the world continues without you when you're done playing but thats where those comparisons end. Mostly because I wouldn't call it "Post-Apocalyptic" as the world as we know it outside of the Zone exists still (spoiler alert, Chernobyl exists IRL! Wow!). There are no real perk/RPG elements to the game besides stats for your character, either. If you want to get technical - the artifacts you collect can be considered perks in a sense, but they really only enhance stats but have a lot of tradeoffs.

The atmosphere of this game is literally unmatched, the closest I have felt to this recently is Tarkov. Which unsurprisingly, after playing this game it made me realize that Tarkov takes a lot of mechanics from this game. That isn't meant to be a negative either, in fact playing Tarkov beforehand made this game much easier for me.

I am going to assume if you're reading the reviews/interested you already know how this game plays. And instead of talking indepth about it and and sounding like a wiki - I'd like to share some tips:

The vanilla experience like many fans say is fine and should not need gameplay mods on your first playthrough, honestly,
I don't think graphical mods are really needed either. However I would STRONGLY suggest you install ZRP. It includes some QoL features and bug fixes, I only really suggest this because the game can and after a certain point WILL crash on you, the ZRP mod fixes those issues for the most part.

Find things feel weird and awkward (ex 'X' being the run key, whatever the hell the weapon fire mode button is, crouching) Rebind. Your. Keys. ESPECIALLY SAVE/LOAD! I would suggest binding load further away from the save key.

Speaking of saving, I highly suggest saving before any possible encounter or level switch. Later in the game, saving before level switches will save you time if you get the occasional loading crash. If using ZRP you can press ESC and press S it will create a lvl named save.
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(The rest are up to personal preference but this is how I enjoyed the game)
Use whatever difficulty you want. I've read many arguments about this before playing the game and came to the conclusion it doesn't matter that much and chose master anyway because I enjoy dying over and over in video games.

Turn off the crosshair. At range you will ADS/Use a scope and CQC you will probably be point firing anyway. It gets in the way and kinda takes away from the immersion, the hud is fine.

Rebinds I did were: Sprint as Shift, Crouch as C, Low Crouch as Ctrl, and fire mode as B. Save game as F5 and Load on Num *

Equipment load matters. Carry like 300 bullets for your guns and 15x bandages and antidotes, 3-4x medkits of each and maybe 5x of 2 sets of grenades. Carry guns of different bullet types as well, you'll find that newer weapons will have a low amount of ammo starting out so keep a backup.

I didn't do this but figured it'd be helpful: If you would like to not be shot at later in the game when backtracking to a certain area - stay neutral (loner) and try not to fight the factions. Bad ♥♥♥♥ happens in one or two areas if you turn on a certain side.
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I cant list everything here, and I've only completed 2 of the multiple endings. But the community has way more tips/fixes/workarounds if you encounter any other issues/questions on the forums/subreddit/internet/google.com.

Good hunting, S.T.A.L.K.E.R!