Stalker is fun cause you're never out leveled, you just took on the fight wrong. There's a bunch of opportunities where you can grab some primo gear if you have the patience and aim. I remember spending like, an hour circling and closing in on the waste processing plant in CoP cause some mission took me near there and then they saw me and told me to back off and of course, that's not happening. That and the first mission where the NPCs are like, "you want us to help?" and after a couple of reloads you realize that yeah, maybe the NPCs can help me on this one.