In Third Person

Up until now, I’ve been fairly impressed with the games I’ve picked up at many Blockbuster closing-down sales. Split/Second, Vanquish and Enslaved have all been quality products that I enjoyed greatly. I was hoping that I’d find another surprisingly fun experience Metro 2033. Would this game win me over like the other ones did?

Metro 2033 is not your traditional first-person shooter. Based on the novel Metro 2033, this game leans heavily on its story, which seems very strong. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic Russia, where the few remaining survivors have taken refuge within Russia’s subway system. No one really travels outside of the subway system anymore, as the land is filled with toxic air and the Dark Ones, a race of mysterious creatures. Unfortunately, the Dark Ones have begun infiltrating your station, and its up to you to get help.

The story itself and the way its presented to you in this game seems great. There is a lot more going on for you to do than just shoot monsters, as a lot of the start of the game involves you traversing the tunnels and meeting people. The game does such a good job of making you feel like you’re actually in a living world, rather than a shooting gallery.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep me going past the first few hours. When it comes to the balance of context vs. gameplay, it leans heavily towards the former rather than the latter. For me, I can deal with great gameplay with bad or no context, but I have a much harder time playing through a game with great context and bad gameplay. While many people were able to forgive Metro 2033 for its gameplay faults, it didn’t take long for them to wear me down to the point where I didn’t want to play the game anymore.

Right off the bat, I noticed that the act of shooting did not feel good. While this is a subjective criticism, I really felt like aiming and shooting were more difficult than they needed to be, because the gun itself and the weight behind your shots didn’t feel there. It felt like I wasn’t shooting anything, though I’d watch a monster crumple from the impact of the shot. If you play Call of Duty and this back-to-back, you’ll notice the difference.

I thought I could overlook the sub-par shooting and simply enjoy the story, but the poor feel of the shooting has a direct impact to your overall progress through the game. You see, bullets are the currency in this world. This is your incentive to conserve your bullets so that you can purchase better items at the next station. Instead, because I couldn’t get a feel for the shooting, I’d often waste all of my bullets during an action sequence, leaving me to fend for myself with just the knife. Once the fighting was over and I was back in town, I wouldn’t have enough bullets in my stash to buy better stuff, which then left me ill prepared for the next sequence. It did not take long for me to realize that I did not want to be part of this seemingly endless cycle of fail.

Other control choices baffled me as well. Why must I use both triggers to fire each shotgun barrel independently? Why does it simply require a button press to put on my mask, but I have to hold the button down to take it off? Why must I have to use a manual-power generator to recharge my flashlight? Why do my objectives have to show up on a clipboard that my character holds in his hands, alongside a lighter to see it in the dark? I get the immersion element, but it ends up being way more clunky than it needs to be.

I ended up giving up about 30 minutes after this one particular sequence, where your character starts to hallucinate. It was cool to watch that sequence play out, as you’re transitioning between your real view and what you see when you’re hallucinating. However, this is a do-or-die moment in the game, and I did not understand what constituted either state. The first few times, I died because I didn’t attempt to run to the door. Then the next few times, I ran to the door, only to have a monster grab my hand at the end of the hallucination and I died. After that, I did what I felt was the exact same thing as before (running to the door) only to have a monster grab my arm at the end of the hallucination. This time though, I lived. Why I survived that encounter over the previous one before it is still beyond me.

Going into this, I knew that Metro 2033 wasn’t a AAA game. I was hoping though for a game that I would enjoy for what it is. I didn’t make it very far at all before I decided that this game wasn’t for me. If you can overlook its myriad of gameplay issues, then you may still have a great time with it. It’s a shame that it screwed up the gameplay portions of it, because it screwed up on a lot of simple things that many other games have done better in the past. I know a sequel is on the way and THQ has said that they’re looking to fix the mistakes made in Metro 2033, but it may be too late for me. Based on my time wit Metro 2033, I don’t think I’ll be giving it or its sequel another chance.