First S.T.A.L.K.E.R. hamstrung by over-ambition

Eurogamer writes: "GSC Game World has tried to explain why S.T.A.L.K.E.R. took so long to make, admitting that inexperience and over-ambition were to blame.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. took six years, and GSC's Oleg Yavorsky sees the funny side of this. "Children are born and start going to school within that period," he told Eurogamer in today's interview. "Our big problem was we were developing our technology and the game simultaneously, which for us was a lot of headaches.

"When we wanted to try out a gameplay element, it wouldn't work because there would be some problem with the engine, which was still not finished. Then there was just this ambitious concept: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was to be the ultimate game, with a mix of pretty much everything - shooter, RPG, survival horror, driving."