I'm not going to review Metro 2033. I haven't made it past the third chapter of the game, and I doubt I'll ever make it any further.
It's not that Metro 2033 is irredeemably awful, or anything. It's got some good points, which I'll get into after the jump. But there was a moment when I was playing -- a sudden, awful, awe-inspiring moment -- when I realized I would no longer be able to tolerate the game any longer, and would be incapable of writing a proper review.
You can hit the jump for my incomplete thoughts on the game, but don't go looking for a numerical score. You won't find one.
Metro 2033 (PC, Xbox 360 reviewed)
Developer: 4A Games
Publisher: THQ
Released: March 16, 2010
MSRP: $59.99
First of all, Metro 2033 is damned immersive. Every section of the game that doesn't involve blasting mutants or bandits is filled with life and detail. Each of the non-combat segments that occasionally break up the action take place in believable, meticulously designed shantytowns full of surprisingly talkative survivors. You could easily spend an hour just sitting around, listening to the survivors talking about their lives (or what's left of them), without even worrying about the main plot or the missions. STALKER tried to draw players into its world with its nonlinear gameplay and huge world map. Metro 2033, conversely, tries to pack as many varied and scripted bits of story and dialogue into its linear campaign as humanly possible.
Then again, I have to apologize for comparing STALKER and Metro 2033. Yeah, both games are about Russian dudes surviving after a nuclear meltdown, but mechanically they couldn't be more dissimilar. Where STALKER was a nonlinear sandbox shooter, Metro 2033 is a linear FPS with some very, very light RPG elements.
Still, both games touch on a much beloved theme of postapocalyptic fiction: the hero's need to survive on disturbingly limited resources. In Metro 2033, you've only got one form of currency: bullets. You can trade high-quality ammo for items and upgraded weapons, which, in theory, could lead to some really interesting dilemmas. Given how rare these bullets are, should I hang onto them and keep my shitty starting weapons, or just splurge now and pray that I'll find more later on? Since these high-quality bullets do way more damage than normal ones, should I consider actually firing them at some of the tougher enemies, even if it means I'll basically be firing away all of my cash reserves?
Maybe the currency system results in some really difficult, tense, game-changing decisions later on. I don't know, and I never will.
I loved the atmopshere and the currency system but, as I mentioned before the jump, there was one moment in the game when I realized that I would never, ever be able to bring myself to play it for another second. Let me set the scene.
It's dark, and my flashlight is off. The game has told me that enemies can't see me in the dark so long as they're not looking at me, so I decide to sneak up on a bandit. He's a scout, and I can see his bandit friends behind him. I'm gonna shoot him in the back of the head with a shotgun, which will alert his friends, but hey -- at least he'll be dead, and then I can think about flanking them and opening up with my inaccurate SMG from close-range.
I sneaked up. Pointed my gun at his head. Fired four times, from point-blank range.
He turned around and killed me in three shots.
I have no essential problem with really difficult games. Really, I don't. So long as the game is giving me something compelling in exchange for my trouble, so long as I'm gaining a greater understanding of a game's mechanics through my constant failure and loss, then I'll do whatever it takes to rise to the challenge.
I can't, however, abide a combat system that not only gives you really inaccurate, guns with very little ammo (seemingly encouraging you to focus on flanking maneuvers and close-range combat), then makes those guns so weak that four point-blank shotgun shells to the face won't bring down a random grunt.
Really, what does Metro 2033 want me to do? I honestly don't know. Was I meant to use my knife on a bad guy and treat the entire rest of the game as if it were Splinter Cell? Was I supposed to get into cover, and then shoot him in the head five times, and then try to whittle away his opponents? How would I even do that, with such limited ammo and such inaccurate guns? Was I supposed to blast away at my enemies from a distance, simply praying that I might score a headshot or two? Was I supposed to try and sneak up and take the bad guys out from close range, even though every individual enemy takes and deals more damage than I do? Seriously, what the fuck was I supposed to do?
There's a right way to play Metro 2033, presumably, but I honestly have no idea what it is. Other reviewers seem to have found a way to enjoy the game, but I'm at a loss. I want to like Metro 2033, and I want to understand how I'm supposed to play it, but I can't.
I just can't.
Contest:
6:00 PM on 03.21.2010
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If there is one thing I want my in game shotgun to do then its to take people down in one blast from close range. That's what the shotgun is for, no?
Do you remember Rev?!
It kinda revolves around the same thing I heard before for this game. I'm gonna have to wait for a price drop unfortunately in order to give this a spin.
both games mad by ukrainian dev's anyway
and yes, it's damn impressive, very atmospheric and then it has ridiculous moments like this which kill the mood
it has beautiful narration (russian text is better, btw) but the cutscenes often feel unfinished and end more abruptly then they should
still, best thing after Cryostasis from ukraine, imo
However far that will take me.
they are not the AVGN =p His job is to review games, and in this review he is unable to complete due to the broken gameplay mechanic to him. That's the review. To him and other people that is enough to warrant not completing the game. To others they might see that as a small inconvenience. Personally I feel the immersion and atmosphere make up for the lacking polish on the gunplay, it seems we always have to make a trade off somewhere.
Seriously, find yourselves some professionalism or someone needs to find himself some new reviewers. The editorial and review content on this site is now as big a joke as the grammar and spelling on Kotaku. Pathetic.
Do you remember Rev?!
It kinda revolves around the same thing I heard before for this game. I'm gonna have to wait for a price drop unfortunately in order to give this a spin."
Was it demon souls? Thats the only one in recent memory.
I appreciate your honesty, really.
Well, haters will hate.
Danthuman - The Rev has a very real problem with games implying (and sometimes flat-out TELLING) you that there's a specific way to play the game, and then saying "fuck you" for doing so. Honestly, is it so unreasonable that some individuals might not want to continue to play something where the advised/recommended/instructed/intuited mechanics and the ACTUAL mechanics of the gameplay have no relationship to one another?
The guy basically took a step back and said he couldn't, in good conscience, review a game that executes one of his biggest, personal faux-pas. Do you really want somebody reviewing something that they have something like a personal bias against, hpv? Isn't that worse than simply not-reviewing it, or handing it off to somebody else?
Journalisms!
Then why keep reading them? Nobody is forcing you to do so. If you're just going to read an article, have bad expectations, then come out of it with the same bad attitude, why do you hang around here?
I think there's something someone needs to clear up for you. Entertainment reviews are not hard-edged reporting. They are not frontline investigative reporting. In many ways, they are not the "journalism" you seem to be expecting from them. They are ideally a fair, well stated opinion on a game, with emphasis on having a broad perspective with playing games. It's perspective.
If anything, what we have here is more useful than many "full" formal reviews. I fail to see how this is "mounting evidence" of Destructoid's failings as a Journalisms. See what I did there?
idiots.
There's some points you're missing though.. First- The game does show you that throwing knives are a one hit stealth kill from a distance when your ally kills one with it just before that section. That's no excuse for bad design, just sayin.. also- it does seem to work so far on all creatures.
Second- The game doesn't seem to register headshots as much better than bodyshots and going for the head obviously has more risk of inaccuracy. again bad game design but i'm just sayin..
It's VERY fucking flawed but so far it's also got some cool things going for it so i'm sticking with it for now..
I understand you're likely a troll and all, but on the off chance you aren't, I'm sure destructoid enjoys your patronage and page hits for revenue.
Jim just gave him the review because apparently he couldn't hope to even play the damn thing any further than he got.
Seriously, though, it says a lot more when someone can't review a game than finish it and give it a score. No score could be considered as bad as no score at all.
Not saying not reviewing it is bad. It was definitely a good decision on your part. It just tells me that this game might need a few patches before I get ahold of it.
i don't find the guns inaccurate at all, and i had no trouble headshotting those beast things or the non armoured bandits. the guys with helmets will only be instant killed by a shot to the face or neck, if you aim for the helmet, you'll hit the helmet and won't do any damage until you've knocked it off. i admit some of the human enemies take a little too much punishment, but not until much further into the game.
If you are on the fence about this game because of this review, don't be. The game was some damn fine single player if you ask me.
But I would totally prefer glorious polish (FFXIII, haven't even heard or seen a shadow of a hint of a glitch there).
Pretty sure it was Jim with Velvet Assassin. He just hated it so much he couldn't go on.
Good not-review, I enjoyed the read=up. I've had my eye on this for some time, but I think I'll rent it or borrow it from a friend before making the jump.
I shot dudes in the head with the machine gun, too. And they fell down and died. There was a dude with a plastic-looking mask who didn't die when I shot him, but I assumed it was because his mask was supposed to protect him.
What difficulty are you playing it on, Rev? Because I'm playing it on Normal, and I haven't run into any trouble at all.
I think you're missing the idea of a review. I'm not going to spend $60 on a game if it's not going to give me my money's worth.
Seems like a bit of a let down.
Hit detection, poor weapon stats, forced throwing knives, whatever, neither Jim nor Rev could get through enough to review it, not a good sign.
Was kinda bummed this wasn't coming to ps3, but now don't care.
Sweet.
That said, I do wish you'd finish the review as it does feel a tad bit...weak. Jim just reviewed a game in which he pretty much said the gameplay was a joke. I think you could at least trudge through this on the lowest difficulty at least. Even if you don't want to put a score on it then, at the very least do so to provide a longer more accurate article and impression on the game. That's the important part, not the score.
And yet you keep reading, and commenting, and bitching, and reading, and commenting, and bitching, and reading...
lucky for you, there are three options for you to choose, lf you want to buy the game or not.
1) uses this half review to decide. 2) look at other website reviews.
3) rent it.