Histidine's Metro 2033 Review

A few days ago, I finally caved in and downloaded Steam. I'm still very annoyed with the program, for many reasons, but that's not why I'm posting here today. I got Steam so I could buy Metro 2033, the debut game of Ukrainian company 4A Games. That's right, it's this company's first game. But you could never tell that by playing it.

Let's get one thing clear: I liked this game. A lot. It was a game that grabbed onto me and didn't let go until it was 2 in the morning. It is definitely not without its flaws, but by and large they're easy to forgive.

Another thing to get clear. Though the game's setting is post-apocalyptic Moscow, this game is not Fallout 3, nor is it STALKER. Not even close. It isn't an open world to explore. But in this case, that's a very good thing. It's linear in that you always have a clear goal to progress toward, but there is always some exploration to do. You never feel like the game is artificially forcing you toward your goal. The game is heavy on scripted events and situations, from railcar chase scenes to a battle between factions to defending a settlement from a monster attack. With the heavy scripting, I found the game more akin to Half Life 2 than anything else, and I mean that in the most complimentary way - this is the closest we've seen to that masterpiece since Valve decided to give their fans the finger by forgetting about their star franchise.

The game world of Metro is a work of art. Though you spend much of the game crawling around in the tunnels below the city, the environment manages to never feel same-y. And the game makes it very clear that the environment is out to kill you. There are monsters lurking, fanatic militants gone insane, hostile freebooters, not to mention radiation, anomalies (not to be confused with the (distantly related) anomalies in STALKER), and... other... threats from the tunnels themselves. You'll have to play to see what I mean - and it is well worth it to find out!

But you don't spend the whole time underground. You will make trips to the surface as well, which is just as atmospheric as the tunnels, if not more so. You have to constantly wear a gas mask on the surface, and you have to find replacement filters to keep from breathing the radiation. The surface is also filled with monsters, including the flying Demons that force you to constantly look for crevices to hide in to keep from being carried off by them. There are dark, claustrophobic buildings to explore, as well, which are some of the creepiest environments in the game. The level design here is simply superb, letting you feel like you're free to explore, but still getting you from one checkpoint to the next.

The monsters in the game are worth noting here, as they definitely add to the atmosphere. There are many types of monsters, each more dangerous than the last, but the most dangerous ones don't just leap out at you and bite your face off. The dangerous ones are the ones that prey on your fear. They might attack and then leap away, leaving you disoriented. They might scream out of one crevice and then attack from another. One time, as I was exploring a building, I entered a doorway, then turned around and saw a monster push a huge chunk of debris in the way, trapping me! Some of the monsters in this game will really scare the out of you. Honestly, I don't even like horror - movies or games - but I still found myself smiling wider the more terrified I became. This game just does it that well.

As rich of an experience as this game is, some of the mechanics just don't work as well as others. The guns are hit-and-miss. You're supposed to feel like you're using jury-rigged junk and salvaged scrap, but some guns just feel too weak for what they're supposed to be. Shotguns are like spraying the enemy with powdered sugar. So I traded my shotgun for a pneumatic "rifle" thing, which works really well for about two shots before it loses pressure and needs to be pumped up again - at which point it's about as effective as an airsoft gun. I had a personal rule from then on of no pneumatic weaponry. Pistols, on the other hand, are quite effective, but just don't have a big enough clip to be worth bringing out in a heated firefight. So as soon as I got an AK, I thought I'd use it for the rest of the game - but that turned out to be unfeasible. Unless your accuracy is enough to blow John Wayne's mind, you'll find yourself running low in precious ammo - the most valuable commodity in the world of Metro. There's always your trusty knife, of course, but to bring down a monster using only your knife might take a few minutes - they don't seem to notice the scratches I'm making on their face while they shred me with their claws.

Since the developers apparently didn't think their game was flawed enough, they opted for a checkpoint system rather than a quicksave one. And I guarantee you, you will curse out loud at least once during your first playthrough at the lack of a quicksave.

And as much as I love the environment and the monsters in this game, that all came crashing down towards the end of the game with one relatively short sequence - nothing other than an escort quest. You have to walk through a veritable minefield of constantly-spawning giant rolling green testicles that explode when they get close. It wouldn't be so bad on your own - you can destroy the spawners (that is, if you are made of ammo), or you can simply run through and outrun the green balls. But no - you've got to escort some dumb , and most of the balls prefer to go after him. And the worst part - he stubbornly insists on marching forward in a straight line at a steady pace. He's too fast for you to shoot all the spawners, but too slow to outrun any that come from behind. As a result, he dies. A LOT.

This part of the game is controller-breakingly frustrating, and it comes at a very unfortunate point in the game - such that it disrupts the flow of the story and makes you wonder why you ever bought this stupid Russian game. Honestly, with how dumb these enemies are - I mean, they're green jelly testicles that explode! - and with how dumb this whole part of the game is, it feels extremely out of place from the rest of the game. My only guess is that one of the developers is incredibly, short-bus-ridingly stupid, but very loud and eager about contributing ideas, until he comes up with this particular gem, and his coworkers finally give in, "okay, fine, Boris! We'll use your stupid idea just this once!" And oh, curse you, Boris's coworkers, curse you for giving in! This segment alone causes your game to lose a point with me - permanently!

However, even with its flaws, the game was still an intese experience, with blood-pumping action, terrifying fights for survival, frantic battles, and one of the most gorgeous settings I've ever seen. There's even an alternate ending, which supposedly requires a reasonable amount of effort to achieve, and for the first time in a long time, I'm not disappointed that I have to start all over to see it. I'm refraining from going to YouToob just to see the alternate. I actually don't want it spoiled, and that might be a first for me.

Pros
+ Atmospheric
+ Scary (in the best possible way)
+ Top-notch level design, monster design
+ Reasonably interesting story, and well told
+ It's gorgeous!
+ It's fun to play!

Cons
- Weapons could use re-balancing
- No music (silence works well in the scary parts, but I would've liked to hear something every now and then!)
- Checkpoints
- Short (took me about 10 hours)
- Glowing green rolling jelly testicles and Captain Pokey McDummyslow

Verdict
Anyone who can play a single-player shooter should play this game! It isn't world-shattering, so if you're patient, or you're saving your money for Starcraft, it might be worth waiting to find a deal on it, but do not miss this game!

 

Forgot the con
> Game is incredibly demanding, worse than Crysis infact could have named it Crysis 2033

I cant even max it out on a 5870, let alone play it in Eyefinity mode with high settings (6004x1200)

 

Yeah, I ended up playing through it on Normal! Honestly though, I didn't feel that that really detracted all that much from the experience - it's still gorgeous. I wish it was better optimized, or at least allowed more tweaking of settings, but I think I'll just have to come back and try it on my hypothetical future laptop with Crossfire HD7870s

 

I may have to try this...videos look awesome...definitely great atmosphere.

 

Nice review, sir.

I have this on buy 'to buy' list, but not until my backlog gets chopped down a bit.

 

I hope you bought the game from THQ this weekend for $12.50 and activated on Steam, or that would be a travesty.

 

I want Crossfire HD 7870s.

Nice review, despite the slightly-off-color-but-well-intentioned "Boris" remark I've had enough post-apocalyptic shooter to last me for awhile, though.

 

Fail optimization, I'm done supporting such games. If they are too lazy to optimize the game decently cause of no sales on the PC market, why should the PC gamers waste money on such garbage?

 

By that time, you'll have Metro 6099.

 

Looks like it's still $12.50 from THQ, and it registers on Steam. LINK

 

Because it's still a good game?

I mean, to be blunt, you're just being an unrepentant graphics snob. The game looks gorgeous even on medium settings, and was still an incredible experience. Vicious was right to compare it to Crysis - just because you have a top-notch laptop doesn't mean you can play Crysis at max settings, but does that make Crysis poorly optimized? No! It wasn't even released for consoles! Likewise, Metro is capable of utilizing so many graphics effects, and crams so much detail into their world, that even with a decade of optimization, you'd never run it at max on a laptop 5870. It had probably the most detailed shadows on "medium" settings of any game yet made.

Slightly underoptimized? Yes. Unforgivably so? Hell no!

But, if you want to deny yourself the pleaseure...

 

@ Histidine. regarding green jelly testicles bit in the review... After a lot of dieing I remember starting to shoot the plant like thingies that spawn the testicles...this way you don't run out of ammo so fast and that part is manageable... at least that's what I remember...

 

They still take about 8 shots each to kill, and there are dozens of them. I compromised by taking out about 3/4 of them, and with the difficulty set to Easy, I was able to barely get by. Still a very unforgiving part of the game, and a very unforgivable design flaw.

 

Fun fact: The game is based on a book

 

I was trying to focus on ways it WASN'T like STALKER

 

Good review, I will reserve judgment on your other gripes till I play this. And I am looking forward to playing this! I bought it from a Steam sale and it's sitting in my backlog ... waiting patiently.

I understand this game is demanding etc... But why is it that when a game actually does push hardware beyond someone's limits, PC gamers whine about it? I am all game for whining about sh*tty console ports, but dissing a game designed for PC on PC, unlike 99% of the rest of the market, and it is actually trying to push graphics to the next level is exactly that... WHINING.

 

I love all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. references in the game, including Roadside Picnic in the library, and the mention of the crazy guys that go collect things (they actually call them stalkers). XD There was a joke at the GSC forums that the guys must have cleaned out some of GSC's files when they were leaving. A lot of the ambient sounds and some models (like the guitar) are taken right out of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but how could using S.T.A.L.K.E.R. as an influence be bad you might ask? That answer is easy, it can't, Metro 2033 kicks @$$ we can only hope S.T.A.L.K.E.R. influences more games like this, and the differences between the two more than separate them, making two individual excellent games. Can't wait for Metro 2034. XD

 

I don't think its that badly optimized. It runs like Crysis, but, ya know, Crysis came out 2 and a half years ago. It also has, IMO, much better art direction. Plus it looks fantastic...

 

I think that's a book too.

 

Yes it is, hence the sequel to the game 2033 will be 2034.

 

The arguement isnt that they cant play the game on full and im complaining, its the game is poorly optimized so I cant play it on full. If the code was more carefully designed to pull more performance then there wouldnt be a problem. The problem like Crysis is that the coders were sloppy, got it to "work" and released it. A great example of games that optimize code is stuff like Flight Sim X, that scales to the number of cores you have and properly utilizes hardware, even Starcraft 2 scales nicely.

Theres nothing wrong with metro looking great and being a great game, but if it was coded better they could have done all that, without being a hardware pig.

 

Ya I know Crysis was poorly coded blah blah. But it is the best looking game out there, well until this one I guess. I agree that it would be nice if these next gen games were coded better, but from a business standpoint it doesn't make that much sense to spend "X" extra months just on coding when the game, for the most part, is very playable may require people to lower quality settings.

You can't compare anyone to Blizzard who take like 7 years to make a game. They have resources like no one else. And really, SC2? I mean ya it's gonna look a lot better than SC1 but compared to Crysis or Metro? It's an RTS with cartoony RTS-esque graphics. *shrugs*

 

Metro 2033 on Medium settings looks better than any CoD game on maximum settings. And it runs about the same, maybe a little slower. So it's not that far behind being well-optimized. It looks incredible on maximum settings, but it uses just about every effect in the book - highly detailed shadows, motion blur, lighting effects, fog effects, advanced physics, very, very detailed models and textures and levels... it would be a beast to run with any optimization.

Also, remember that this is the company's first game. They don't have the time and money to sit around tweaking and optimizing for months. It's nothing short of incredible that the game is as polished and playable as it is. It's a damn miracle that it's a brilliant game and so much fun to play.

 

what about re-playability? despite critical l and player acclaim, i have held back on this game since it was so short. your review is making me look at it again, though.

 

Dont make me out to be the bad guy I am giving you the alternate arguement. By a financial outlook, if they could have done the same amount of stuff with less hardware or better utilization, more people could have or would have gone out to buy it. Graphics dont make a game, but they def enhance the game. And FYI SC utilizes at full about the same amount of graphical improvements on high, shadow detail and so on. Not to mention pre loading a full level design aswell as multiple units flying around, I wouldnt put it past the game to be more hardware intensive then metro is on high.

 

I am not trying to make you out as a bad guy. I just see things differently. If the team wanted to make everyone happy they wouldn't have bothered with all that next gen stuff in the 1st place. Besides you can buy a dumbed down copy for 360 no? So obviously the point of the PC version is that those with the hardware can enjoy a hugely improved experience over the average gamer. I doubt with great skepticism on any vastly improved sales numbers because of improved coding.

Many people are turned off because they want MP and don't feel $50 is worth a short-ish SP game. Others are expecting an open world Stalker and yet again, this is not that. So this game is already niche by nature.

Crysis sales were crap at launch because Crytek marketed the game as "The Game You Can't Play!". Whereas it is very playable at lower settings and looks ok too. And as the OP has stated, this game looks very good at lowered settings.

It used to be PC gamers actually liked tweaking their games for optimal performance. But I guess that's too much to ask now?

You can keep quoting about SC2s techno-omnipotence, but it is still Blizzard. They are not the norm for the industry, they are their own model. Comparing development at Blizzard with smaller game companies is like comparing you making running shoes vs Nike.

 

I'm actually already started on a second play-through. And that's rare for me to do right after finishing a game. I can say already, you'll find stuff on your second playthrough that you didn't notice the first time.

I'm going for the alternative ending. I haven't seen any consensus online about what conditions are necessary for getting the alternate, so I'm just trying everything and exploring everywhere.

 

@Histidine - +1 Rep, Thanks for a great review. I read it a few days ago and picked up the game for 12.50 on thq sale. Code worked on steam just fine. Now playing on the m11x.

Best Wishes,

StevenX

 

I don't know about the whole metro 2033 being unoptimized and all, because it looks better than some games on medium even on low. I'd say most people were rather miffed about rigidity of the graphics options.

Well, it's a rather short single player game. The game's linear, perhaps you'll see something new here and there, but that's it, nothing too intriguing for a second play through.

 

Same here. This game to me was just a marketing/advertisement tool for Nvidia. And low and behold, it runs like horrible garbage on even the GTX 480M. Can only guess that Nvidia are fuming and pissed off after paying 4A Game all that money only to have it run like junk on their flagship GPU. ROFL. Either way I'm writing 4A off my list of developers to support. Incompetent morons are all they are to me.

Also I may be among the few, but Crysis to me is still the best looking game I've played. The polygon count in Crysis just astounds me constantly. And for facial animations, HL2 is still amazing, and blows away Metro 2033 with the worst facial animation I've seen in a very long time.

Bethesda Fallout 3 is probably my favorite for that ambiance of a post nuclear era, sorry 4A games you failed in so many ways.

Also I just can't help but when I look at Metro 2033, it looks like a ripoff of STALKER which by the way has a more compelling story.

 

@Ziddy - Crysis and Warhead = Amazing! Fallout 3 is probably also one of the best of all times. Period.. Hands Down...

I have only played metro 2033 about 30 minutes give or take. Mostly benchmarking to see what settings impact fps. It looks pretty good so far. Even on low. I am playing @1366x768, so nowhere near 1080p or anything.

I thought Dragons Age Origin looks pretty good. (Console-ish but good) For some reason I really like the Jungle games. Crysis, battlefield bc2, etc... the sun shafts through the jungle and so forth.

Best Wishes,

StevenX

 

Actually Metro 2033 uses the same engine as Stalker and some of those guys that worked on Metro 2033 worked on Stalker

I agree the game looks good but damn horribly optimized. Comparing Metro to Crysis is just wrong. Metro is a corridor shooter meanwhile Crysis is an more open world shooter and which looks better too.

 

It's not the same engine:

Tech Interview: Metro 2033 - Page 1 | DigitalFoundry | Eurogamer.net

IMHO, Metro 2003 looks better indoors than Crysis:
Metro 2033: Impressive community screenshots - 2010/03/0029419z.jpg - PC Games Hardware

 

Yeah honestly, I think 4A games dudes are full of crap. Metro 2033 looks and feels like STALKER's engine. So what if they remade a new engine, fact that they were on the same design team for X-Ray engine and this new junkpile engine looks so similar is not coincidence.

Agree to disagree. I don't find Metro 2033 interior impressive at all. Especially when monsters and people are all floating, looks like crap.

 

I agree with Ziddy, also I find Crysis indoors don´t look to shabby at all.

 

Ziddy, your posts are borderline flamebaiting, and extremely unfair to the game.

So is nearly every other game. I'm not sure how this game is any more their marketing tool than anything else with the "WIMTBP" ad campaign.

It runs fine on my 280m, on medium settings, and I can push high if I don't mind fps around 20 (but it's a shooter, so that's a little less forgiving). Okay, so the graphics aren't maxed out - neither are the graphics on Crysis, and I wouldn't say that game runs like "horrible garbage" on my hardware. But even if we compare apples to apples - the way Crysis looks and the way Metro looks, with each game's settings adjusted for good frame rates - Metro is only a little behind Crysis (arguably - but Metro will have better shadow detail and better textures!), but still way ahead of games like Dragon Age, Mass Defect 2, Bioshock 2, the Left 4 Dead series, not to mention lower end games like The Sims or the Sam & Max first 3 seasons by Telltale. If Metro runs like "horrible garbage", then all these other games do as well. Otherwise you're just being inconsistent, petty, and hypocritical.

Moreover, I never even said that this game was the best looking game ever made. Its graphics essentially accomplish what they set out to - they create an atmospheric world that sometimes scares the crap out of you because its every element is out to kill you. And even if it isn't Crysis, it still looks damn good.

The "worst" facial animation you've seen in a long time? You must not have played Fallout 3. Oh, wait...

To state the obvious: Fallout 3's atmosphere paints an entirely different mood than Metro's.

However, the model graphics in Metro are far better than the model graphics of Fallout 3, and the details of the environment are much deeper. Fallout 3 is highly repetitive - the same gray sky wherever you are, the same crumbling buildings, the same gray hallways and gray rubble and gray filing cabinets with cola hidden inside. Metro's environment easily manages to be much more varied and interesting, as well as feeling more vibrant and real.

As I tried to make clear in my review, Metro is NOT STALKER. It doesn't feel even close while playing. And the story is better.

Metro might not be as good as Crysis, Fallout 3 or STALKER (matter of opinion, of course). But in any of those 3 games, did you fall off a train car and nearly get trampled to death by the dozens of monsters leaping toward the car? Did you catch an enemy monster strategically moving debris to block your path and trap you in a maze of rooms? There's more than enough that Metro brings to the table to make it a very worthy experience totally unlike anything you've played before.

 

Lol, I think everyone in this industry worked for somebody else at some point. It would be ridiculous to think past projects have absolutely no influence on new ones. The industry is full of this kind of cross pollination.

And compared to Stalker, this game looks like next next next gen. Seriously, without the complete mods, Stalker looks like Source except it's 100 times buggier. Not that I have anything against Source games (cause I don't) it's just kind of old.

 

graphics aside (which i thought was great but a little buggy), the story and atmosphere was excellent. its a horror story without trying too much to be one. its a survival story without trying too hard to be one. you really think twice before turning a corner or shooting a pack of monsters who havent spotted you yet.
to me story and atmosphere trump graphics anytime. and thats why i never played crysis.
good review histidine

 

Seconded, got the game when it was cheap and throughly enjoyed the experiance even playing it on low settings DX10 to get a smooth framerate it still looked lovely, the only thing i don't echo is every review has stated about conserving ammo, i had over 1500 AK rounds and 150 shotgun shells at the end lol.

 

Obvious flamebait(AKA trolling). I'm not gonna bother, Histidine already responded to you with what I had in my mind. I guess you will bash id's Rage when it comes out, too? I have read many comments of people saying its just a rip-off of Fallout 3 and Borderlands, even though development on it probably began before Fallout 3 was even announced.

 

Uh no. ID is the opposite of 4A Games, they always have made some of the best efficient engines. I love ID for that, they make games that look incredible and run flawlessly smooth and amazing. Complete 100% opposite of 4A.

 

Agree, Doom 3 runs like butter! It's just really boring after the 12th hour of monsters jumping out of closets in the same old space corridors, lol. However the outdoor environments in Q4 & D3 were pretty horrible even for the time, imho.

 

Yes but they modified the engine so that it was arguably the most efficient engine for large textures, outdoor scenery. This was seen with Enemy Territories: Quake Wars. ID Tech 5 I hope will amaze me. Those tech demos were made in 2008 and boy did they look good while looking so amazing, the demonstrations in real time rendering. Incredible.

And unlike 4A Games, the demonstrations from ID Tech 5 already have shown me some of the best facial animations I've ever seen from a game engine, almost cinematic.

 

Getting back on topic...

Playing through for the second time, and the Library level still scares the pants off me! Well, it's usual for me to play without pants... but you know what I mean.

So many awesomely intense scripted sequences!

 

4A Games have only made one game... Metro 2033... I think its pretty alright for a first game. They don't have the same experience as id Software, or a complete genius like Carmack in their team.

Anyway, Histidine, you can actually kill the librarians. Just bring a Pneumatic weapon with you like the Hellsing... and shoot them like 10 times.

 

Cracking review Histidine, I actually brought it a couple days ago, love it and for a first game it's pretty epic. Only way they could improve it would be better facial expressions. Also, I feel that the game flows too fast, I just got to Polis and as you enter your like "Wow! Can't wait to check this place out" only to be booted out the door minutes later.