Picked this up in the recent PSN flash sale and I'm now in Chapter 4 (frontlines/war) in Metro 2033, playing for the first time.
My impressions are that it's...kinda not so good. Kinda surprised since everything I had seen/heard about it made it seem like it was right up my alley.
I'll start with what I like about it:
-The atmosphere/graphics. The game has really impressive graphics, and the setting is really unique. Lots of nice details in the metro stops and going above ground is pretty stunning.
-Immersive touches. Wiping off your gas mask, checking your watch, the compass being a physical object you hold. Helps ground you in the world, it's cool.
-Gun upgrades. The guns look pretty neat and rugged, and there seems to be a good range of cool options for tricking them out.
-The attempt at a road story. I like how the setting and structure of the game makes it feel like a road journey through an interesting setting, and each stop you learn a little more about it.
Okay, now all the things I don't like:
-The combat. So far it ranges from fine, to really bad. The human encounters are fine. The levels seem to accommodate stealthy approaches and flanking. The gunplay isn't too satisfying though, not much good feedback with either the guns or the enemies. The mutants, which have comprised like 80% of the combat thus far, are horrible. Like probably the worst main enemies I've faced in any game. Their lack of hit reactions, their bullet sponginess, their stupid designs, how many there are, how their quick lunging movements don't jell with your very glacial speed.
-The story. The voice acting is poor, characters drop in and leave abruptly and talk to you like they know you and you've been talking for a while, but we never actually see any of that so it's really jarring. None of them have been memorable thus far. The Russian voice acting seems better, but subtitles while playing a game just don't mesh well unfortunately. And because of the clipped pacing, the story is not intriguing at all because no moments are allowed to breath before you're whisked on to the next location, character, etc.
-The notes. This game has a terrible use of finding notes...because it took me a while to realize that the notes you find throughout the world are supposed to be written by the player character. So it makes no sense that they would be scattered throughout the world.
-The pacing. Glacial, and not in a good contemplative, atmospheric, explorative way. So much of the game is just following some character you don't care about, going really slowly as they show you exactly where to go. The game rarely seems to just let you go and do things on your own, which I think hurts the feeling of immersion and exploration since I'm always on a leash. It doesn't help that the characters are all really weak so far too, so the heavy emphasis on story is kind of a waste. The game is just super stop and go, always broken up by loading screens, or fades to black, or waiting around while some first person cutscene plays. It makes it feel like less of an adventure. Take Half-Life 2 for example. It also has locked in first person story sections, but much of the game is just letting you go around at your own pace and explore open environments, and everything is connected so it feels like a real world instead of a string of levels. I appreciate what the game is going for--like I said I love Half-Life 2, and Naughty Dog games--but this game just doesn't let anything breathe or feel organic.
-The environments(kind of). They all look great...but they all look the same too. I can see this getting very tiring soon.
-Unclear mechanics. I had to google what the watch was for, what the timer on the filter actually represented, why I couldn't walk through cobwebs in one level without taking out a lighter to burn it even though the lighter never had a use before and the game never told you how to use it or why. So many things like this. Once you know, it's fine, but it's pretty annoying how many things are unclear like this.
-The towns. They all have a little backstory to explain what's unique about them, but they all look the same and all you do in each one is buy some supplies and then find the next character to escort you around.
-The (normal) difficulty balance. To be fair, this one probably isn't the game, but the difficulty I started on. It's super easy on survival normal so I've had plenty of ammo and don't really need to stealth anyway since I can just camp out and slaughter all the humans. Maybe it's my fault for choosing that difficulty, but I heard ranger hardcore or whatever was best for replays once you know how everything works, and I'm too far in to want to start over now. I could see that harder mode making the human encounters better, and the game more immersive, but I couldn't handle the mutant encounters being any more garbage than they are.
Hopefully the game gets better from where I am (just spent 5 minutes doing absolutely nothing, having no control, and not being able to see or hear anything interesting, as I was loaded into the underside of a train going to a red/nazi frontline).
Is Last Light better?
