Metro Redux

METRO REDUX:

Metro Redux contains 2 games in one disc. You get both Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, both of which are great games and are cannon in the Metro story franchise. Here is our review!

METRO 2033:

Metro 2033 is the first game in the series. It pits you as a lone warrior so to speak who has managed to find himself in a Post Apocalyptic Moscow, where Mutants of all shapes and sizes roam around and if that wasn't bad enough you also have to fend off Bandits too. Alone in a harsh environment, one worries about the possible outcome and the chances of survival.

After having played the latest Metro game before even attempting this one, yes indeed we somehow managed to play the series backwards. However, this did not put us off. In fact despite having played the other games in the series before this one it somehow managed to make us feel more interested in playing the other games and thus here we are.

The story in this one is perhaps not its strongest feature as it can often feel dull and boring at times, it however does manage to do enough to keep us hooked.

I actually feel if we did not enjoy the other game in the series that we played we may not of enjoyed this game as much as we did, knowing the characters thanks to the other title and due to enjoying the other game it still kept us wanting more despite how boring the story in Metro 2033 may of been. We wanted to know about the characters origins and how events all lead up to what it was in the game we have experience in.

However, for newcomers the story may feel a tad more boring it is not until later stages where the actual story feels like it is going anywhere. Soloing foes and wandering around until we hit checkpoints all seem to feel too repetitive towards the middle part of the game. We where hoping for more engaging and gripping story segments but none of that came until much later.

There is not much of a soundtrack as such but I highly doubt the series is known for it anyway. It is probably more known for the survival aspect and overall gameplay.

Which even in this game was rather good. We played it on the normal difficulty for our first run with expectations on playing it on higher difficulties and trying to get the 100% completion at a later date.

The gameplay and combat is rather fun often combining Stealth and Action making it feel less stale. Our only issue is that ammo and air Filters are quite difficult to find and thus we are often met with Game Over screens. However, the gameplay is highly addictive and does just enough to keep it from turning into a negative feature for us.

OVERALL:

Not the strongest entry into the series. Often feeling boring and repetitive but thankfully the story is quite short for this to not be too much of an issue. It was nice to see the origins of certain individuals though which thanks to enjoying other games in the series managed to keep us hooked enough to even want to 100% complete the game at some point in the future.

Main Story Length: 10-20 Hours

METRO LAST LIGHT:

Metro Last Light is the second installment into the franchise. It follows on from the bad ending of Metro 2033.

The story this time though manages to expand and feels more in-depth compared to its predecessor, which for us at least felt rather weak. It is more interesting as now without going into too much detail, there is a war going on which could have a catastrophic outcome, on top of that a certain demonic species is back for revenge! All of this manages to captivate and keep you interested throughout the game.

The gameplay is perhaps rather basic but that is not exactly a bad thing, of course having too much complexity within a game does not warrant a good experience neither. Though the gameplay can seem rather basic it does do a good job with its overall storyline, it manages to become rather engaging and interesting throughout most of the game.

There are also many different weapons to find or purchase to aid you in your adventure each needing its own set of ammunition and each of course having its own strengths and weaknesses as expected you wont get very far firing a Shotgun at a long range distant target.

There are several different difficulty modes to chose from, though it is rather puzzling as to why they are put into two separate categories, perhaps it would of been best to list them as they are found within the game and base it on that and these categories where skipped and not used as they do not seem to mean much when compared to what people expect from the difficulties anyway.

The game also has multiple different endings either the bad or good one. Trying to get the bad ending will net you a Trophy and Achievement but it isn't exactly difficult to pull off.

However, trying to get the good 'Redemption' ending can be rather fun as with most Metro games requires morale, meaning you cannot go into each mission expecting to shoot everyone and that is it. Some of it requires stealth and listening in on other characters conversations which we found was really interesting and made our second playthrough of the game rather fun and felt rather unique and different.

Another feature in which we like within this game and what seems like the other Metro games too, is that you can find items or rather Diaries scattered all over each mission.

These Diaries tend to explain more about the story but from the main character Artyoms' point of view. This we liked a lot as it gives us more insight into how the character feels about certain events and also manages to give more depth to the story too.

The added DLC for the most part is really poor. Each optional mission featuring either killing waves of enemies or retrieving certain items, there unfortunately is not many that add to the overall main story neither which did not make our overall DLC experience any better.

Those that are linked to the story are much more enjoyable and manage to give an insight on what the other characters in the story where up to whilst Artyom was adventuring the underground Metro.

However, the ones that are not linked and feature brand new characters these ones are sadly boring and dull and perhaps even repetitive. I have played better DLC than this from other Developers, thus this was a little disappointing. However, the DLC is of course optional and does manage to keep the game going for a while even if they are lacking in story and depth.

I cannot help but want to describe the DLC as being its own thing, sort of like fillers in a tv show. Accessing the DLC is not really well described or explained neither, it took us a few minutes to work it out but for those wondering it can be accessed on the Chapter section, there is around 6 or 7 different ones to choose from.

OVERALL:

Again not much of a strong soundtrack, mainly aiming to spook players with the atmosphere than anything else. After having now completed Metro Redux, we do personally prefer this game compared to Metro 2033 which just felt bland and boring but that we have already mentioned.

We do not have many gripes with Metro Last Light other than the poor DLC included within the game. The story is enjoyable and the characters have more of a personality.

Main Story Length: 18 - 20 Hours

Platinum Trophy Length: 24-30 Hours