JohnnyH

For the sake of closure, I came back to Metro 2033 and finished it just last week.

I felt bad not getting it done - I think I ended up getting distracted by Mass Effect 3 and then never got around to coming back and finishing it. I believe I had also just finished the tricky stealth mission "war". After coming back I dropped the difficulty to normal and breezed through.

Overall, this is a great game and it is easy to recommend at its current price. After hearing about the mess that Aliens: Colonial Marines turned into - Metro does so much correctly that it could easily have been used as as a reference in how to make an Aliens game. Especially the later levels where you explore D6 ; they share the same basic premise. Anyway, here's some random thoughts from the last few levels of the game. If anyone else finished it, I'd love to read your comments as well:

- the stealth seemed tough to me, so ended up doing most missions as stealth until discovered and then blasting my way through. The weapons are the normal fare, but so many of them have their little quirk to them that make them belong to metro. The pneumatic weapons that you have to pump up yourself, or the auto-shotgun that's secondary fire is you holding your breath.

- the karma system should be the model for other games - it measures what you do, but keeps it in the background to not break your immersion. There's the obvious stuff like helping those to ask for it, but also little touches like not walking away while an NPC is talking, or if you move toward or away from the unknown in the dream sequences. I read about it all later on the wiki and I thought it was just terrific that the developer trusted the player enough to just let them play and not bombard them with karma meters or metrics. An NPC tells you that your actions have meaning, and its up to you to follow through.

- there's lots of little touches throughout the game which help build immersion in the world. Changing gas mask filters, pumping your battery charger, even clicking the lighter to read your to-do list in the dark become so natural for the player and serve to build on the excellent visuals and sound to pull you in. I believe we discussed the sound and visuals in earlier posts.

- the combat is a bit dicey, its not the strong suit and dropping the difficulty made these parts less of a bother. I'm hoping for improvements in Last Light. Both final battles are quite annoying - one has you using an overhead crane and another is sort of an NPC escort during a full out assault by some monsters. The crane one isn't well explained, hard to control, its quite weak and is just something to memorize and get through. The escort is annoying because straying even a few extra feet from your NPC is an insta-death. So, lots of room for improvement here.

- The final levels - library, D6 and tower were all interesting and had their own unique elements. As I said, D6 was a highlight for me because it uses so much restraint at the beginning in not hitting you with the enemies right away. It lets the eeriness of empty base build throughout the mission. (The spores which release balls that chase you were not interesting to fight and I was glad to get through that part). The library I could see as being very difficult on the hardest settings if those monsters come after you. But the idea that you had to stare them down while walking backwards and trying to remember where all the holes in the floor were was great!

- the final weird semi-dream stuff was pretty cool. Its was an interesting departure from what you had been doing before and a good way to end it. I chose to save the monsters and I wish I had a little more to go on at the end in terms of closure, especially considering the story is told by a Artym as a memory from his younger days.

Anyway, if you are still reading - Metro 2033 initially might appear as collection of tired tropes from a busy genre - survivial horror, FPS, post-apocalyptic but when you get into it this is one of the most original games I've played in years. Its worth your time.

Thanks everyone for playing/reading along! Love to hear everyone else's thoughts - even if you didn't finish it.

John

I've been trying to play through this for quite a few nights now - I'm still on Chapter 4. I must have spent over an hour just trying to clear the first part of 'war' - the stealth in this game is quite tricky. Seems like the moment I'm spotted I simply get insta-killed. And there doesn't seem to be an effective way to take down someone silently with the knife. Shouldn't there be a take-down move or something if you attack from hidden? Seems like that's a mechanic in a lot of stealth games (deus ex HR for sure). It was quite frustrating for me - I eventually got through it, and got an achievement for not killing anyone but only because shooting people lead to me having to repeat the segment again.

Other than that, its still good but I'm not as into it. I just got to the next stealth part at the end of 4 (I think) where you are outside and dodging Nazis. I turned it off there, just tired of the sneaking mechanics. I did get a bunch of better weapons that were lying around, and the air weapons are a fun twist. There's another cool defend segment again. The stuff with the kid was pretty creepy. But I dread those sneaking segments.

Let me know if you are still playing this one - I'm trying to finish it before Mass Effect 3 comes out but that looks like a long shot now. Or, if you've finished this game - am I over the hump in terms of stealth levels or is there more/worse to come?

J

@stryker1121: Sorry to see you go. /drink for our fallen comrade.

J

Ok, week 2 down. I think that I'm not the only one who has fallen behind a bit in our club. I don't see any posts from people who have gotten to the end of chapter 4. I think for next week we'll just put the milestone at the end of chapter 5, that will hopefully give us time to catch up. Then we can finish off with chapter 6 and 7 in the last week. I think 7 will be short. Sound good?

So far I have only finished chapter 3. I have a few notes that I wanted to get some feedback on -

1) for @stryker1121 I haven't found the shooting to be off in my playthrough. I know some of the guns appear to be inaccurate at range but I think that's a game mechanic. I tested out my pistol for a bit in a shooting range in chapter 1 or 2 and I couldn't hit the bullseye when aiming directly at it. I do feel the movement is a bit off - I have a very hard time evading those little traps and whatnot - even though I see the tin cans or string I still can't seem to reliably move around it. Maybe that's looseness. Anyone else?

2) Chapter 3 starts with a segment which I'm sure can be played out in stealth - did anyone do this? I tried 10 times at least to do some silent takedowns and I could never get more than one or two guys before they heard me and everything went loud. I played it out full combat which was fun but I was little frustrated when I couldn't seem to silently use my knife. I haven't invested in any silenced weapons (see 3) other than the throwing knives.

3) I can't afford anything! I haven't bought more than a health pack or a pipe bomb so far in the game. I just can't seem to amass more than 50 or 60 bullets. Are you buying lots of stuff? The end of 3 lets you pick up a stealth or armor pack but I couldn't afford either. I feel its going to start getting really hard to progress unless I can get some upgrades soon.

I got a definite Half Life 2 vibe in chapter 3 - the mix of regular FPS segments and then some horror segments, and then some supernatural segments seemed to be the HL2 recipe (minus the platforming). There's even the defense of the barrier, which was similar the defense of the wounded Alyx in Ep 2. Also, the character Khan was very similar to Father Grigori. This is not a knock - I think this works in this game and you couldn't crib from a better source. But I was wondering if anyone else got that?

Ok, I'm going to work on finishing chapter 4. (and 5)

J

OK, week 1 down, and good posts so far. For Week 2, we will be playing up till the end of chapter 4. Those of you who are not quite done can always catch up. Its certainly not a long game commitment so far.

Thanks everyone for participating, and remember - nothing says happy Valentine's day like a radioactive throwing knife to the sternum.

Ok, I've finished my homework too. Got up to the end of Chapter 2. I agree with @MikeGosot and @Rolyatkcinmai that the atmosphere is a big seller here. I really like how the small settlements are characterized by the warm lighting, the music, and the background dialog. They feel very much alive and perhaps not inviting but at least livable. I noticed this most whenever I stepped out into the tunnels - the atmosphere is well created here - dark and foreboding. The two settings complement each other, or perhaps help to contrast each other is more accurate.

I enjoyed how the game mechanics work within the story - the bullets as currency feels sensible and I can see it become hard to choose between them later on. The gas mask mechanic is so well done - I loved the laboured breathing, the freezing up of your visor and the fact that the mask itself can take damage. They are all essentially just ways of driving the player forward but they are so well worked into the game and the story that they don't feel artificial. There's a similar mechanic in Bad Company 2 campaign (where you move from warm house to house while trying not to freeze) but there it felt so much more contrived and gamey - here it works.

The game is linear but I appreciate the credit they give to the player by not giving us waypoints or 'follow' on the HUD. I can see the point of that at times in open world, but here they let you figure it out. Without them, I feel the game is more immersive and the player is given a lot more credit. Both of which I appreciate very much. It always stuns me that they spend millions on level design in a game like Call of Duty, but they either don't trust their design or their players enough to let them move through it naturally - they have to grab you and lead you. A good design should pull the player invisibly. Half Life and Dark Souls seem to get this right. And here it works two ways - the Hero is new to these areas - you aren't supposed to know the path immediately. Thus the game tells the story more effectively, and the player is connected more with the hero at the same time.

That's about it - the story is just getting going, so hard to say much about it. Has promise. Question for the group - at the beginning of chapter 2 I gave a bullet to a girl called Nicki just because I was curious to see how far the developer would take it. Had it been a western game, I wouldn't have bothered but being from Eastern Europe I felt there was a chance this game could get a little blue. I paid for it. What did you do?

J

@stryker1121: Of course you are in Sir. Post away. Extra credit for references to Dostoevsky.

@DeF: Sounds great. Welcome aboard. What program is your thesis in?

@Rolyatkcinmai and@49th Good stuff, thanks for joining up. Throw up a post on your impressions when you get a chance.

@Zrais: No worries, whatever you get time for is cool.