Metro Last Light:
Enjoyed it way more than I expected.
First of all, I didn't have any stability problems while playing metro, only your typical problems of the windows key not working and that sort of stuff, but it didn't crash on me a single time. Surprising since I initially wanted to play metro exodus a couple of years back but decided against it because I could not get it to run properly.
Metro Last Light is the second part of the metro franchise, a shooter game franchise adapted from the metro novels. They're about political conflicts and paranormal happenings in a world where the nukes fell and everyone is refuged in the metro to avoid the radiation.
The gameplay is your typical shooter stuff, metro doesn't do anything that any other game haven't done already, but I don't think this is a negative. Games should not be 100% original in all fronts, if there is a gameplay system or narrative structure or whatever that just fits perfectly with what you're trying to pull off, why not use it?. I say all of that but metro does have a fairly important gimmick. The game can be play entirerily HUDless, think dead space but instead of shiting your pants you're in playable russian literature. Althought I personally didn't play it with the hud off
But even while having played it with a UI, the game feels extremely immersive. Having to switch the filters of your gas mask, there being multiple stages to reloading a weapon (in the sense, that it doesn't go from your current ammunition ammount to max, but it goes from your current, to 0 or 1 bullet if you have one loaded on the barrell, to full, so if you get interrupted you may only be left with 1 bullet, which gives more tactical depth to reloading), obtaining your recourses by basically exclusively looting corpses, they're small details in isolation, but in combination, it really makes for a immersive atmosphere.
Having said that, while it's immersive it's not realistic. I once tried to blow up a door with a shotgun to make my life easier and it didn't work, or the fact that there conveniently placed gas masks in situations where you may lose yours. I know this may be irritating for some, I got annoyed for similar details in games like GTA V or cyberpunk, but for metro?, I like the rest of the game enough for it to be easy to overlook those details. Now, do I think the game should be realistic?, I think it would have helped if they managed to find even more organic ways to deal with those elements, it would have made the game even better, but as it stands now, I don't think it's an element that actively detracts from the experience
The graphics look really good, you may see it now and go like "oh the texture models aren't the most high quality", but do they need to be?, of course if it looked the most perfect state of the art possible it would be better, but having said that I think the graphics look really solid and hold up really well
A thing metro does that I feel infinitively makes the game look 20 times better is the subtle shading that it has.

This is probably the screenshot where I find this effect to be more noticeable, if you look at it, you can notice some purple splash and some very visible smog. IRL, this wouldn't work this way, if you look at it in a video, you can see it's not just purple light, but more a camera effect, the purple will move with you as you move forward. I don't know exactly the science of this effect in reaility but i'm pretty sure they're trying to emulate how the game would look recorded by a camera, instead of how it would look in reality, and it works very well.
The plot is engaging, artyom is a mute protagonist, we can only really hear their inner voice in the book quotes that appear on the loading screens. This feeds into the fantasy of it being us who are scavanging the metro for resources and barely holding on to life. Because the plot until the last quarter of the game is that, just trying to survive in any way possible. You get in problem with factions but less because of ideological differences but more because everyone is trying to do what they think they must do to survive.
The paranormal stuff with the dark ones is interesting but I feel i'm lacking the context from the previous game to really say anything substantial on it
My only real complaint is the morality system, I did not enjoy it very much, I don't really think a morality system like the one metro has really belongs in the game. Basically, if you do good actions in the game like sparing people or not ignoring coversations you get good points, and if you don't do those things, you get bad points, and in the very end of the game, the last cinematic is different depending on how many points you have. I feel it doens't really fit with the theme of the game of "doing what you must to survive", and the way it's implemented in the ending also doesn't feel the most organic
I really enjoyed this game, will def play the other metros at some point, placed in A rank.
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