And indeed, the game looks freaking great. Metro 2033 uses an engine built from the ground up and implements the latest visual enhancements. Lighting and texture work in particular are phenomenal and of an extremely high resolution, with dynamic lighting, volumetrics, and the use of ambient occlusion to further add depth to the game's already fantastic visuals. Character models are also great and though the build was old, the game certainly is looking awesome so far. It did tend to slow down a little bit, even though we were on a very powerful rig, however this is likely attributed to the game not being quite optimised for max performance yet. Also, being an older build, it’s completely understandable. We were also assured the game will be very scalable with hardware, and support the upcoming Direct X 11, so PC gamers are certainly in for some great looking visuals when the game hits retail.
In Soviet Russia, Time Checks You.
Apart from the visuals, the gameplay itself was quite nice too, focusing more on a linear but very focused playing experience. It gave off a vibe similar to that of Stalker, though this is expected considering the developers of Stalker are also working on this. The story and setting bases itself around the cult novel Metro 2033, which tells the story of a boy named Artyom who goes through many challenges to save the surviving people of an atomic war from danger. Travel and such is mostly done through the subway tunnels of Moscow, as the atmosphere outside is radioactive and unbreathable. You can go outside at points as long as you have a breathing mask, but there is a very limited time you're allowed to stay out. You have to manually check how much time you have left before you run out of air, which makes it quite a tense experience when venturing outside especially considering there are so many mutated beasts roaming around the city.
And these were our main enemies during our small playthrough of the game. Mutated beasts resembling dogs and such would attack you head on with sheer ferocity, and you have to fight them off with what limited ammo you have on you, which has an interesting twist as much of the ammo is currency you use to buy other weapons from shops, so there’s this very fine line between balancing your weapons load out and your ammo capacity. It also encourages you to shoot with a hell of a lot more precision than you normally would in a game. All these little things in the game make for a very intense experience though, which considering the setting and the atmosphere, really aid in immersing you into the game.
Green shrooms in Metro don't give extra lives.
Sound wise, sound effects and music were put to very good use even in the build we played, where gun shots would sound authentic and echo through dark tunnels, and music would play only in the safer and more populated havens, and directly from radio’s. The indirect use of music certainly adds a lot of flair to the game and certainly sucks you into the game a bit more. Voice work was not quite finished yet with a lot of placeholder voices so we can’t say much on how that’s turning out, however we do admit that we were amused to hear deep Russian voices emanating from the mouth of a child that’s asking you to follow him. We’re very certain that’s going to change, but nonetheless it gave us a good chuckle.
From the time we had to play through some of Metro 2033 the game has a lot of potential to be a very strong title. Atmosphere and gameplay was tense and certainly worked in keeping us on our toes (especially when going outside), and visually the game looked fantastic. We didn’t get to look into too much of the in-depth gameplay mechanics, and a lot of the story based elements weren’t fully implemented yet. From what we saw though, if the game keeps everything as consistent as it has its atmosphere and visuals, FPS gamers on Xbox 360 and PC are in for a different and unique treat with Metro 2033.
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