Metro 2033

Well it's Russian. Which means awesome accents, lots of vodka, and one of the most deeply disturbing post apocalyptic worlds ever imagined. In Metro, Earth has fallen victim to a devastating nuclear holocaust. The surface has become incapable of supporting human life and is home to all kinds of horrific mutant creatures, so the people of Moscow have taken shelter in the subway tunnels beneath the city. As a result of this claustrophobic setting you always feel trapped, even when you come across one of the many human settlements in the tunnels (about half of which would rather kill you than help you). You would think that the few segments in which you see the open air of the surface would be a relief. But they are just the complete opposite, not only are they filled with far more dangerous enemies than in the tunnels below, but you must constantly wear a gas mask. This impedes your vision and hearing both, and every few minutes you have to stop and change out your filter. This constant stress makes you actually look forward to going back to the dark enclosed tunnels which have become your home.

There's a lot to talk about with this game, but I guess the most notable thing is the atmosphere of unrelenting oppressiveness that has been laid over the entire experience. From the moment Artyom (the player) wakes up in his tiny room, which makes a college dorm room look like a palace, to the final moments of the game, this feeling of hopelessness just never lets up. Ammo is almost always scarce, you are not survivable, and if you aren't paying attention you are going to wind up dead. Either because you will miss the enemy sneaking up on you, or because you will miss the fact that your pneumatic rifle is at 0 pressure and might as well be firing cotton balls. Or you could be in a dark corridor (they're ALL dark) and forget to charge your flashlight, and by the time you realize you can only see 2 feet in front of your face the mutants are right on top of you.

Most of the Time you will have a companion with you, and typically when you have a companion it's not as freaky, partially because of the company and because you cant get lost, they almost always show you were to go. But that's not to say that it's a bad decision for a horror game because what ends up happening is this. You get used to having a companion, they help you out, they keep you alive and vice-versa. But when your companion is gone, and you are still out in the tunnels, it makes everything seem that much lonelier, and that much creepier.

The story is relatively simple, though by current FPS standards it's positively transcendent. It more or less breaks down to this, Artyom's home is being attacked by mutants called Dark Ones. These Dark Ones break peoples minds to such an extent that a human who has been attacked by one will die within a day or two, without suffering any real physical injury. Artyom is for some reason resistant to their attacks, while they are still capable of giving him some pretty violent hallucinations, they can never quite manage to finish him off. But Artyom's plan is essentially to go to the surface, find a functioning nuclear silo, and nuke the shit out of the surface above his home, hopefully without destroying his home in the process.

A Hallucination

A Dark One

And finally that brings us to the graphics, which are nothing short of stunning. It can't be easy to make a subway and a destroyed city seem so beautiful. Everything is meticulously detailed, honestly I'm pretty nit-picky when it comes to graphics, but I never found anything to complain about. That could be because the pacing of the game is so relentless that you rarely have time to stop and look, but I really think it's because Russians are crazy and refuse to release an unfinished product. But here are a couple of really spectacular examples of the games gorgeous environments.

There were very few things about the game that I didn't like, but probably the most troublesome was the partial voice-over of the main character. It's not that the voice acting or writing was bad, it's that he only speaks during loading screens. This is very strange, why hire a voice actor, but only have him speak when no one else can contribute to the conversation? It winds up getting a weird on numerous occasions where other characters will ask direct questions to Artyom, wait for a second or two of silence, and then act like Artyom had given them the answer they wanted. I felt like I was watching post apocalyptic Russian Dora the Explorer. Usually this isn't a problem because your companions are typically quiet and you are often alone anyways. But it just seems strange to me to go through the trouble of hiring a voice actor, doing voice overs, but then giving him no in game voice. I understand that most games which feature a silent main character, do so in an attempt to make you feel like you ARE the main character, and that's fine (I guess, honestly I just think it's lazy, I'm lookin' at you Valve) but it only works if the character NEVER has a voice.


I'm going to skip the breakdown here because the above review basically IS a breakdown. All in all Metro 2033 is a great action game and a competent horror game with some well executed new ideas, and a solid foundation of tried and proven ideas. That on top of a solid story earns it an 8/10 in my book. Also now seems like a decent time to point out that there is a sequel that was announced just a few days ago called Metro Last Light. Here's the trailer for all those interested.

Metro 2033 is property of 4A Games
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011