METRO 2033, the last of a dying PC shooter.
on an xbox.... ok shut it.
Remember games like System Shock, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Dark Forces, Crysis, Far Cry 1, Half-Life 1, Deus Ex 1, A vs P, you know... when Medal of Honor was kicking the shit out of Call of Duty, which was just a boring WW2 sim game? Remember those times?
Single Player First Person Shooters, amazing storyline, and fuck no, we don't have multiplay, get out.
Just a solid shooter, with a solid system, some inventive elements, and a great story?
Yeah, those are dead, and COD:MW is the retort.
Fallout 3 was boring, Oblivion was a system hog and too long, Far Cry 2 was too big, Bioshock 1 needed multiplay, Borderlands was too short and F.E.A.R. was too linear: according to the modern fps fan.
Well, COD fans be damned, you're just a passing Halo fad anyway. I'm talking about the games that they made knowing full well there wouldn't be a deathmatch mode, no CTF mode, what was happening to Team Fortress when Blue Shift was coming out, solid single player games.
Metro is probably going to be one of the last of it's kind. But if that's to be true, Metro does it in style.
Lemme preface, if you love Halo and COD:MW and don't know what System Shock or Deus Ex was, just leave now.
Metro takes that long missing concept of the single player shooter, and does it up in spades. An excellent original (dear god what a concept) storyline, a creative, but not hindering control and inventory system, and an excellent combat system make Metro such a great game, but it appeals to such a dying breed.
There, no more soapbox, onto the game.
You are a Russian, living in a metro station, after a huge war, think Fallout but.... everyone survived by hiding, like EVERYONE. The surface world is filled with toxic gas, and monsters that invade the metro ever so often.
Blah blah blah, the story is good, but this ain't no book club.
First of all, inventive features of the game. Lighting plays a pivotal role, you can't see in the dark, but neither can your enemies, so shooting out a light has an obvious effect to the world around you. You don't have money, you use bullets as currency, bullets you shoot..... hmmmm.... there are nice military grade bullets, which are essentially worth more and shoot much better and do more damage, and there are dirty bullets, worth less work less but are more common.
You don't have a hud, well.... you can... but the idea is to count your own damn bullets, because... you have to manage a gas mask too. You only have so many filters and they only last so long, as indicated by your watch. When you start to have a hard time breathing, or your watch's second hand starts to get closer to the empty side, you have to switch filters or... find some clean air, not as easy as it sounds. Especially considering a filter costs about 10 clean bullets.
So basically I was fighting on the surface of Russia, with a gasmask, having to manage my air, kill these monsters, count my bullets and find cover. Oh, did i mention your flashlight has a battery charger you have to charge by pulling the trigger button, only you can't do much else while you charge your flashlight. However you need your flashlight to scare off the spirits of those who have died.
phew, amazing game, great original concepts, if it was released 10 years ago it would have won game of the year 10 times over, easily. Alas, it stands as a dying memory of a great generation of games that have fallen to the wayside.
Rent or Buy? For me, this will probably never leave the shelf, due to what it represents. For most those, it's an excellent weeklong journey into a great game, but you'll have to let it go once you experience it, times changing and all that crap.
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