Metro 2033

The Short


Pros
- Gritty, dark survival/shooting game set in Russia's subway system
- Guns look appropriately makeshift and old based on the theme
- Monsters are creepy
- Lots of really cool ideas
- Really plays the whole "struggling to survive" aspect better than most other games in the genre
- Fantastic UI
- Superb sound design, particularly in ambiant noises and voices
- Visual theme is uniform and fantastic throughout

Cons
- Console versions are extremely glitchy, PC version is a little better but still has issues
- PC version is poorly optimized; expect to play it on lower settings than other games
- Ghetto guns that have poor aim fit the theme, but make the game seem unfair
- Easy to get lost or stuck on glitches
- Shooting monsters is fun. Shooting dudes is bland.
- Game ends abruptly and with little explanation

The aesthetics in Metro 2033 are perhaps its biggest strength

The Long


Metro 2033 is an interesting game to review. At its most basic, it's a "modern" survival horror game, meaning you are given a large arsenal of weapons with limited ammo and are thrown into dark corridors with lots of beasties to shoot. If I reviewed Metro 2033 based solely off these qualities, I'd say it was a pretty generic, very glitchy, extremely Russian brand of that type of game, and really only for those really into the genre. Where Metro 2033 sold me, however, was it's incredible attention to detail and complete, unabashed dedication to making it a "survival" sim, even if that meant inconveniencing the player gameplaywise.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me give you the general gist.

Metro 2033 is set in...2033 deep down in...the Russian metro. Yeah, you saw that coming. Following tradition the world has been nuked to the point of total nuclear winter, so everybody has to live underground in the broken metro tunnels to avoid the dangerous radiation, cold, and mutant monsters that reside on Moscow's surface. Pretty much par for the course, right? If you are getting Fallout 3 vibes, you aren't far off.

Well, something starts happening that nobody can control. These weird, shadow-looking monsters start popping up out of the woodwork and massacring entire settlements. Your home settlement is under siege by these believed "unkillable" monsters, so you are sent out to try and enlist aid from the main city in the area. Again, hardly anything particularly new in terms of plot.

There are also some of these guys. 

The game plays like a straightforward shooter. You are given a knife, one sidearm, one rifle, and one shotgun. You are free to buy alternate versions of the weapons that sport different upgrades and perks, though generally there are two types of rifles (one automatic, one pump-powered) and two types of shotguns (a high damage double barrel, and a lower damage but bigger clip battle shotgun). The guns start out completely horrible (fitting with the "we are living off the remnants of society" theme), and you'll be desperately scrounging for ammo and praying they actually aim where you point them. By the end, however, it's pretty much a traditional shooter, with all your weapons tricked out and actually functioning properly. The bad weapons at the beginning are a minor annoyance gameplay-wise, but they do a lot to fit into the game's theme and aesthetic.

Which brings me to the biggest part of the review: Metro 2033 reeks with style. It practically oozes it. The game is very Russian, with people speaking in heavy russian accents and referencing some things we Americans might get. But the biggest attachment to form is the whole "you have to fight to survive" aspect, which really sets this game apart (both for good and ill). 

Suffer not a beastie to live

Let's first address the basics: a light. In survival horror games, your light is really important. Often they throw you into pitch black places, letting you reveal whatever scary things they have hidden with the flashlight/candle/etc. they gave you. In every other game I've played, lights either have infinite batteries or magical recharging ones that fill up after you turn them off. Keeps the tension, but without breaking the gameplay. 

In Metro 2033, your light is constantly running out of juice. But in order to recharge it, you have to hit a special button and manually crank the charge. You don't even know what your current juice level is unless you hit this button and pull up the crank, which has a fogged-over meter attached. You can sort of tell because it'll start going dim at about half-empty, but having to pull out your light and manually crank it in the middle of battles (or walking around) is both annoying and incredibly immersive. 

IMMERSION.

Same goes for the gas mask. When you go to the surface on several instance, you have to bust out the gas mask or die. They make a note that your filters will run out after several minutes of use (and I think they run out faster if you get in a lot of fights/run a lot/ do stuff that would increase your breathing rate). Rather than throw a timer at you, however, your dude literally winds up an analog timer on his watch which you have to press a special button for him to check his wrist to know if the filter is running out. Also as it starts to die your mask will fog up, making it harder and harder to see. So then you have to make a choice: do I swap a filter early and risk running out, or wait until it runs out of time but risk losing all peripheral vision? 

IMMERSION. 

You can't even check your objectives (which your dude writes down in a notebook and has to pull up) if it is dark. You have to bust out a lighter, click to light it, and then hold your notebook up to see it. Also, if you do this while trying to hide in the dark/be stealthy, people will see you. So you are essentially being punished to check your notes (like you would in real life).

IMMERSION. 

I've already made a point about the guns starting off totally awful (and they all look like they were put together with spare parts; the gun design in this game is sweet), but did you know that in this game bullets are money? Yes, the normal bullets you shoot from your guns are crappy, "refurbed" bullets (much like my "refurbed" Xbox), but you can find special "good" bullets. These do loads more damage, but they also count as the only currency in the game. So you have to decide whether they are worth shooting at the boss or saving just in case you want to buy a new gun (protip: save them. This aspect of the game is clever, but poorly executed; there is literally no reason not to just use the crap bullets the whole game). But still...

IMMERSION.

This dude is totally immersed. Also, screwed. 

And that is where Metro 2033 sold me. The shooting isn't great. The story is interesting but quickly putters out. The game is glitchy and makes you shoot too many humans at the end rather than fighting against crazy subway monsters. It also gimped my computer and would only run at crap settings even though I could play Starcraft II at way better graphics, so I knew it was Metro's fault. But despite all of this, once I started it really sunk its claws into me. I just put on some headphones, dimmed the lights, and let myself be totally taken in by the game's style. It wasn't that scary of a game, and it was extremely linear and pretty short (six hours, maybe?), but I got so sucked in I didn't care.

Though that does mean that whenever some enemy started glitching out or I got trapped in the geometry, I was totally ripped away from the main reason I was playing the game, which sucked. Also, this game has a huge problem not telling you what to do, even with your stupid objectives list that you have to use a lighter to see. I got stuck in rooms simply because I was confused, or wandered around areas (that damned library still bugs me) for quite a while before figuring out where to go next. Obnoxious.

Cranking the light! ARE YOU IMMERSED YET?!?

It is also worth noting that, unlike most multi-platform next gen games, I didn't play this one on the Xbox 360. I've heard plenty of people say it's even more glitchy than the PC version, which would be pretty rough of that's the case. I actually started this game on PC, got mad because my specs were bad, and then ended up playing it on OnLive instead. Which technically had worse graphics than my PC, but I was so fed up with settings twieking that I really didn't care at that point. I played it on mouse and keyboard, which I honestly would imagine is the best way to play it, because there are so many stupid buttons for "checking watch" or "replacing filter" or "cranking flashlight" that it would be tough to map all that crap to a controller.

So that means I actually own the game both on Steam and Onlive, which also means I've technically bought it twice. Well, whatever. I paid something like $5 for the Steam version, but the $20 I paid on OnLive I would say is a fair price, if you have a PC that can run it decently. If you are into games that really suck you in, then plug in some headphones, dim the lights, and enter the (immersive) world of Metro 2033.

If I were to give a star rating, it would be three out of five, but I will certainly be picking up the sequel, Metro: Last Light when it comes out. It's a flawed game, to be certain, but a fantastic one if you are in the right mood.