Metro Last Light is the sequel to Metro 2033, the game that was literally just an entire corridor lengthened out for a long single-player campaign. If I had to dumb down Metro 2033, I'd say it's a much more linear version of the stalker games with a greater focus on storytelling and keeping the player on a very set narrative. Last Light was developed by 4A games and released in 2013 in a Redux version was also eventually released for the PlayStation 4 and the X-box 1 in 2014 which had a few gameplay changes but is pretty much just a graphical update used as an excuse to resell the game on the eighth generation of consoles.
GAME STORY
The story itself takes place a year after the events of the first game following on from the so called bad ending. I'm going to assume that if you’re reading this review then you've played the first game, if not you're probably going to get a few things spoiled.
In the Metro series, the world has been destroyed by nuclear war with the survivors being split up into independence communists or Nazis. As Artyom, you're a member of the Rangers one of the independent survivors living in one of the many underground metro stations across Moscow.
Anyway, the bad ending from the previous games resulted in Artyom launching a missile strike against the dark ones which was a species of creepy looking mutants who we actually learn at trying to help humanity. In the game's opening you're hunting down what's believed to be the last of the Dark One's which happens to be a child no less before the thing is captured by the Nazis along with Artyom.
From this point on, you're quite literally just moving in a single direction for the rest of the campaign as you try to locate the last Dark One avoiding the Reds, the Nazis and dealing with all the various types of mutants that haunt the Metro tunnels. Much like the first game, Last Light just has this overbearing atmosphere and this constant feeling of immersion.
GAME PLAY
Last Light doesn't really add anything all that new to the gameplay, it's really just a glorified expansion pack or DLC more than anything else. In fact, a lot of the environments are pretty similar to areas we already visited in the first game.
The gameplay is broken up into a few key areas, you're either walking around listening to people talk which honestly makes up about 50% of the gameplay, then there’re areas when you're encountering other people either the Reds or the Nazis where you're given the option to sneak by or go through guns blazing which I'd say makes up about 30%, then finally the last 20 or so percent where you're all but forced into fighting waves and waves of mutants which are the weakest areas of the game.
I think the reason for this is because last slide is again that really emphasizes managing your resources carefully, the game all-but tells you that you should favor stealth over combat and it's really easy to sneak right through enemy compounds without getting seen once. It can be a lot less fun though playing this way because the shooting is really satisfying and enjoyable against human opponents but ultimately if you're going for that good ending which you kind of should be, you'll mostly be avoiding combat.
Having said that, there's like a dozen or so of these areas where they outright force you to kill droves and droves of mutants who can quite annoyingly take a bunch of bullets before buying the farm, and also just take out a massive chunk of your well conserved supplies. A few sections later in the game force you to kill a bunch of soldiers and combat on the higher difficulties can be over really quickly due to the high damage you take.
It just seems like they're trying to appeal to a larger demographic of gamers by including these forced combat sections and they're arguably the weaker parts of the campaign but mostly it just kind of goes against the grain with the awesome range of difficulty mode which kicks up the damage you take from enemies and limits resources even more. There’re moments when you're hiding in the shadows of winning an entire camp of Nazis, there's always more exciting intense than standing in a corner as you're gang-raped by mutants from every side. And don't even get me started on the goddamned boss fights which are just utterly horseshit.
Ultimately, the game shines when you're given the options for combat or stealth but when they force you into either mode is when it kind of sucks. Another reason why you'll probably avoid most human enemies is that your given morale points for not killing anyone, like the first game by exploring the world and not just rushing through the whole thing like you're hopped up on Monster energy drinks will often reward you with moral points which will give you either the good or bad ending.
Some of the events where you gain a moral point are really touching too and they give the game a real human element like something as simple as donating money to a beggar or finding some kids teddy bear, it's poignant stuff that just kind of drags you into the game world. Part of what brings last light down is its linearity which is actually also its biggest strengths, it's a strength because it's really this tightly crafted well told story but it's a weakness in the sense that you don't really have any kind of control over what happens.
There’re moments where you're on Rails in a raft or a minecart and it feels like you're on a ride at Disney World where the whole world is moving around you and you're just kind of sitting there observing things. There’re countless little slide things to see and do but once you've spent like 30 seconds going off the beaten path, you're still just moving back down the same familiar looking tunnel until the next scripted sequence occurs. The plot in this one does get a little bit muddled up as well, initially, you're just trying to take out the remaining dark one but then you're escaping from the Nazis then the commies and then you're helping some guy bust out a prison before the two you get separated and your end goal becomes even more confusing.
On top of that, there's also a love interest for Artyom that feels a little bit ham-fisted as well mostly because the girl in question looks like a mannequin. I also noticed some issues with the subtitles and I believe the best way to play the game is with the original Russian dialogue and subtitles enabled, the game is set in Moscow and it seems silly to play it with English dialogue. But the issue here is that only the main dialogue is given subtitles so when you're moving around some of the inhabited metro stations eavesdropping on conversations with NPCs, you often can't tell what the hell they're saying as there's no subtitles included.
Like the first game, the mechanic of selling weapons is a little bit useless, I never really found a single timer. I had to sell or buy a new weapon and one of the guns I got during the first couple areas in the game I literally had for about 75% of the campaign.
The currency in the game is gold bullets and even on Ranger difficulty mode, I never felt like this was a resource I really had to worry about.
GAME GRAPHICS OVERVIEW
Running on the 4a engine, it's just a phenomenal looking game. Some of the scripted sequences where you're moving through an area populated with a couple dozen NPCs are so rich in detail, it really feels like you're in this real place, from things like the lighting and the atmospheric effects through to the designs for all the mutants you end up coming across. It's not really a horror game per se though it does have its fair share of spooky moments it's more unsettling than anything else so you're probably going to be biting your nails more than jumping out of your seat like a little bitch.
Some of the new mutant types are admittedly quite terrifying, though there's this sort of spider slash scorpion thing you have to avoid a few times in the campaign that's frightened by light and if you're not scared of spiders before playing this, well you probably will be when you've finished. All of the various weapons look and sound great too and you're able to modify them to fit silencer scopes and all that kind of stuff which visually updates their appearance.
Strangely enough, probably the weakest element of the visuals is the female character models which you'll notice a lot in this game is it has a fair bit of TNA. There's also self-shadowing but Artyom has no reflection Aamir's either which is a little bit weird. But other than that, it still holds its own as great benchmarking tool for anyone who's just built a PC and wants to give their system a real run for its money
| Minimum system requirement | Recommended system requirement |
|---|---|
| OS: Windows Vista, 7 or 8 (64-bit only) | OS: Windows 7 or 8 (64-bit only) |
| Processor: Dual Core CPU (2.2+ GHz Dual Core CPU or better) | Processor: Any Quad Core or 3.0+ GHz Dual Core CPU |
| Memory: 2 GB RAM | Memory: 4 GB RAM |
| Graphics: DirectX 10, Shader Model 4 compliant graphics cards (GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB, GeForce GTS 250, etc) | Graphics: DirectX 11 compliant graphics card (GeForce GTX 480 and above) |
| DirectX: Version 10 | DirectX: Version 11 |
| Storage: 10 GB available space | Storage: 10 GB available space |
| Additional Notes: 64-bit only | Additional Notes: 64-bit only |
| Developer: | 4A Games |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Deep Silver |
| Genre: | Action, Shooter, First-Person, Sci-Fi, Arcade |
| Release date: | 2013 |
| REVIEW | RATING |
|---|---|
| Graphics | 7/10 |
| Sound | 7/10 |
| Gameplay | 7/10 |
| Controls | 7/10 |
| Effect | 7/10 |
| Overall Review/Rating | 7/10 |
CONCLUSION
Bulletstorm also has something of a weak ending, the final boss fight is a QuickTime event which is a total letdown and the ending was written to allow a sequel which ultimately got cancelled leaving the storyline unresolved. When everything in this game clicks, there's really nothing else quite like it and the only other shooting game I can think of that comes this close to being over the top is all the shooting games like blood and Shadow Warrior but even those can't really match the type of carnage you can cause in Bulletsrorm.
I don't think bullet sum is really a must-play title but it is very entertaining throughout its four or five hour duration, but I can't think of any other game that lets you kill someone by kicking them into a Venus flytrap so it might just be worth checking out for that alone.
Thanks for reading.
Images were gotten from www.gamespot.com
