Metro 2033 game review

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is a FPS Si-Fi game developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 by THQ. It is based on a book with the same title. (You can even find the book in the game)

I haven’t play Fallout before but I think they are similar concept but different location. After the nuclear war, Moscow is left with wreckage in the nuclear winter. The survivors live underground inside the Moscow metro stations, defending their home against some mutated creatures. People travel mostly using the metro tunnels. One person (Artyom) sets his foot on an adventure in order to save his home station and that is where the story begins.

There are a lot of interesting details and features in this game:

The Communists are fighting wars with Nazis, while the people are trying to survive under the attack of monsters. There are also paranormal activities in the metro that I don’t freaking believe it!

Gas masks

There is poison gas on the surface and you have to put on your gas mask to keep you alive. You can even hear the sound when the character breathes. You can check you watch to see how much time you have left if you can’t find new (mask). (Which is useless, the character will change the “mask” automatically and it shows how many “mask” you have got left. During battles with those monsters, you mask can be damaged and has cracks. Once the glass on your mask breaks up, you will only have about one minute to find new mask before you get killed by the gas. So keep the monsters away from you!

Weapons

You can carry one pistol, one knife, 5 stealth knives, 2 rifles and two kinds of bombs. You can buy guns (EXPENSIVE!) every station but it turns out that you don’t have to since you can get nice weapons for free throughout the storyline. Stealth knives can kill enemy by one throw and you can pick them up and reuse them. Arrow guns shoot arrows that can also be recycled and reused. Silent sniper pistol is my favorite, one kill per shoot. Plus scope in and silent features, it is even better than silent machine guns.

There is also a very interesting air pressure gun. You have to compress air to fire bullets and if you don’t compress the air using the air pump, it will do less damage. So I don’t like it.

Bullet

In the world of Metro 2033, bullet is everything. People use bullets to trade, fight war or kill monsters. You can pick up bullets along your adventure, and it is your decision whether to keep your bullets for shooting or buy better guns or supplies. Different bullets are for different guns, so you can keep using a few types of bullets and sell the others.

Stealth mission

In some levels where you have to fight some bad people, you can kill them stealthily one by one. And in a level where you have to navigate your way through a frontier between Communists and Nazis, you can sneak through it, stealthily kill everyone, or just turn it into a war zone where everyone will be shooting at you.

Environment

The environment is my favorite aspect about this game. The sandbox of the city after destruction, the dark metro tunnels, and the cry of the monsters bring up the fear inside of you. Plus the poison fog, snow and cloud covering city environment, and the breath of the character, I would say that Metro 2033 does a better job on environment than Aliens vs Predator.

Others

The first person view interface is very clean or I would say realistic. It only shows the bullet number when you switch guns or pick up bullets. You can take out a map (like in Far Cry 2) to navigate yourself and a lighter to see the map. The character has a flashlight that you have to charge it using a universal charger (use man power to charge). Although in half of the game you are fighting alone, there are levels you are fighting in pairs or along side with 5 other teammates. There are also audios played about what the character is thinking when the game is loading the level. It is a good way to keep player away from boring waiting.

Alright! What do I hate about this game...?

In the library level, there is a huge monster that will chase you all the way while you have to find your way to get a map. I threw all my bombs and shot many shout gun bullets on it while it only needed a few punch to kill me. After I died like ten times did I realize that it can’t be killed!!! The only thing I can do is to run and never look back. I hate monsters that can’t be killed and you know what, that monster got knocked done and killed by a CAR at the end of the level!!! (Ok, maybe an armed vehicle) But that is still ridiculous! I should have killed that thing ten times! (Same as the flying monster!) And for the normal sized monsters, when they run towards you, they can go through your body so I can’t see or shoot them!

Some ridiculous stuff: there is a blue electrical ball that travels in the metro and kills all the monsters that it meets. There are some human shadows that can kill you if you touch them. And there is also a kind of super natural alien-like people will whisper to you and turn you into a dream-like world where they are trying to kill you. They keep saying in the final level:” Stop him…he is going to destroy us….kill him….” I don’t freaking believe these!!!

In the levels where you have to fight armed people, once you fire everyone will know where you are even though you are in the dark or they can’t see you. It’s like that they all have x-ray eyes. You can also get stuck when you are walking up or down the stair and you have to use jump.

The character doesn’t feel like alive. When the teammates are talking to your character, he says nothing. He never says anything and that just makes everyone so dump like robot. I remember there is once when someone said something like:” Are you ready?” then silent….and then he said “Good, let’s go.” The character didn’t even say anything. It is always good to keep the character interact with the NPCs (Non player characters).

In the second last chapter, you have to deal with some weir creatures. There are lots of bubble-like bomb that will climb toward you to blow you up, and they will spill juice on your view screen when they explode and you can’t see a thing. So you will need a nice computer or you can’t even run the game smoothly and get killed. The boss of that chapter is a……I can’t even describe it. It looks like the one in the Prototype. Why do they put all these strange stuff into the game? It is good as long as you keep fighting Nazis and small monster. Not spiritual enemy or monsters that can’t be killed or big fat red meat with tentacles and you aren’t even expected to kill it in this game. (You partner says:” We will come prepared next time for this.” which means there is going to be Metro 2034 something like that)

Last

Never the less, it is a good game but not magnificent. I still enjoy it in one way or another. It is definitely worth a play but I don’t expect you to love it.