I played all of these games vanilla, I am one with the zone. If you played them with mods, you are not a real stalker. *throws bolt at ground*
Float32 back in the oughts was a mod that made it play much better with little to no drawbacks. It made it playable. So what you said, but applies to Anomaly only (aka S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for the Minecraft generation). I know it was bait, but yeah. I do sort of judge those that say Call of Pripyat is the best in the series....like a lot, so I get the mindset.
Some good freeware story mods also:
Golden Sphere OGSR
True Stalker
and more than a few more.
Any mods on the OGSR engine tend to be nice. OGSR Gunslinger is a good vanilla++, and sort of a remastered Shadows of Chernobyl with better gunplay and harder fights.
OGSR Gunslinger has ridiculous skies, for one thing.
Radiophobia 3 is a solid vanilla+ I'd say, and is also on 64-bit OGSR engine.
Good ol' Rookie Village.
...and the hard as hell slav-jank experience: Joint Pak 2 (currently real into this one). It will keep you going for months. It's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with extreme difficulty for those who can't get enough of The Zone (like me). It might be my favorite mod of all time, hard to say. I've forgotten a few over the years lol.
Lots of scripted 'you vs an army' events that test you.
Anyhow, lots of great S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to be had that beats most of the drek getting pumped out in AAA slop troughs these days. You should check some out.
Also:
Join Duty!
