24.6.2012

2033. Twenty years have passed since a nuclear apocalypse ended civilisation. A number of survivors have built an underground society based in the Moscow Metro. Stations and their adjoining halls and tunnels now serve as towns, some banded together into factions. Some of these factions are at war with one another, and all are threatened by the hostile creatures (transformed by radiation into mutants) that roam the tunnels and the overground.A young man named Artyom volunteers to leave his station and journey to the largest town in the metro, Polis, to seek help against the creatures threatening to destroy his home. However,this is only the start of a long journey as he discovers that there is a potentially greater threat gathering and he may be the only hope of stopping it.Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter developed by the Ukrainian 4A Studios, an off-shoot of the recently-closed GSC Game World (the creators of the STALKER series of games). It's a post-apocalyptic game employing some elements of survival horror in addition to its more traditional FPS trappings.The game is played from the POV of Artyom, who narrates the game through observations that appear during loading screens. Otherwise, he is a silent protagonist in-game, more willing to listen and learn from other characters than engage in lengthy conversations. The game style is inspired by the Half-Life series, most notably the idea that it's up to the player how much exposition and backstory they need to hear. When in a peaceful area, such as a town, you can simply press on immediately with the next mission or stick around and listen to conversations to pick up more information about the world and setting. There are a variety of NPC characters who help Artyom out during missions, though usually they are forced to bail out at some point, leaving Artyom to press on alone.The STALKER influence can be seen in the atmosphere, which is dark, brooding and often oppressive. When on the surface or in gas-filled chambers, Artyom has to wear a gas mask to survive. As the gas mask's filter clogs up, his breath starts to fog over the screen and the sound of his increasingly laboured breathing becomes dominant, until he replaces the filter. Finding filters is thus essential to survival (though only truly an onerous task at the highest difficult levels). This gives a tremendous sense of claustrophobia to some parts of the game. Another issue is that bullets are relatively difficult to find in the game and enemies tend to soak up a lot of damage, making the player have to think much more carefully whether to engage in combat or attempt to sneak past enemies by sticking to the shadows.The game employs a highly naturalistic style to its interface. Your journal and compass are in-game objects and looking at them means unequipping your weapon, which can be lethal in dangerous areas. The onscreen HUD only appears when needed and tends to vanish whenever you're not using it. There are both stealth and morality mechanics, the former tracking how locatable you are and the former how 'good' or 'bad' your decisions have been, but both are invisible to the player. This adds to the atmosphere, as it leaves you wondering if you have made the right decisions rather than being able to hit a button and bring up a bald numerical figure representing your situation.The game's art style is dark but impressive, cold in atmosphere and successful in conjuring up an air of constant terror during missions. The towns are warmer and richer, with people huddled over fires discussing how they are surviving and merchants eager to sell you their wares. However, the towns are let down by a lack of variety (they're similar to one another, with little in the way of optional side-quests available) and also a sense that they are not necessary. Whilst ammo is very limited, there's usually enough to be looted in the wild to make depleting your (extremely limited) supply of currency. Amusingly, currency in the game are also bullets, which in moments of desperation you can use as ammo.Combat is chunky and in many cases satisfying, but the game's difficulty level can make it frustrating. At normal difficulty headshots have no impact and enemies can take a lot of damage to kill. At high difficulty levels enemies can be killed more easily, but at the expense of also making you extremely fragile and also making ammo and money extremely difficult to find. Unfortunately, the game also pulls the old Far Cry trick of removing the satisfying human opponents in favour of unconvincing monsters and mutants later on, but unlike Far Cry never brings back the human enemies later on. The mutants tend to be much less satisfying to fight, which is a problem since they dominate the second half of the game. Particularly annoying are the ape-derived 'librarians', who take ludicrous amounts of ammo to put down. There is a system for 'staring them down', but it feels somewhat arbitrary whether employing this tactic is going to work or not.Metro 2033 features regenerating health, but only at a very slow rate, making it almost impossible to heal up mid-battle (you also have pain-killing injections that speeds up the process, but is little help in frantic firefights). There is also no cover system (at least beyond the old-school 'duck and pop up again to shoot' technique). These reductions in modern gaming's most tedious and over-used elements are successful in returning real menace and tension to combat, although they do sometimes go the other way and make battles annoyingly frustrating to win. This isn't helped by a checkpoint system that, whilst never as enragingly awful as Max Payne 3's, is still sometimes unforgiving, forcing you to replay lengthy sections as punishment for tiny mistakes (or random chance).The game's atmosphere is tremendously effective, its setting interesting (and surprisingly varied) and the characters you meet and ally with tend to be well-motivated individuals. There's a jet-black sense of humour that constantly pervades the game. The game also has a surprising, twist ending (but only if you've done enough 'good' acts to unlock it) that nicely subverts the violent action game you thought you were playing. This has to be balanced against sometimes frustrating spikes in difficulty and a sometimes ridiculous lack of ammo for a first-person shooter.Metro 2033 (****) is definitely one of the more original and impressive first-person shooters of recent years. If you can get over its brutally unforgiving difficulty, this is definitely a game worth playing. It is available now in the UK (PC, X-Box 360) and USA (PC, X-Box 360).

22.12.2011

You have stumpled upon my review. The review of the GAME Metro 2033 . Not my shopping experience. Review Conclusion is at the bottom!The environment/atmosphere is outstanding. It is detailed, realistic,supernatural, scary and sucks you into the story that accompanies it. The human characters and the 'mutants' are well modelled however the one thing I was expecting but didn't come across is the presence of zombies. I would imagine if there are mutated animals(ie: monsters) there will also be mutated or 'infected' humans too (ie:zombies), but zombies are missing from this game . What a shame :/The AI characters that help you to progress with the story can act really dumb sometimes. For example,in one of the missions ('Lost Tunnel') your AI buddy Bourbon tells you to waste the guards in the next room while he hides and waits behind some crates (hmm.. rhyme). To take down the guards you can either use stealth (by throwing knives) or go 'lock and load' and fill them with lead (although you are strongly advised to NOT waste your ammo). After successfully achieving the objective, nothing happened. I walked back to where Bourbon went to hide and he was still there, with no intention to continue with the story/mission. Have I done something wrong? After a few minutes of me running around and trying to find more ammo among the guards' dead bodies, Bourbon realised that the area is clear and it is safe to move out.Also, this game doesn't use the kind of AI that follows you around. It's the opposite. If you stray off to some other tunnel to find some ammo or another gas mask, you may have a difficulty locating your AI buddy. However, there is always the objective notepad which you can have a look at in case you are lost. It has a compass that points you in the right direction. But what am I doing, this is supposed to be abreview , not a guide...I just read few reviews on MetaCritics, literally, just now, and some people say it's not very realistic and that the gun physics suck and things like that. Well, all throughout the game you are reminded how precious the ammunition is (it serves as money too). That implies you are better off using knives (against human enemies anyway). Of course there are situations in which you can only use firearms but even in those cases you should always use single shots to incapacitate the enemy. (Note that it usually takes 3-6 bullets to kill an enemy, depending on the type of ammo you are using.)The point I am making is that the game encourages the player to use stealth to accomplish tasks, therefore guns weren't given much attention to by the developers. Some people have to understand and appreciate what this game is about. It's about survival. Not, wasting resources (i.e.: ammo). (We do that enough in the present. Maybe that's one of the moral points the game is making. How humanity kept wasting resources until it wasted itself.)I played 9 hours straight and still haven't completed it so I can say I got my money's worth (bought it for £3.74 during a Steam Sale normally £14.99 on Steam but you can get a physical copy on Amazon for around £6.00).There are a few things about the story that I find strange.For example:Unlimited candles and electricity? All throughout the game the tunnels and buildings are lit by electrical lamps/lights or candles. Where do they get those from/Where will they get those from in the future?Limitless ammunition-I guess that's one of the easiest things to manufacture down in a metroUnlimited food. Question is the same as for candles and electricity. Where do/will they get it from ? Everything is infected/irradiated on the surface, so hunting for meat is not a good idea.(Resorting to cannibalism ,however, is an option.)That's all I've got to say about this game. Also, an advice: change the in-game audio to Russian and play with English subtitles. This will add to the experience!P.S.: I wish my computer was good enough to play this game on max graphics settingsP.P.S.: I gave it 4/5. Half a point down Because of the dumb Artificial Intelligence and another half point down because the game is rather linear. The maps/stations are not quite explorable and the lack of side quests is also a disappointment. I would have loved to have met and talked to other characters and know a bit of their past and stuff like that. (If you've played 'Lost - The Video Game' , or any other adventure games, you know what i'm talking about). Overall great game and at £6.00 (on Amazon), I could only praise it!- - - - - - - -EDIT:I have just completed the game. Steam logged 11 hours of playtime for Metro 2033. I played it in Hardcore difficulty. I have to say that the ending is one of the best I have seen in a long time.The best and the SCARIEST. This game is absolutely brilliant! It's like a good horror movie, an terrific one! I definitely have to re-play this game (tomorrow) so i can fully understand what was going on and fully appreciate the story (and also there is plenty of achievements left to do!!). I recommend it at all price levels!!!- - - - - - - -

12.7.2010

Playing Metro 2033 reminded me of playing the first Half Life. You walk down one long corridor fighting groups of either monsters or soldiers and encountering a mysterious alien like presence. Progression requires the switching on of machinery and the climbing of rickety platforms. Some areas are hazardous to your health and others littered with traps. A standard set of weapons aid you; knife, hand gun, rifle, shotgun with a small number of upgrades for each gun. You are encouraged forward through the progression of an atmospheric story concerning helping those around you. The package is wrapped up in a film like design.Graphically impressive. At times the different effects,lighting and design push past the polygons and textures to creating a believable atmospheric world. The use of darkness, smoke, weather, toxic mask or night vision goggle visibility all help immensely to cover what would otherwise be the usual character models and landscapes of a modern 3D game. There is unsurprisingly a large amount of dark in the game and turning the gamma up a couple of clicks was necessary for keeping the detail visible on my TV.Audio is equally impressive. The chatter of comrades is believable and helpful in understanding your next objective. The stations full of people can be overwhelming with the murmuring and banter as they should be crammed as they are. The screeches of monsters build up the tension well for the next attack and add to their intimidating demeanour. The rusty metal platforms complain under foot.Gameplay can be the rather standard 3D shooter. The monsters tend to charge and the humans tend to fire and bob about between cover giving you either the shoot till reload, shoot till reload routine or the aim for the head from behind cover routine. Gameplay does dip into the impressive occasionally. Defending a station with a handful of others from an onslaught, or hiding in the darkness and using a silent weapon to pick off the enemy, or shooting the masks off your attackers in a toxic area are some of the changes in gameplay certain areas have to offer. The game works well with a 360 pad for those who like sitting on the sofa.There are two endings in the game. One is more likely on the first play through and the second option is more likely to appear if you observe as much as possible (listening to others that may need a bit of currency, spotting the dead on your outing, avoiding rather than killing humans and helping those in trouble). Neither ending is particularly long or impressive and the game doesn't have enough to make a replay worthwhile.The game gets four stars for a few negatives. The game is quite short and the odd frustration affects the natural flow. Some deaths are down to a more frustrating lack of clarity of cause and effect (the well it makes sense that I would die from that but how was I to know?), but I won't spoil it by telling you about them. At one point I ran low on air filters, the station had none for sale and then sent me outside. I died from the toxic air after a few minutes. On replaying the enemies dropped quite a few air filters. Um thanks but why did that only happen the second time around?! A few times I emptied my weapon at an enemy to save a friend only to find that they were set piece deaths. Um thanks but ammo is scarce! Some of the weapon options are useful such as a silencer option is often handy but needy in ammo to take down enemies or a shotgun which can load more cartridges so naturally I want to know what the weapons are. Graphically it is a plus to not see a stream of stats but is frustrating finding a weapon on the floor and not immediately identifying what its strengths and weaknesses are to the one in hand.All in all Metro 2033 is an above average shooter abundant in character and atmosphere.

21.6.2014

First of all, i wanted to reviewer know I am old PC gamer. Games like classic Doom, Quake, Medal of Honor, Duke Nukem, Counter-Strike 1.6 and Half-Life is my old past games that i have experience at that time. I'm also play a modern FPS such Bioshock, Crysis and many linear FPS or arena team based.Easy to say, this game was masterpiece of new IP even it's adaptation from book novel. I have play lots FPS and this game was the most astonishing atmospheric feeling I haven experience in FPS gaming. The graphic, the animation movement that interact with equipment and the sound looks me feel like I'm in there. It's hard to explain but if you imagine how do you survive in the abandon underground tunnel that connected to each other to reach other survivor location.How it feel when nuclear war happens and poisoned air pollution affect from nuclear weapon in surface.All equipment has great interact with you such, you need a gas mask, if you reach on the surface area and also you will need air filter to change every several minutes. You can look your hand watch if time has ready or you can hear you breath is become hard. The other equipment such flashlight, you must pull the battery charger into flashlight or your light become low. The weapon it self has feel 'heavy' each you shoot or reload. It's become realistic if you hard to reload during the monster straight to attack at your face.The best thing about feel atmospheric was sound and graphic. Great combination either. It's really dark, nothing you can see if you don't open your flashlight, the smoke feel the oxygen is too low. Hard to breath. Depress and tension. One mission I remember was when I need to explode the tunnel to stop the monster horde from attacking at safe place, the explosion wave effect 'feel' the pressure come toward at you. It's different when explode something in the tunnel rather at surface. The sound of environment feel you watch every step you walk. Monster, ghost or bandits are ready to after you. Every 'kerk' sound and foot steps make you feel something behind you. Abandon stuff, corpses and wall or room full of dust feel it's being abandon long time and not touches by living thing.Some say, the game is hard. Yes, this game is hard in standard shooter even you choose normal difficulty but it has reason to be hard. The monsters, yes hard to die if you shoot several time with shotgun bullet and the mechanic weapons seems like heavy and slow, yes, what do you aspect if you shoot using gun in WW2? Every bullet is gold. The most important thing in this game was bullets, some bullets that you can trade in the underground market using to get better weapon and the bullets in this game is precious. How do you feel when you not enough bullets fighting monster horde and try to find them what ever in situation. I'm struggle to find spare weapon or bullets every corpses to survive. Or med-kit.I think this is the best FPS post-apocalypse game I haven experience. The original Bioshock is amazing but this game give me more environment suspense and the tension feel more realistic. I'm play with PC version with enhanced in direct 11. The only problem about this game is POV (Point of View). Glad I can change manually with txt. file data according helper in Steam Community.And lastly, I just know IGN screw it up. Stupid reviewer doesn't know how to rate good game. PC version doesn't have graphics problem at all even glitches. This game must try if you love Bioshock or Singularity, Give a chance to new good IP game. I'll look at sequel, Metro Last Light.

24.8.2010

Played on Windows Vista 64. Striker II Extreme MB. Intel Core 2 Quad 6600. ATI Radeon HD5750. Creative SB X-FI.As others will have pointed out, there's no open world exploration here - but my goodness, what a world it is.The attention to detail is quite phenomenal. I spent much of the time wishing it was an open-world game so that I could just wander around and take it all in. It seems a shame that much of the time you're so busy being pulled along by the action that you miss out examining the incredible work done by the artists.I couldn't run the game on the highest settings with the kit listed above, but on High nonetheless. The only issues came when using grenades.Weaponry and explosives will impact everything they hit, and grenades have a very satisfying destructive force, not just on combatants, but everything else too, although the downside was a temporary, but considerable framerate drop.Gunplay and battles are at times tense and drawn out, or absolutely frenetic panic-fests depending on the nature of the foe, and armament decisions have a very real impact on your approach and ability to progress. Ammunition is a severely limited commodity.Another aspect which adds a lot to the feeling of claustrophobia is your relationship with the world outside the metro system. As the DVD cover suggests, you'll need a gas mask, as merely breathing unprotected will kill you, and so you need to ration gas mask filters to ensure your survival. The outside world is at once beautiful and terrifying, and you won't be allowed to enjoy carefree tourism for too long without falling foul of hideous winged beasts that look like cathedral gargoyles come to life.There are a few levels which are incredibly frustrating, and found me sobbing quietly into my keyboard, which is why I've marked it down. The instructions you're given by your comrades on how to get through them don't appear to entirely tell the whole story. Librarians - they are not what you might imagine!I'd suggest much of the appeal of this game comes from the fact that it's evolved out of a novel - and so the sense of being part of a very well-defined and fully formed world is incredibly strong. There are some very beautifully imagined other worldy aspects to it too. You might almost be a character in a Tarkovsky film, albeit at a rather faster pace.It's not going to enslave you to your PC to the extent that Fallout 3 or STALKER will, but it's a very memorable adventure which certainly left me wanting more.Because of this game I recently upgraded my mother board and CPU to try and accommodate the highest quality settings and have found the developers have integrated an extremely annoying motion blur which contaminates everything. Whilst adding to the sense of chaos it seems to have been ramped up a little too high, and cannot be turned off separately. Visual Quality presets are the only options, you can't alter individual elements. It's something I hope the modding community will advise on in time.This is definitely a game I will revisit though - the atmosphere is that compelling.Finally, a touch I found which contributed enormously to the atmosphere was the option of playing the game in the original Russian, with English subtitles.

4.5.2013

The concept of this game is very different, and the atmosphere is like nothing I have ever played before. Roaming dark tunnels with just your flashlight and a scarcity of ammo leaves you constantly on the edge, and you will never find yourself rushing to do anything without hesitation. If there's one thing this game gives 100% on, it's atmosphere. As for the story line, I cannot comment too extensively as I have not completed the game yet. However, there are a few twists and the concept of being underground and sometimes visiting the hostile but eerily silent surface is very enjoyable. The use of ammunition as a currency plays well too,

1.6.2013

I read through alot of reviews before deciding to write this one.After completing this game i actually sat and watched the credits roll by, i dont think ive ever done that before!Simply put this is a shooter not an RPG, it dosn't have the RPG elements you find in the fallout series, bauldurs gate etcHowever it is one hell of a shooter, it has taken one of the oldest game formats (linear shooter) and given it a new lease of life with interesting additions such as a gas mask (with filters that dont last more than 2 minutes) and a battery recharger, yes you have to recharge you torch or NVG's if you want them to keep working, makes sense really. The areas where you need your gas mask on are great,

24.8.2010

I've been waiting for FFXIV for a while now and have been purchasing random games to keep going in the mean time. I recently upgraded my pc, which is now running a phenom II X4 965 CPU (seriously, who makes these names?) and a HD Radeon 5870 graphics card. So any game that has relatively high graphics specs looks appealing to me. Therefore I bought Metro 2033.I was genuinely surprised at how good this game was after reading all the reviews on here. The graphics are truly phenomenal. If you have a rig capable of pulling off the high end settings of this game, for the price you should just buy it anyway to see and how amazing it is.The story is enjoyable and keeps you interested and there are two alternative endings depending on what you did in the game.

29.4.2010

i have to say, its one of the hardest games i've played for a long time. (on hard oviously)your always lacking bullets so you have to make each shot count and make sure you aim for the head or your screwed with 10 monsters on you at once.Explosives are extremely powerful, like they should be to be honest.It's yet to be repetative, keeps me on the edge introducing new things like ghosts lol, don't worry, this isn't ghostbusters, they're just randomly there, you can't kill them either.i love the lacking ammuniction factor, it stops me spraying and makes me look in every little place for ammo and when i find some, damn i get so excited lol.Also there is two ways to place this game and i guess each game style you choose it decides which ending you get.

9.5.2011

I found this quite hard at first for a FPS - you are limited on ammo and the weapons aren't strong - neither are you! But once you understand this it becomes a game of tactics and accurate shooting - and you can still have the odd rampage if you like. I found this quite immersive - I've played it through once and I aim to start playing through again soon.There are a couple of things I didn't like, but they're only minor:The "Press space now!" bits - why? Clearly a console cross over that seems pointless on a PC.There is one section where you have to work through with someone, but if you go too far away from them you will get mauled to death. Again - why?

24.6.2012

First of all, this game is fantastic. It places you in the constantly terrified shoes of Artyom, fighting to survive against some of the most terrifying creature you can think of (barring anything from Dead Space because that stuff is nightmare fuel). The weapons are fun to use, all of them carrying that retrofitted feel, and the way the currency works is spectacular in the experience. By making bullets your currency, it gets you to constantly think about ammo conservation, and to scavenge around at every single opportunity, just like the destitutes that inhabit the metro would.My main problem, though, was that it simply did not work right with my screen. I have a widescreen monitor,

13.4.2010

Initially I had posted a less than favourable review on Metro 2033 - because of various frustrations I had while playing the game (lack of ammo, feeble weapons etc)Any yet - even after posting that review - I was still drawn back to playing the game.Why? Because of the compelling atmosphere and - once I got the hang of it - the total immersion.After watching a few walkthrough videos of Metro2033, I began to appreciate what a great game this is - and also, what a quality game it is.Some may say that it's a very linear game - and in a way it is. But it's based around adventuring in an underground Metro system where all tunnels have to lead somewhere - so that's totally logical.It is also very story driven,

7.5.2012

This game is getting on a bit now, in fact the sequel (or prequel technically) was due out around this time but got pushed back to next year. Even so, this game looks fantastic and is a real graphics card killer when you stick the settings up on the high end. The gameplay itself is a little different to my usual run-and-gun and I found playing it on "Ranger" mode instead of the normal mode was much better. Ranger mode frees up the characters movement, the original movement style makes your character feel really sluggish and almost like you're lagging due to not having a powerful enough PC. The gameplay really sets a tone and you spend most of the game extremely scared of whatever is in the shadows making scary noises,

8.10.2010

I first purchased this game as a 2nd hand copy from ebay, I would like to warn people that all 2nd hand copies have been linked by the previous owner to their steam account which can be done only once so you wont be able to play them.To the game, the game itself is such an imersive and frightening experience that had me quaking in my boot, from the low powered torch light bouncing off the walls of the Metro tunnels highlighting every shadow and making the experience truly scary.The Nature of the game is highlighted in the fact that the ammo that you use too dispatch enemies is also used as currency, so you can have a really nice shiny gun but no ammo to fire it (dont worry you always have your knife)The main dissapointment for me was the truly high specs of the game,

30.12.2011

One must remember that this is not a western game, hence certain things and view of the world is different from what one might expect after playing many other games.Metro 2033 is an interesting game that is both challenging and rewarding. Dead Moscow is, ironically, quite pretty. It presents a view somewhat familiar to those who played Fallout, and yet subtely different. Metro world seems... fuller.The game is, sadly, linear, but the story is nice and can have one of two endings, depending on your interactions in the world during the game. It is also quite difficult and seems to favor stealth over brute force. It also introduces things like gas masks required on the surface in which you have to change filters.

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