No, I’m not neglecting the blog! Shaddup!
So as part of my New Year’s Resolution to get the hell off Skyrim and play some of my back-catalogue of games that I’d bought but not completed, I fired up Metro 2033 not too long back in order to have some fun playing that; I’d got it for only a quid as part of the Humble THQ Bundle, and I’d heard good things about it, and having not done much past the tutorial before being suckered back in by Skyrim like the helpless junkie that I am, I decided I was actually going to get some willpower together and play the fucking game.
Based on a novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky, of the same title, Metro is a post-apocalyptic survival shooter set in the Moscow Metro after a nuclear war that occured in 2013; the city above is destroyed in the war, and is soaked in radiation, suffering a nuclear winter and is populated only by ravenous mutants known as Dark Ones, with the surviving members of Moscow’s population retreating to the underground railway network. The home station of Artyrom, the game’s hero, is suffering more and more Dark One attacks, and along with worrying rumours of a species of human mutants known as Homo Novis, is sent to the central Polis station in order to get help for his home station and combat the threat. Thus begins an epic quest across the stations of Moscow and even through the ruined, poisoned city above, as Artyom seeks to get help and save his station.
As is rather fitting for a post-apocalyptic game, a key part of Metro‘s gameplay is focussed on survival, with the need to scavenge bullets, med packs and filters for your gas mask being a constant one. While Artyom can slowly regenerate health instead of just having a healthbar, it only takes three or four bullets to put him down even on normal difficulty, and the game is a challenge even for a reasonably skilful FPS player like myself. I found myself having to rely on stealth and tactical thinking a lot more than I ever needed in FPSes like Call of Duty and Halo, but while’s its difficult, the designers had the sense to place plentiful checkpoints in order to stay on the fine line between challenging and frustrating; aside from one segment involving a bunch of mutants whose attacks basically involved swarming all around you in a colossal mob and then exploding, I kept the difficulty at normal and was still challenged throughout.
A special nod should go at this point to the game’s ingenious ammunition system; the assault rifles, which are the mainstay of Artyom’s arsenal, have two types of bullets that they can use, military rounds and home-made ‘dirty’ rounds. While military rounds are far more effective against enemies, they are also used as currency to purchase weapons, ammunition and health packs, and when you’re in the middle of a firefight and find yourself out of dirty rounds, you’ve got the painful choice of risking your neck to scavenge bullets from dead enemies whilst under fire or shooting some of your precious cash away.
The game also excels at worldbuilding and creating atmosphere; while it’s rather soft sci-fi in terms of the effects of radiation, Metro‘s setting still feels realistic and well realised. The inhabited town-stations feel like living, breathing places, whilst the gloomy tunnels of the metro, and the threat of running across their inhabitants, ranging from murderous mutants, murderous bandits, murderous Neo-Nazis and murderous Neo-Soviets (yeah, an overwhelming majority of the people you meet in this game will try and kill you) makes the game tense and atmospheric even in moments of downtime. The game also has some genuinely odd moments that border on the downright supernatural; the post-nuclear Moscow Metro is a strange place, it seems, with ghosts that are lethal to the touch which only appear by torchlight and ‘anomolies’ of ball lightning which can instantly kill the unwary traveller. The hallucinogenic interventions of the Homo Novis antagonists are some of the most genuinely wierd and memorable moments I’ve ever had in any game, and the climax of those evens had me looking at the screen, somewhat baffled, thinking ‘Christ that was wierd.’
The levels are large and detailed, and while they end up being rather linear, with there usually only being one right way to go, their sprawling nature means that you usually end up getting lost. With no map or objective markers it’s rather clear that the game is completely disinterested in holding your hand, which works rather well with the atmosphere and just how hard the game can be. It does seem rather hard to tell if the game is trying to be a survival horror game or not a points, though, as there are moments such as the Library which are genuinely scary, but much of the tense atmosphere it builds is used only standard action fare. It’s good action fare, don’t get me wrong, but it does make the taut feel the game has a points feel somewhat wasted.
The writing itself is pretty solid, and this is no doubt helped by the fact that Glukhovsky himself had a hand in development; while Artyom is a silent protagonist, whose only dialogue is to relate small chunks of exposition in the loading screens, the game is also populated by some memorable and reasonably well-rounded companion characters who assist and accompany you on your trip through the Moscow Metro. In combat, the AI companions were generally pretty useful but managed to not commit the cardinal video-game companion sin of stealing your thunder, but in the cutscenes this wasn’t so much the case; the game has a tendency to get Artyom trapped in some kind of difficult, inescapable situations, usually where he’s held at gunpoint, only for a third party to intervene and rescue him. Having this happen once would be fine, but it happens at several points throughout the game and it’s hard to feel like the hero of the story and Artyom the Badass Metro Ranger when you keep having to have your sorry arse rescued by somebody else.
And while the companion AI works pretty well, the same can’t really be said of the enemy AI. It’s not the worst I’ve seen in the game, but the human enemies you face are pretty goddamn thick, with no real coordination of fire and a tendency to run about like headless chickens in the middle of firefights. This in turn has a pretty negative impact on the stealth aspect of the game, as if you fail to instantly kill an enemy, every one of his squadmates will immediately know exactly where you are and will hammer your position with fire so accurate that I’m pretty sure they attached laser-guidance systems to their AKs. The mutant AI is pretty simplistic, with their tactics mainly involving running towards you and trying to claw your face off. That said, they are mutants so this hardly comes as a surprise.
For its faults, Metro 2033 is still a damn good game, and even if it’s rather old, is definitely worth picking up if you’re a fan of FPS games that are challenging and different, if you love the post-apocalyptic genre or if you just want to play a game that’s been put together by a team who were good at what they were doing and did with genuine passion.
Plus THQ would probably really, really appreciate you giving them some money right now.
Verbal Fisticuffs 