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dkirschner's Metro: Last Light (PC)
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| [September 10, 2016 10:33:04 PM]
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Political post-apocalyptic FPS set in Moscow metro. Watch Communists and Nazis continue to enact their ideologies underground. Encounter one female character for every 25 male characters, where the females are almost always mothers or sex workers. Get betrayed over and over again. It all comes to a head when you find the mysterious Dark One creature for which you've been hunting. Can the two of you save the day and restore peace to the metro? Or will the the Earth's surviving population be doomed to live in a classless Communist hell?
That was a fun paragraph to write. Really though, if you liked Metro 2033, you...probably will like this. It's definitely more action-oriented, more scripted, more cinematic. The upside is that the story is always moving forward. The downside is that control is constantly taken from you for some set piece or cut scene or dialogue. Consequently, I struggled to play at times. The first 1/2 of the game is very guilty of heavy scripting, which illuminates how linear it is. I don't think I played the first 1/2 of the game for more than an hour at a time because I usually would start nodding off (also a consequence of playing after work at night). All these things came together to make me tired/bored.
The second half of the game is better and I finally was able to get into it. This was around the time of the main betrayal, when you finally get to go off on your own without an NPC chatting at you and stopping you all the time. The second 1/2 of the game features longer excursions to the surface, so that you finally get to worry about suffocating (though air filters are abundant and I was never close to running out). The survival horror dial is turned down in Last Light from Metro 2033, but the second 1/2 approximates the feeling of the first game that I liked so much. Desolation and hopelessness in the Moscow wastes, with powerful, ferocious mutants everywhere howling and prowling. It is anxiety-inducing.
The end levels are a joy of loud destruction, although the story ending was unsatisfying. Yet another ending that I didn't really like in recent memory.
A couple more overall points about the linearity. A negative: action sequences can feel like shooting galleries. Enemies are all predictable and therefore an easy strategy is just to stand in a corner and wait until they come single file to where you are. Shotgun bam bam bam insta-win. A positive: towns in the metro are really believable. There are a ton of NPCs, and as you walk your linear path through town, you are treated to conversations and glimpses into their everyday lives. I recall standing surprised by a guitar-playing NPC in Metro 2033, listening to him play a couple songs. You find the same kinds of interactions here, couples playing with their kids, soldiers trading tales of the surface, doctors diagnosing patients. The best was a multi-act stage show. It was fantastic. There were fire twirlers and a funny animal trainer who couldn't control the animal. A lot of care went into crafting the towns and the NPCs there, and so I appreciated the linearity that took me through those snippets of life in the metro. Really brought the underground to life.
Eto vse, Artyom.
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dkirschner's Metro: Last Light (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 14 August, 2016
GameLog closed on: Saturday 10 September, 2016 |
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