Unless you're a fan of Russian literature, you might not recognise the name Metro 2033. It's a book about a postapocalyptic future where the only people to survive did so by hiding in the Moscow underground system. The book has become incredibly popular in its native tongue--since being published in 2005, it's gone on to sell more than 400,000 copies. Soon, the story will become even more well known, thanks to the English translation and a video game adaptation from developer 4A Games. We were lucky enough to be invited to a special London screening of the game to see it in action, as well as speak to the development team.
You play as Artyom, who is a young man born just before the apocalypse but has spent the majority of his life underground. His memories of the world aboveground are fragmented, and his parents are absent. Thus, he was left an orphan who has been raised by other survivors. His one dream is to see the outside world, but he's still young and has never left the confines of his local Metro stop, Exhibition. You play Artyom as a 20-year-old man, who is entrusted to warn other colonies of a breed of mutated beasts called the Dark Ones that look to threaten this underground world. The physical structure of the Metro system is inspired. Each of the major subway stations has become its own little town, with the city of Polis at its centre. Each settlement also has its own social and political infrastructure--Exhibition is a peaceful democracy, but you'll come across fascist dictatorships as you travel further afield. You'll also get to see what it's like aboveground--albeit only at night--thanks to the collapsed ozone layer.
Last edited by Grifman on Thu May 10, 2012 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hmm. It does indeed sound interesting. I'm all for another game in a post-apocalyptic setting. Also, the fact that their lead platform is PC is a good sign.
It's a linear shooter, not like stalker where there's exploration and random artificial life elements.
So, don't go into it expecting big areas like Stalker, but otherwise I hear it's atmosphere is like going into one of those bunkers in Stalker for the whole game.
And the underground lab sections to me are easily the best part of the stalker games. I am way up for this game. Just hope dirt cheap mail from gogamer gets it here fast. the time can vary.
It got good previews. Definitely not an open STALKER where you can walk 360 degrees. But apart of the maps, really how much was STALKER open ended. Not all that much. Regardless. I think I am playing this on the 16th. It is my day off. Might as well. Ohhhhh yeah. And like the previous poster said, underground was easily the most intense in STALKER games. Subway? Sounds good!
Normann wrote:But apart of the maps, really how much was STALKER open ended. Not all that much.
Uh, that's kind of the point, isn't it?! Being able to wander the map, go to places for which you had no specific quest, see/participate in random encounters, etc that' pretty open ended IMO. Not sure what else you're looking for.
Not that Metro won't be good, but it's nothing like Stalker from that perspective from all I've heard.
Normann wrote:But apart of the maps, really how much was STALKER open ended. Not all that much.
Uh, that's kind of the point, isn't it?! Being able to wander the map, go to places for which you had no specific quest, see/participate in random encounters, etc that' pretty open ended IMO. Not sure what else you're looking for.
Not that Metro won't be good, but it's nothing like Stalker from that perspective from all I've heard.
Yes it seems it will be less open, and I bet the underground setting will make this more apparent.
What I meant about STALKER was that yes you were free to walk around. But in my opinion the main quests were still a straight chain and the side quests did not make that much difference. Do them or don't. The only real freedom the player had was to pick when to do the side quests. Yes there were some crossroads. In SOC the ending, in the rest sometimes you could take sides and do some faction related quests but only a handful and they hardly had a bearing on the final outcome. So, and this is my opinion, while STALKER gave you fairly big maps, combined with the "life simulation" it was more of the illusion of freedom. And that is fine and they did it well! More important, they've never promised to be an RPG or promised to be all that open. I think they have delivered and the STALKER games will be always memorable to me.
But talking about open and freedom of choice. If you compare this shooter with an RPG (which I know we should not) you see the difference. I.e. in Morrowind, you could load up on some potions and kill the final monster within the first 40 min of the game. It was possible (of course only after learning the full game in and out). Also your approach could have been tweaked to each quest. Now that is open. Obviously apples to oranges. I am just trying to illustrate what I think open means. I think the STALKER games were very much on rail although they have differentiated them well from regular shooters.
edit: BTW that trailer looks GOOD! I like the music too.
Going nuts here! My gogamer order seems to be stuck on "processing". It's nice to save the $9 on their preorder sale, but knowing it's sitting out there at BB makes me crazy.
Greg Wak wrote:Going nuts here! My gogamer order seems to be stuck on "processing". It's nice to save the $9 on their preorder sale, but knowing it's sitting out there at BB makes me crazy.
These online order always used to stress me out. I am either downloading or just going to the next ebgames or bestbuy. Waiting for UPS or FEDEX was just one part of it. But missing them once in a while then having to go to their location the next day or wait for a 2nd attempt. I am so done doing that.
I'll probably pick this up at Gamestop tomorrow while I'm out. But i wont get to play it till Friday maybe because all my new hardware and Win 7 came today and I need to rebuild my rig before I install anything new.
--------------------------------------------- I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
From Metacritic's translated (or mis-translated) summary of Eurogamer Italy's review, I think it's interesting how adding 2 letters to a single word can change the whole thing...
Eurogamer Italy
Metro 2033 is a classic FPS with some new features that distinguish it from its competitors, as the ammunition to be used as a currency and the importance given to the gas mask. Gameplay is generally funny, despite sometimes a little bit too scripted. Thumbs up for the AI of the enemies, quite realistic. Graphics on PC are simply astounding, while on Xbox 360 the final result is not as good as we would have expected.
"I've been fighting with reality for over thirty-five years, and I'm happy to say that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Local bestbuy had it. Put an hour into this. Looks great and detailed. Especially on "very high". But my rig could not hack it on very high. However it is smooth on high setting with anti aliasing on and at my native LCD resolution which is 1600x1050. I had to update several drivers, my dx, etc. before getting it to start. I am on:
Win7 64x 4G RAM 8800GTS 640mb (I wish I had a DX11 card.) Phenom II X4 955 3.2Ghz
Missions are indeed on rail. I don't think you can go back and forth between locations. So far there were also not decisions to make. Which is all just fine. This is a shooter. Btw shooting is not too underpowered. The starter shot gun is a one shot kill. Guns look cool btw.
The game play so far went like this. You are either on a station, or on a mission between stations. On stations you can buy/sell ammo, weapons, and other items and have dialogs that lead you through the story. There is a lot going on around you at those stations. It is really alive. Many dialogs to listen into but you don't take part of them. The missions, so far, consisted of purely traveling from one station to the next while scavenging. The tunnels are really believable, dark, and spooky. You get monsters coming in bursts, or you are fighting humans. The game is very atmospheric. It is a great experience. Last time I could immerse this much was during playing Bioshock.
Like i have said, all the above based on about only 1 hour of play time with quite a few reloads. So far no crashed or major problems. This seems to be a quality product.
Great update Norman. So many people will say high makes their card stutter but will never say what freaking rez they are at. I hear both sides of the gun thing. GoGAmer has it on sale for $35.90 so mine is getting shipped today. I have heard that depth of field is a major card killer so maybe you could turn that off(if you have it on) and crank everything else up.
Greg Wak wrote:Great update Norman. So many people will say high makes their card stutter but will never say what freaking rez they are at. I hear both sides of the gun thing. GoGAmer has it on sale for $35.90 so mine is getting shipped today. I have heard that depth of field is a major card killer so maybe you could turn that off(if you have it on) and crank everything else up.
I have spent most of the day playing this and I feel I am half way through, but that is only based on the map of the metro system that shows your location between loads. I scaled back to DX9 on the settings but I steel get some choppiness. Btw the game keeps telling me that I need to update my nvidia drivers. But I did. May be something to do with that driver that was pulled back a week ago. May be it is looking for that. The problem with the video settings is that you can only change a few generic things. You can't tweak each individual item except resolution, DX version 9/10/11, low/medium/high/very high for quality, and I think AA and AF settings. That is all I recall.
The game mechanics have not changed. Pretty much progresses as I have described it before. Still zero crashes. I am suspecting a memory leak though because I do get slowdown that go away after each load. Not a biggy.
Other than the performance hiccups (which I really can't complain about with my 8800) not much else to cry about. May be the automatic save locations. For the most part placed well, still at times I had to reload a lot. The other problem, already mentioned in reviews, is that it is a bit of a pain to kill things but especially humans. I am not sure why they did this but just like in STALKER you empty a lot into humans before they go down. Combined this with inaccurate weapons = lot of ammo. Heads shots work good but not always. it is hard to tell when you hit because of the dark. Melee weapons do kill quick. The throwing knife is cool btw. I am playing on medium setting, may be at easy they go down sooner.
AI is good. I have no clue how much it is scripted but they move from cover to cover in a tactical way. If you advance on them they retreat to their next cover and if you flee they will follow. It is really good. I have not seen any one of them getting stuck or doing something super dumb. Going silent works well! Fun! Also saves ammo. Monters of course pretty much just rush into your face. Some will circle around. Knife is very effective against them.
The game definitely has a survival horror feeling in addition to being a regular FPS. Lot of creepy noises, time alone, darkness, and some other stuff that I will not spoil.
Maybe the dirty ammo is so weak it takes more to kill someone in clothings and armors. ? Not played yet myself but have read up on the 2 ammo types. Maybe its just bad programming. I did see game play of the throwing knife and dart gun in action. Seems they are 1 shot kills...least on the humans. Can't wait to play. Hope my cable ties come tomorrow early. I have a GTX 260 so Ill post how it does when I get around to playing.
--------------------------------------------- I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
Daehawk wrote:Maybe the dirty ammo is so weak it takes more to kill someone in clothings and armors. ? Not played yet myself but have read up on the 2 ammo types. Maybe its just bad programming. I did see game play of the throwing knife and dart gun in action. Seems they are 1 shot kills...least on the humans. Can't wait to play. Hope my cable ties come tomorrow early. I have a GTX 260 so Ill post how it does when I get around to playing.
That could be too. But the good ammo is used for trading so I am hanging onto it.
Anyways right now I am downloading the 196.13 beta drivers. They supposed to have the same performance gain like the 196.75 had (the ones that got pulled with the fan problems) but the fan problem is solved. Will see.
Grifman wrote:Normann, how many hours do you think the game will run? I've heard as short as 10 and that's just too short for me.
Mora than that. I did nothing else but playing from 10AM to 9PM both today and yesterday. Except eating and a few phone calls. So probably more like 15-20 including the reloads. Good game. Worth getting.
My final for the game is 8.0. If it had quick save it would have been 8.5. Not a single crash during the whole game. I can't even remember when was the last time I have finished something and I could say this.
One final hint. Listen into the conversations that you overhear during the missions and in stations. I thought I could hear one hint for...
Spoiler:
... the sequel. About half way through approaching some guard in a tunnel like turn, I have overheard a conversation about a 2nd level of the Metro. Below the level where the game is playing. I think that is where we will be going next in a sequel. I could be wrong though.
I know this is a long shot, but I figured I'd give it a try. Picked up Metro 2033 on the Steam sale a couple weeks ago, and finally got around to booting it up tonight. I can hear all the sounds, but my monitor displays an "Out of Range" message and I have no video at all. I've seen this happen once before, when I set the resolution of a game to something my monitor couldn't support. This time, however, the game boots up that way and I have no way to change any resolution (since I can't see anything).
Any ideas? i was going to try the Steam support forums, but it won't let me post for some reason...even though I'm registered.
So I'm finally getting into this game after buying on sale a while back.
Settings: First and foremost - The default FOV settings in these FPS console/PC ports makes me physically ill. Headaches and nausea - I can't play for more than an hour without needing to go lie down and close my eyes to stop my stomach churning. Why on earth do developers still do this sort of crap? Everyone on earth is using widescreen monitors by now, and anything on the PC takes 30 seconds to "fix" by adjusting the FOV setting to 60-75 in a config file, depending on your preference. Setting Metro to 60 (from the default 45) for me made the game playable on the second night. I might still bump it up slightly to maybe 65 or so and see if it feels more normal at that point (I still had a very slight twinge of nausea, but it was easy to ignore). If you're playing this game, set up all your graphics options, quit the game, and hunt down the two .cfg files (one in the game folder, and one in the steam userdata folder) and change the sick_fov from 45 to 60-75, depending on your setup.
Next up, dragging the mouse sensitivities all the way to zero made the targetting very reasonable and without that, I was having trouble doing anything other than wasting ammo - it was just too twitchy.
I've got a gaming rig I built last year, and it's worked out well for this game with high graphics settings. It's all very pretty. Dark, gritty, dirty - but pretty.
Gameplay: The game is an odd mix of highly scripted events and area exploration. While you can try and follow the most direct path the game puts you on, I've found that I'm richly rewarded for exploring my surroundings. It really only takes looking in relatively logical areas to stockpile a lot of ammo and supplies in Normal mode. It's easy to get deviated from the beaten path, but always worth it. There's one quick tip for anyone exploring, but it also includes a spoiler:
Spoiler:
When you first enter an area, turn around and explore where you came from. For some reason, the developers decided to make this a hot spot for items. You'll follow one NPC around who promises to give you his gun - and you only get that gun if you're lucky enough to turn around go backwards to the beginning of the tunnel after he drops his gear. Its very easy to overlook and the gun is pretty nice to get right at that point. I've found other items "behind me" when I enter stages as well.
The stealth aspect of the game is serviceable - you can try to be as sneaky as you want to be using stealth weapons, avoiding noise traps that alert guards, and killing sentries silently without other guards seeing it. The AI has typical confusion issues around this, though, and tends to get stuck running back and forth like chickens if they don't see you but you've triggered their awareness. In some cases, patrols are triggered, which are in turn enjoyable to dispatch.
The actual gunplay is about what you'd expect, and most opponents I've bumped into so far have distinct hit zones; it matters where you hit an enemy. For critters, head and heart shots seem to be effective. I only mention heart shots because I managed to kill something once with 1 shot to the chest instead of the expected 3 center-mass shots from my revolver. For human opponents, many will be wearing equipment and armor that you'll need to penetrate to kill them. Example: When trying to dispatch an enemy wearing a gas mask, your throwing knife might simply bounce off the mask if you aim for his head, but if you hit him in the back or neck while still stealthed, you'll get a kill. It becomes increasingly apparent that you need to be aware of how your enemies are dressed when you want to kill them quietly while conserving ammo.
It's possible to swap out equipment you're carrying with things you find, but are limited to 1 each of the ammo-dependent weapon types. I had discovered a gas mask on a body and swapped mine for it as well, but in reflection and having read the wiki - I think I swapped my undamaged one for a damaged one without realizing it. My filters only last 11 minutes now instead of 28 minutes. I'll have to keep looking for a new mask as I go along. This leads me to wish that if equipment can be damaged, it should display that before you waste time picking it up - or just not be available as an option to swap out if it's worse than what you're wearing.
Weapons: My one big gripe, and only gripe really, about the weapons is that you'll have no idea how effective a weapon is before you throw away your existing one. It's entirely possible to find a really nice gun and discard it without knowing that what you're picking up isn't a good replacement for it. Ex: I found a rail gun - the Volt Driver - and then in my journeys, I discovered another gun that looked similar but slightly more sleek - a Tihar. I threw away the Volt Driver and ran off with the Tihar because it looked prettier and I assumed it was better. In many ways, it is - but it lacks the same alternate attack and single shot damage of the Volt Driver. I only discovered this after checking the wiki. While there are a limited number of guns to choose from and I'll apparently have more chances to find each of them multiple times, it kind of bothered me to be standing there and simply not have any clue if what I was getting was better or worse than what I had. Later on I had to spend a while trying to decide between throwing away the Tihar and picking up a 6-shot revolver shotgun.
What I've discovered in my research is that most of the guns have actual uses and benefits and there isn't a specific "best" gun for each category. Without extensive research, this means a lot of trial and error with the weapons to figure them out and if you actually want to use them. This is both interesting and annoying. I like the exploration aspect of it, but am irked by the inefficiency of it.
The guns you'll find are:
Spoiler:
Slot 1: Knife
Hand Knife - Primary attack is a low damage slash, secondary is a high damage punch.
Throwing Knife - Used for silent kills against unarmored and unaware opponents. Go for the sweet spot. (anywhere on the enemy where they're not wearing armor...). You can hold up to 5 of these, and pick them up after using them.
Slot 2: Revolver
Revolver - Primary attack is a single high damage shot, secondary is a sighted aim. There are many flavors of revolver in the game, and each has it's own characteristics based on the basic model. A scoped version is more accurate. A long barrel version adds even more accuracy. Adding a stock decreases kickback. Adding a silencer quiets the gun but reduces damage.
Slot 3: Automatic Weapons
Bastard - A low damage automatic rifle with relatively poor accuracy and a high rate of fire. Can find silenced versions which are quiet, but at the cost of lowered damage.
Kalash (AK-47) - This has the highest single shot damage of any assault rifle, but the lowest rate of fire and is moderately accurate. It can be obtained with scopes as well to increase accuracy.
Kalash 2012 - A "modern" assault rifle that has a low damage per shot, but a high fire rate. It can do damage faster than the AK-47 can, but at the cost of hemorrhaging ammo to do it. It's highly accurate and can be found with a scope and silencer, which increases accuracy and reduces damage.
VSV - A silenced sniper rifle that does less damage than the AK, but more than the 2012. It has a slow rate of fire and can be found with a scope. The clip is also limited to 20 rounds instead of 30 (AK) or 40 (2012).
Slot 4: Tactical Weapons
Double-barreled shotgun: Possibly the highest alpha damage shotgun, but with a very limited ammo capacity (2 shots). Firing each barrel involves using left or right mouse buttons. Using both mouse buttons at the same time fires both barrels at the same time for the massive alpha. A very powerful but close-range gun.
Automatic Shotgun: A 6-round revolving clip with high damage potential and good rate of fire. The drawback comes in a very long reload time and potential cylinder cycle issues if it doesn't get properly loaded before using it again. There is even a bayonet version that allows two kinds of melee attacks (click for quick strike, hold to thrust).
Heavy Automatic Shotgun: A 20-round shotgun with tremendous damage potential, but like the Kalash 2012 the shots are lower damage meaning you'll need to spend a lot of ammo to do that damage.
Volt Driver: An electromagnetic gun that relies on a charge to propel rounds. The Volt Driver is a high-damage, low accuracy, and slow firing weapon. The charge depletes as the gun fires, and the alternate fire mode uses a taser built into the front to discharge electricity into foes.
Tihar: A pneumatic gun. It's possible to overcharge this gun for extra damage, but the charge bleeds out over time (and causes noise while it does, which can alert enemies). The lower the charge, the less damage each shot does. The gun does fire silently, though. The shots range in damage from high to low, depending on pressure.
Hellsing: A pneumatic arrow gun. Like the Tihar, it relies on air pressure for damage - the higher the pressure, the more damage. This gun can do more damage per shot when overcharged, and has the added bonus of having rounds you can pick up after the fight and reuse (as long as they're not lost). It also has the added complications if a limited capacity (6 arrows) and having to deal with arrow arcing over distance, making it a difficult sniper rifle.
So, I get to try and decide if I want to silence my revolver or not, what flavor assault rifle best suits my play style, and which tactical weapon meets me needs better than the others. It makes for some interesting choices, but again, I didn't know any of this without going out to find the info. In the end I'll probably have a non-silenced revolver, the VSV, and an Automatic Shotgun for my basic loadout.
If you find yourself noticing grenades you can't pick up, start using them. You can only hold 5, and a lot of human enemies drop them.
Impressions: So far, so good. I'm enjoying the game (even the bad translations from Russian) and it's turning out to be a solid, but quirky, shooter. It's stable and doesn't crash or hang on me, at all. Biggest tip: search everywhere.
I loved 90% of this game. The 10% that drove me insane was all do to having checkpoints instead of save anywhere. There are a couple of areas that are just really hard and having to repeat them over and over and over was excruciating. Otherwise, great game. Despite the checkpoint system, I'm really looking forward to the sequel.
Greg Wak wrote:I loved 90% of this game. The 10% that drove me insane was all do to having checkpoints instead of save anywhere. There are a couple of areas that are just really hard and having to repeat them over and over and over was excruciating. Otherwise, great game. Despite the checkpoint system, I'm really looking forward to the sequel.
The checkpoints have yet to bother me, but I might not have hit one of those places yet.
I actually started over last night because I wasted every round of ammo I had been given during those first few initial scripted events. I discovered that all I needed is my knife for the ambush in the front door/medical room fight, and only ~10 shotgun shells to get past the railcar ride attacks. My first trip out I fired every revolver round I had "trying to save" the NPC's (who have assault rifles) and most of the shotgun shells needlessly attacking the pursuing mutants.
My more conservative approach has left me with ~200 shotgun shells, ~240 assault rifle rounds, ~130 revolver shots, and ~30 pellets for ammo and I'm at the base where I first find myself needing to rescue an ally from human captors. I don't know exactly how far in that is, but I've only died once and needed to reload (playing on Normal mode, will try "Ranger" mode afterwards).
I try to start encounters with humans as stealthily as possible - throwing knives and silent kills - before they get gun happy. For mutants I try to make sure I'm using very controlled bursts as much as possible.
Daehawk wrote:Ha just now huh? I remember liking the game. There are some parts that are frustrating but not bad enough i didn't keep going and finish it.
Yeah, well - it took me a while to be in the mood for a shooter... but playing this through is making me want to install STALKER again.
Paingod wrote:... but playing this through is making me want to install STALKER again.
Good Luck!
I played through this for the first time sometime last year. I had a lot of fun. I found I stuck to the same weapons through most of the game. I've tentatively put it on my replay list to try going through it with different weapons. Specifically, I never tried any of the pneumatic weapons. I ran shotgun the whole time. And I loved the automatic shotgun. That thing was simply brutal - as long as the thing was dead before you had to reload.
I stopped using the knives though. I don't think I ever made the connection with the armor that you did.
As for STALKER, I just replayed through all three recently using the Complete mods and the unofficial patches. I think those were pretty much the main mods I used. Still awesome games.
TheMix wrote:As for STALKER, I just replayed through all three recently using the Complete mods and the unofficial patches. I think those were pretty much the main mods I used. Still awesome games.
Not to derail this thread, but I was trying to do the same - care to share in what order you played them and exactly what mods? - During a recent Steam sale I bought the package of all 3, but I have not kept up with the mod scene for these. I thought some of the "Completes" were not finished yet.
The games were in order: Shadow of Chernobyl Clear Sky Call of Pripyat
I checked my STEAM folders, and these are the files I have in the respective directories/locations. Looks like there are definitely completed versions of the Complete mods. Also looks like I didn't do a whole lot of patching on top. (I may have been getting confused with the Oblivion/Fallout 3 setups I've done recently.) The patches may have just been the STEAM ones.
