Thanks a lot for your reply Crizyz! My feeling is you perfectly got what I mean, also the thing with (de)glorification which absolutely describes a part of my dilemma.

BioShock (and imo Infinite as well) is a great game. Somehow I've never really felt in love with it, don't ask me why. I liked playing it, especially for its diversified setting and also its narrative. My theory is and I've recognized that also while playing Infinite, often enough I feel a bit clumsy when it comes to BioShocks combat. You have a variety of cool tools (plasmids/vigors), you can chain combos, but nevertheless I've played both titles rather careful (also because of the penalty when you die), recognizing after the fight what awesome things I could have done, when I would have fought a bit more aggressive and used the environments more often (skyrails were amazing though). And then the need to choose your guns when you have no clue what to expect. So in the end maybe it's the gameplay itself that prevents me from giving the franchise the full praise it probably deserves. Anyhow I liked the series and would play the games again.

I've discovered S.T.A.L.K.E.R. long time before Fallout, actually it was one of the first shooters I've played (started rather late to play FPS). And this was love from the first sight. Maybe it was not a good game technically wise, but everything else was there and it felt so real. So much love for details while still being what you describe as raw. No handholding, no rails and ugh, it was difficult in the beginning and I kept dying at every corner. But again, I liked the combat, but even more the freedom offered by the game, the open world, the raw nature, the rainy weather, the comrades sitting around the campfire playing guitar and singing in a foreign language. I think it's the slow pacing of the game along with this kind of somber east block melancholy that fascinated me the most. Still I can't decide if I like the first or third game best, think both of them are masterpieces, my tip goes to the entry of the story. Despite being noticeable weaker I also can say I've liked the second game a lot. That said I also like Fallout a lot (especially 3 which is my fav, I'm odd I know). But my heart goes with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The only other times I've experienced something similar in terms of mood was when I played first Metro and another game, called Pathologic (not a shooter, more a rpg, super raw and not well received when released but one of the most interesting gems I've ever played). And there are the games Investigator (meh walking sim, good atmosphere), 35mm (another walking sim, not played yet) and the Wasteland games (also not played, guess they are good). Talking about Metro, I've played and liked it a lot, for similar reasons I liked S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The setting and the mix of underground and surface was outstanding and watching the people in the stations a pleasure. Lot's of clever ideas like the ammo being currency. I've missed the open world a lot however, in the end I was fine with the railway system but often I felt limited in exploring this fascinating world. I've also read the book, which was good btw, nothing special in terms of writing but worthwile a read, especially because the story is familiar but not exactly the same. Anytime I have to give Metro Last Light another try, when I've played it I issued some massive performance problems (playing on a laptop) so in the end I gave up and did not finish it.

Btw I absolutely understand what you write about being picky with retail games and things like pre-steam era. Played all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and most Fallout titles apart from Steam, my first Steam entry was Half Life 2. I'm smiling about your "Steam games cheap as dirt" phrase (even more it hurts to read about people complaining about bundle prices), kinda overwhelming when I returned to Steam (before there was not too much in the retail stores, then there was overkill).

I could write more, stopping here for now. Anyway I like the discussion.

Yes, you definitely should. I'm huge cyberpunk fan but I have neither played Deus Ex nor System Shock in my youth (Played Point'n'Clicks instead). Now and again I'm playing some of these old titles I've "missed" and it's fun to know the origin of game culture. I've never been a "graphic whore" (also because I never had good gaming rigs), so this helps a lot. Some month ago I've played very first Deus Ex for the first time and it was a fantastic lesson in history. You should like rpgs so, it's not really a shooter and combat plays more like Thief (another masterpiece). And please don't make me depressive talking about "To play" lists.