Metro 2033

  
*Note, this was written for a 10/10 score system. 

Metro 2033 is a game set in Russia… oh crap; I’m in trouble aren’t I? The Russians are not known for their savvy game making. And that was reflected in the way they hyped up the game. A song from Twilight? Really? SAD SONG CHOICE FOR A TRAILER YOU RUSKY!… Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this game going in. The people that had gotten to play it before me had not much to say that was positive. Not to mention… I mean there Russians… RUSSIANS!!

But I shut my fat gob and started playing, and mostly, I was right. Excluding one giant thing, I never thought I’d ever give any part of this game a 10, and to a game as bad as this? Really?

STORY:

Without a doubt, the story in Metro 2033 is the strongest part of the game. Set in the year 2033 (A year randomly set by the game devs I’m guessing), you play as a guy named Artyom who has grown up in an underground vault… err metro tunnel. And you’re living in this smelly Russian hell hole because of the nuclear holocaust that has put the world above into an irradiated, hellish, winter. Alongside the end of days, has come a new threat, in the form of mutants and, no kidding, aliens.

Now before I get too much into Metro 2033s story, I should tell you that it is based on a bestselling Russian novel called Metro 2033 by Russian dude Dmitry Glukhovsky (with a last name like that I bet he has a big fur hat). Now I cannot contest to the games accuracy to the book, thanks to the fact that I cannot find a translated version of it anywhere. In fact that’s why this review is so late, I’ve spent the last few weeks looking for a copy.

But that’s not a bad thing, because I cannot give enough praise to how well paced and put together this story is. Very rarely do games have a story that is the soul reason to play, and will have you putting up with shitty controls and bad game mechanics to see the final seconds. It’s like that one friend of yours you can’t put up with, but you do because he always makes an entertaining drunk. But then when he’s sober, all he talks about is his cat and his STUPID BITCHY GIRLFRIEND!!!…. Sorry, but the fact is, you love him, even when his sobriety makes it hard.

And even with the “I’M TRIPPIN BALLS” ending, you can’t help but love this sci-fi classic. And so it is with a heavy heart, I lay down my ‘never given a 10 to a story’ title… It’s a shame it’s going to such a crappy game though.

ONE SENTENCE WRAP UP:
Even if this game is UTTERLY RUSSIAN, the story is absolute gold.

CONTROL:

This is where Metro 2033 hits its first 5 foot thick concrete wall, at full running speed. And it manages to break just about every tooth in its mouth with the strangest amalgam of components I’ve seen in any game. Let’s get the one thing that works out of the way, the shooting controls are functional. You look down the barrel, you pull the trigger, and whatever is at the other end receives a nice hot round one. If I had to relate the control to another game, I’d point a finger at Bioshock. However that’s where the good stuff ends.

The game tries to do too much, and falls flat on just about everything. Let me just list a few of those off for ya:

Stealth: Broken beyond repair. There are routes you can take, but they are not clear by any stretch of the word. Not to mention they go by one of the games many scripted events which, while interesting, take way too long to end.

Bullets: The game decides to have bullets as both ammunition, and money. Which in concept is a interesting idea, but its executed very poorly. You can switch between your dirty bullets, which are functional, but weak, and your cash bullets, which are stronger. The only problem with this is that your reload, and switch to money bullets button, is the SAME FUCKING BUTTON!
Honestly? That’s just bad planning. Because you’ll come to a point where you need to use just about all the bullets you have to get through a sticky situation. And in the hectic fray of battle, I just might hold the button down for half a second unknowingly switching to my money rounds. Thus draining out all my cash in a fight, leavening me broke when I need to buy more dirty rounds, which are EXTREMELY sparse in game. Therefore, leaving you completely broke and vulnerable.

Gas Mask: Good idea in theory, but why do I need to take it off and on? I shouldn’t have to fiddle with my gas mask while walking in toxic places. Artyom should automatically put it on, and I should just have to concentrate on dealing with the horrid stealth mechanics. Not to mention the filters go out quicker than Curtis during sex (you know it’s true). And when that happens, you have to listen to this guy suck air like a fat man on a jog. I understand they’re trying to create atmosphere, but the breathing is so over exaggerated that it’s comical.  And it’s the kind of comedy that’s done to death like lolcats, or spinning pictures with words on them. To the point that you’d rather rip off your own fingernails then listen to him suck air.

The D-pad on the 360: This has nothing to do with the game… well actually it does. There’s A LOT of stuff mapped to the D-pad, and the D-pad on the 360 is completely broken. So when you try to replace the filter on your gas mask, you’ll end up taking of your entire gas mask. Then you have to put it back on, and then try to put a new filter in again. Same thing with switching weapons, its imprecise and clumsy. You might turn off your night vision trying to switch to your shotgun, which makes every insufferable stealth section even less fun to play.

Compass and quests: This, again, is cool in conception, but when all you give me is a stupid fucking compass that gets caught in more glitches then Alone in the Dark, it makes me miss the simple map. WHATS WRONG WITH A FUCKING MAP? Knowing where to go, and where not to go when you’re on the surface is of extreme importance. Mainly due to the fact that if you go off in the wrong direction, you’ll get caught in a glitch, or die, and have to do the whole FUCKING mission over again.

On rails: Broken.

All of these problems are thanks to one thing, and one thing only, OVER DESIGN! Game devs need to know when to just cut something off. There is no reason for me to continually dick with my gas mask, or fiddle with my filters. There’s no reason for me to lose money because you mapped the “USE MONEY” and “RELOAD” functions to the same damn button. STREAMLINING is a GOOD THING you god damn Russians…. No offense.

ONE SENTIENCE WRAP UP:
Broken everything makes for a bad time.

AI:

This is split up about 50/50. It’s good in a sense that when there are scripted events, and there are a lot of them, it gives you plenty of time to ogle at them properly and let them sink in. Which is nice to see, its fun to be a part of the cut scene, and watch what’s happening how you want?  However, when the game switches over to “Story time” it may bore some people with short pines’… I mean attention spans.  However some of the dialog heavy stuff can get a bit long, so bring a drink.

However, when it comes to combat, you’ll ether be extremely frustrated, or laugh your skinny Russian ass off. This will all depend on what difficulty level you have it on.  If you have it on normal (or god forbid, hard) you’ll get your ass handed to you at every turn, and you’ll have to use both your money and dirty rounds in order to even advance. And should your aim be off when you have the difficulty level up, you may as well restart, because ammo is NOWHERE! And the small amount the game does gives you is nowhere close enough to keep you going through the game.

But if you turn the difficulty down to, say, easy, you’ll fly pass the majority of the game, with no difficulty. Granted you still need to conserve ammo like a squirrel to nuts. Because you’ll still come up against hordes of enemy’s and you’ll fly through your dirty rounds.  Which isn’t a good sign; it’s a sign that the game is unbalanced, and wasn’t exactly polished properly.

ONE SENTINCE WRAP UP: 
What works, works, what doesn’t, sucks.

GRAPHICS:

This is another Iffy spot for Metro 2033. Like I said before, Metro has a feeling that it was ether rushed, or not polished properly.  And that’s reflected, in spots, in the way the game looks. When you’re in the tunnels, the lighting is spot on, and everything looks the way it should. Then you get outside, and things get a much more interesting color palate. Unfortunately, everything looks like it’s one of those PS2 open world games that tried to copy GTA’s success. Everything looks super sharp (pointy and jagged) and super flat, with little to nothing in the way of remember-ability.

This leads us to the one spot of the game you will either love with a passion or hate immensely, the design. I will say now, that there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with all the eyes in this game. Not even joking, they are more scary then most of the monsters in this thing.  That said, some of the monster design is actually really good.  Not all of it, stuff like the rats, but most of it is really good. A lot of which is genuinely grotesque and disgusting. And remember, I get night terrors, so for something to make me cringe, or freak me out outside of my own mind, is rare, and kind of cool to me. Granted none of the monster design measures up to those freaky ass zombie eyes everybody has… Seriously.

ONE SENTENCE WRAP UP:
Cover up the eyes and stay in the tunnels with the monsters.

SOUND:

This whole game was trying to build up some kind of atmosphere. And in order to do that you need to have a good soundtrack, and sound effects. And, excluding the stupid fucking mouth breathing, this game accomplishes this to some effect. The music, when you come across it is appropriate and fits the situations very well.  The voice acting is surprisingly well done, and comes in more languages then one, which I enjoyed a lot. The option to hear the game in Russian is there, and actually makes the story just that much more drawing. However, I’m not a big fan of subtitles, in movies, anime, and now in games. Don’t get me wrong, the English is great, but the Russian really ties the whole thing together.

But when it comes to the game actually doing this “surround sound” thing that’s so popular, it falls flat. And since this game relies heavily on its “stealth mechanic”, surround sound becomes necessary in order to figure out where enemies are coming from. Don’t get me wrong, the surround works for most of the time, just until stuff starts coming up from behind you. Now I don’t know if you’ve played a lot of stealth games, but that’s an important place to keep track of.  And if you can’t hear that a GIANT GORILLA is stomping behind you, you can’t really back away from any spot with certainty. This sucks, because the giant gorilla level is EXTREMELY hard… I’m not joking about the gorillas.

ONE SENTENCE WRAP UP:

Really solid all round, excluding the surround sound, which needs some more polish.
 

FUN FACTOR:

 When I first saw stuff on Metro, I brushed it off as another Russian game, and said it was going to suck. Then I heard about the novel, which got me all interested and junk (like totally). Even then I said that the story would be the only good part of it, and the rest would be some sloppy unpolished mess. It seems I will be eating a small amount of my words today, and I say small amount for a good reason.

 

This game, in no way, is fun to play. If the story wasn’t so good, there would be no reason for me to continue playing this pile of on polished FPS sadness. There is just too much keeping this game from being good. WHICH IS A TOTAL FUCKING SHAME! Because this story is something that everybody should look into. And if you got the spare time, maybe try burning through the game on easy just to see what I’m talking about.

ONE SENTENCE WRAP UP:
Such a good story held back by such shitty gameplay.

STORY: 5 *First five for story
CONTROL: 1.5
AI: 2
GRAPHICS: 3
SOUND: 4
FUN FACTOR: 1

A one sentence review:

A GREAT story held at bay by some of the dumbest game design around… shame.

Buy? Rent? Borrow? Pass?

 Buy…. The book. 

 
Foot note: I have a feeling this game would be better on the PC, where it belongs, however my PC is not capable of running it.