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Metro 2033


HandsomeDead
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I've played a little of this, enough to form an impression. It's one of those RPG lite FPS', like Bioshock, but so far it's not quite as good. Bioshock had that brilliant intro that set the scene brilliantly but here the start was confusing more than anything, it took maybe an hour to understand what was going on, you feel shoved from scene to scene expecting to know what is going on. So it doesn't make a good first impression, it doesn't help that the shooting is very unaccurate and you don't get much feedback when you hit something.

The atmosphere is mentioned a lot in things I've read about Metro and fair play its pretty good. There are parts of the game set in heavily populated areas and its amazing walking through these places. I've never heard so much speech said at once, it's really bustling. You could be standing next to someone saying goodbye to his kid because he's escorting merchants and might not make it back, but during that you'll hear some off-duty guards half pissed in their own conversation and laughing their arses off, in games you usually set off sound clips individually, I've never played anything that is this natural. Sometimes its distracting when you're trying to listen to something important, it's not like you can get them to repeat it, but when it works it works well.

The problem with so many NPCs is they get repeated a lot. There was one instance I was listening to this guy, he was saying some profound stuff, the type of stuff that reminds you it was written by a proper writer, everyone says poetic stuff, maybe in the nuclear aftermath everyone turns into Wordsworth. Anyway, I remembered this guy and a few corridors down I bumped into his doppelganger, he just told me to get out of the way..

But eventually the game stopped holding my hand and it became more interesting to play, maybe its because of Fallout but I like to be on my own in a wasteland. Fighting off mutents is old hat, strafe and shoot basically, but firefights with bandits is more interesting, if a little frustrating because of the intentionally shit guns, I've already seen upgrades so that might become easier, but at this stage its alright.

Bioshock has nowt to worry about but so far if you turn the lights off and close the curtains it's a decent mind fuckery rollercoaster.

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I had a proper session with this, I played a lot more of the combat side of things. Fighting off the monsters is a bit shit, they charge at you and you strafe and shoot, it's certainly hectic when the do the jump behind you move and another is running at you from the side but I find it more frustrating than frantic.

Fighting other humans is a different matter, it's actually pretty good. There is loads of cover and oppertunities to be sneaky, which is good because the weapons are shit, half of the battle is finding somewhere that gives you a clear shot, that isn't simple too as there are traps in some areas so you need to be observent in the heat of the crossfire. What does let it down is the collision detection, it is shit as well as the guns that don't shoot straight, needless to say its a hard game, but I haven't got to the point of throwing the controller. It does always seemm possible.

I wasn't expecting anything great when it came to the fighting so I was surprised to find how much I'm enjoying it, if its technical issues were dealt with I'd say it would be as good as Killzone 2 with its combat.

The story, or more accurately the character development is a bit shit. I always feel in the dark and I should know who Khan is. I only suspect that in their own creative bubble they maybe haven't realised that a lot of people haven't read the original works, there is a sense that I'm meant to know the lore of this place.

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I hate this game right now. Why oh fucking why does there have to be a shitty escort part. Imagine playing Halo and you have to escort a space marine against a re-spawning horde of flood. Thats what you have to do here in a sense, and this dude is as fragile as a space marine from Halo.

I can't do it, I've tried like 10 times. My more patient friend has had a go and he can't do it. I was really getting into this fucking game, I was loving it, I wasn't even getting bothered by things that I've read are pissing other people off.

It's like it's going out of its way to annoy me. Now I totally see first hand what Dara O'Briain was saying in Gameswipe about games locking away the story until you're good at it. I want to experience this fucking game but it has this cheap, piss poor section... Which probably takes 2 mins to do!

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  • 6 months later...

This is on offer on Steam today, and I can only echo DC's fist post (because I've only played the demo so can't judge beyond that. It's very easy to lose track of the mutants, more so than it should be given that ammo is scarce, and it does throw you around. There was one point where I was dumped off a train thing, I'm not sure if it's because I didnt shoot the mutant soon enough (I thought I got him) or if it's a cinematic choice, but either way it let me get back up and back to my comrades.

The other side is that it's so well put together, like DC says the sound is just incredible. The music is brilliant, like amongst the best I've heard brilliant, having all the sounds of a room full of people chunnering around you just adds to it. It's just really cinematic, right down to the scruipt and the acting. Some of the accents are a bit off, but it feels like a foreign film, not just the accents, more the way the dialogue is paced, everyone sounds thoughtful and a little bit beaten.

It also looks incredible. I cant get close to the optimum specs (8 gig of ram!!) and dont actually hit the recommended, although it ran in a playable form like that. Instead I dropped the resolution down to 1366 and it ran smooth without any noticeable increase in jaggies or blur, so im not sure what post processing it's got going on. Even on low settings it looked good, which does kind of mean most people wont be able to run it.

All that being said I might give it a miss. I'm sure it'll pop up on Steam again, and I do want to play it, but I cant be arsed with a slog and I've just too much else to play at the minute

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  • 3 years later...

I'm a chunk of the way through Metro 2033 and it's still got the atmosphere it had. Considering how it starts it's so slow to get going properly, in fact it sort of feels like I'm just getting going and I'm past a third of the way in to the game.

It definitely feels like they've changed stuff but I can't quite place what. I seem to be having an easier time than with the original game but there's still annoyances. The ammo as currency mechanic is still there, I accidentally dumped a load of fancy ammo in to some monsters because I hadn't noticed it had reloaded my weapon with them rather than the low grade ammo I had plenty of

Same with having to change the filter on your gas mask and pumping your torch to charge it. They aren't game breaking or anything like that, but they don't bring anything fun to the game.

The gun play is good, you feel the benefit of the rare bullets if you use them. It's not always clear when you've killed a monster though, they don't really look dead. The stealth gameplay is great though, particularly against humans, and your AI partner is pretty handy when you have one

I'm going to play a bit more this morning then move on to Last Light

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ended up playing quite a lot of this today. I think when I posted I was just starting the communist section, I'm now done with the Nazi's. There's some great encounters in those sections, some frustrating stuff too, but stealthing around the Reich metro killing fools was great, a real highlight of the game. It doesn't suit my compulsion to reload if I get spotted as the checkpoints aren't overly generous and there's no quick save. That said, particularly if you've taken damage to your gas mask, it's not always a bad idea to retry once you know the area a bit.

I'd like to keep playing it, I had a quick look at a guide, and in terms of length it doesn't look like I'm all that far from the end, certainly there's no reason I couldn't finish it tomorrow. But I need to move on to Last Light. Hopefully I remember that I'm enjoying 2033 and come back to it

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I'm not sure there is an easy mode on 2033 redux as such. I'm playing on normal and the mode that isn't survivor, and there's a decent amount of ammo. You have to learn pretty quickly not to hold down the trigger though, 3 bullets to the head from your machine gun is all it takes to kill a monster

And I've got to move on because I'm reviewing it and they're out Tuesday /Friday depending on where you live. I don't get enough time to play after work either really, so I need to get a chunk done today

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Absolutely loving Last Light. It's less tense than 2033, more focused on human enemies (so far), which is probably why it's a better game. In 2033 the human encounters are quite small, in Last Light it's more sprawling, it feels like you're working your way through a base.

The monster parts have been very short, that could change in the second half, but the tone of the game is that man is more of a threat, so it's cool to see that reflected

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fantastic. I was going to spend all night tonight playing Last Light so I could write a review for both games tomorrow. I was going to play last night but there was a 7gb patch for both games that meant I didn't have time to. Turns out that the patches have wiped my saves for both games. Annoying for 2033 as that's the 4th time I tried playing the game, and I was pretty close to the end so have to do it all again. It's a killer for Last Light though as I'm still reviewing it and wasn't quite halfway and still hadn't really nailed down what I thought of it

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  • 3 years later...

Hmm, apparently I didn't post after I had my saves wiped. Turns out I could recover them, which I did, then I finished 2033 

 

I didn't properly get back to Last Light, just didn't have time. I've been inching through it, every few weeks I'll do a chapter. So it's taking ages, but I think it's the only way I'll see the end. I'm not a million miles from the end, far enough that I don't think it'd get done in a night. It's still cool and creepy, but it is funny that I now think it looks a bit rough. What a difference a year makes I guess 

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  • 1 year later...

I've gone back to Last Light tonight. I wasn't a million miles from the end, I'd been playing it for about an hour at a time on weekends but just stopped doing that at some point, so I thought I'd get back to inching through it

 

The bit I'd got to was easy, a series of short chapters more about setting the final chapter of the story in motion. There wasn't a ton of enemies, more linear walks through kill channels where you could stealth kill most enemies. It was mostly all atmosphere, there was what amounted to a human boss fight, it took me multiple attempts to beat, it's that sort of stuff that meant I was only inching through, it's nothing too bad, it just feels like you're blindsided during combat some times. The more annoying thing was that I tried making a choice but the game either wouldn't let me, didn't give me enough time, or didn't make it clear how to go about it, then it saved immediately after so I couldn't correct it

 

By the sounds of it I've got a boss fight coming up, then not a lot else, so I should finish it up tomorrow

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  • 4 months later...

I started this yesterday. Not really sure why but I'd heard people speaking about this and the sequel in podcasts around the time Exodus came out, its been sitting on my Steam library for years so I thought why the hell not? For a bit of background I have actually played this before but only got so far as where the Prologue ends with you going to a different Station before bailing out, not really sure why - there were probably other things out around the same time - I remember getting distinctly confused about the 'ammo is currency' stuff, so you had Golden bullets that looked like regular bullets but you could use them in guns? It made no sense to me and my 20 year old brain couldn't comprehend it.

 

I'm playing the Redux version and there are definitely QoL improvements with the menus and stuff, I remember things being a lot more janky in the original and the ammo issue noted above has been completely taken out with them having incredibly different indicators for the military grade 'currency' ammo and the regular gun ammo, you now know when picking up currency that it's currency and not to be used in your guns - unless absolutely necessary. 

 

I'm 5 hours in at the moment and it has really impressed me. The opening sections I remembered from the OG game but after that the game really comes alive, as noted - probably many times - the atmosphere is pretty phenomenal, it just has this intensity to it that you don't get a lot of elsewhere. Everything feels very lived in, the HUD seems really minimalistic, it feels really authentic and lived in, like great care and attention was taken to not include any 'gamey' elements like waypoints etc. Unless needed. Even the Journal and objective marker (if you get stuck) is a clipboard with a compass on top of it mapped to the inventory button. 

 

Some of the elements like NPCs Facial Animations, the enemy AI - which is woeful overall by today's standards - texture quality overall and outdoor environments don't hold up but it's surprising how much stuff does. The lighting in particular - I'm unsure if it was redone in the Remaster - is still phenomenal throughout, often when I'm traipsing down a decrepit old tunnel I see little specs of mushrooms glowing through the foliage or a camp fire in the distance, it is really quite beautiful.

 

The guns themselves don't feel too brilliant either but I really love the stealth - despite the janky AI - it feels a bit like a very toned down Far Cry in how you can go about knifing everyone in a Station without being seen but things can easily go tits up, the alarm can go off and you have to get the guns out.

 

The story is really weird. I don't really have a clue what's going on other than 'go meet guy at Polis Station' but fingers crossed things will become clearer as I progress, the supernatural elements really spooned me out the first few times I saw them.

 

Lots of pics:

 

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Spoiler

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I had them in my inventory but hadn’t used them yet @DANGERMAN they’re definitely handy that’s for sure! I cleared out a whole base of Nazis with pretty much using them alone yesterday, my silenced Pistol is pretty great for that base clearing too.

 

I’m 10 hours into this now.

 

Apart from one outdoors section where I got lost and frustrated in a building with the Compass trying to get me to go in separate directions this has been absolutely fantastic throughout. I came into it expecting for it not to grab me and to give up again a few hours in but I just haven’t been able to put it down.

 

It’s like a mix of Half-Life 2’s Ravenholm areas, touches of Fallout and old CoD campaigns with a lot of their own Eastern European/Russian flavourings sprinkled in there.

 

You would’ve thought going through all the different Metro stations would get samey but they all have a distinct personality with different factions and politics, there’s mad mounted turret railcar sections, spooky monster sections where you never knew when they’re going to jump out and the sombre, bleak touches of civilisation within the stations themselves.

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