Metro: Last Light

[Zewp]

- The protagonist never speaks, even when his quest is to reach a base and inform his superiors. But he speaks in the loading screens (!?)

I think Artyom is a mute. I've never read the books, but it would make sense in the game. He can't speak, but he 'speaks' in the loading screens because it's his thoughts, not his actual voice. Or something like that.

 

[Zed]

I've read the first book. He talks in that one.

This game is good by the way.
About ten times better than Bioshock Infinite.
About a trillion times better than any other potato-shooter.

Pretty much on par with something like Half-Life 2. Perhaps just slightly below, because of HL2's superior level design.

 

[Metro]

So long as it doesn't have HL2's shitty vehicle sections.

 

[DeepOcean]

So long as it doesn't have HL2's shitty vehicle sections.

Common, man, HL2 vehicle sections, at least, give you a sensation of relief when they are over.

 

[Surf Solar]

Last Light has atleast one vehicle section too. Its very short though and I didnt mind.

 

[agentorange]

- The railroad nature of this game is a source of huge frustration throughout the entire game. Is true that the world opens-up a bit in the second half of the game, but the corridor feeling never goes away. Less freedom than in Metro 2033.

I'm not sure how you'd be able to tell the sort of story that Metro 2033 does, one in which the central plot revolves on urgently reaching a location, in an open world environment; it would end up being a very bad example of the player wasting time wandering around doing ancillary tasks while the main quest NPCs tell you about how little time there is for you to accomplish your mission. I guess you could open up the individual levels a little more, in the vein of Deus Ex...but given that game takes place entirely in underground subway stations...

I just don't see the railroading as a negative, since it's a very deliberate design choice and they do it really fucking well.

 

[chestburster]

I was so impressed with one particular boss fight: instead of simply putting a giant monster and the player into an arena with no context whatsoever, like any standard FPS would do, they actually made the monster behave like real animals in a believable way:

Spoiler

When you fight the bear-like giant monster, the game shows you that the bear monster is trying to protect its young; and during the whole fight, there are wolf/giant-rat-like smaller monsters circling around. Every time you wound the giant bear monster, those wolf monsters would take the chance to attack it. And in the end, it is not the player that finishes the bear monster boss, but the wolf monsters.

The Metro post-apocalyse world has a really believable ecosystem and makes it very clear: the world doesn't revolve around the player protagonist; the player is merely passing through and happens to encounter some of the animals.

Did you know? You can actually save her from the wolf mutants.

Wot?! Mind blown!

I'm on my second playthrough, currently right before this level. Will try it out this time!

 

[J_C]

They went overboard with exposition and it doesn't feel good to lose control of the avatar so often

The protagonist never speaks, even when his quest is to reach a base and inform his superiors. But he speaks in the loading screens (!?)

And thank God for that. A speaking character would make those cutscenes even longer with even longer exposition. Half Life type avatars are great in my opinion. Speaking during the loading screens are enough, they set up the story and tell the players thoughts. Any other in needless in this game.

 

[ohWOW]

On the other hand, Artyom is a fucking stalker, he blew up the hell spawn point for fuck's sake, and yet he's being pushed and ordered around by some low level sniper chick in the beginning and later by some commie soldier. It should be us telling that treacherous faggot what to do and where to go, we're a fucking stalker who killed 99,999% mutants and their hive and know most of the metro.

 

[J_C]

Angry Joe's review is here if anyone's interested. It's OK in my opinion, except the part where he says that sometimes the game is inmature, because they show boobs (don't mind that it only happens in one area). More hilareious, that he says that there is a missed opportunity here, they could have made some real romantic stuff in here, with mature sexual stuff. Like Mass Effect. LIKE MASS EFFECT? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....

 

[Konjad]

half an hour long review? what?

 

[J_C]

half an hour long review? what?

It's standard at Joe. But skip the first 4 minutes, because it is retarded.

 

[Konjad]

half an hour long review? what?

It's standard at Joe. But skip the whole video, because it is retarded.

 

[J_C]

 

[Jick Magger]

Angry Joe's review is here if anyone's interested. It's OK in my opinion, except the part where he says that sometimes the game is inmature, because they show boobs (don't mind that it only happens in one area). More hilareious, that he says that there is a missed opportunity here, they could have made some real romantic stuff in here, with mature sexual stuff. Like Mass Effect. LIKE MASS EFFECT? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....

 

[Raapys]

I was pleasantly surprised that they chose not to make much of the 'romance' in the game. Though still way too many cutscenes and shit.

Anyway, I thought it was okay. Not sure I'd call it better than 2033 though. It became ridiculously obvious whenever a boss fight was about to occur, since there would be a huge depression you had to jump/walk into. I was playing at that hardcore ranger difficulty thing and it was clear they hadn't tested it much. Took me like 3 hours before I found how to switch grenades/knives, since tab didn't appear to work( as the UI was disabled/invidislbe), and the only way of seeing how much ammo I had was when visiting shops. And a few quicktime events were long since over before I realized the game wanted me to actually press something; I let one of the communist guys live because I pressed 'e' instead of left mouse, and died a few times in other cases.

Kinda mixed feelings on the amount of ammo lying around. It was either too much, or too little. I didn't use much; with human enemies I used practically none. With mutants it was worse until I got the spike gun thing, but not a problem there either. Then there were the boss fights, where you could end up spending all your ammo in a few seconds. Ended up having to finish one of those with my melee knife.

Meh, I still think it's a series with a ton of unrealized potential. So much cool stuff could be done with it, yet what they've made is effectively just a railroaded shooter; what makes it good is the setting and atmosphere, only one of which they are responsible for. Frankly, I'd rather the whole thing be given to the Stalker devs.

 

[J_C]

Frankly, I'd rather the whole thing be given to the Stalker devs.

Meh, in shooters, I don't like open world games, Metro LL is better off being a linear game. Open world games are boring most of the time, because you can't make a tight story.

 

[Zed]

so far there has been two instances of bewbs. one strip scene and one nipslip scene. both very fucking ridiculous because they wouldn't be able to model attractive females even if their lives depended on it. it felt like having a naked disfigured retard in a wheelchair tipped over you. it's unskippable too so you're like "noooo!" while spamming esc and shit bringing up and closing the menu repeatedly.

 

[ohWOW]

Not to mention that the most probably outcome of the open world Metro would be something alike to Far Cry 3, farming mutants and crafting shirts from their skin, helping generic inhabitants of stations to kill generic bandits in generic randomly generated places.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Well, there's a dilemma, what is "better" - a boring freedom or an exciting slavery? Imho, freedom last a much longer. I still have a Stalker session from time to time, and that game is from 2007. But Metro 2033 was a thing of few throughplays and that it. Anyway, how game can be a more linear than 2033 is... hard to imagine.

 

[ohWOW]

I think that devs tried to make Bioshock Infinite on their own. Fortunately, the setting and better gunplay saved it from Infinite level of shitness.

 

[Raapys]

I've always been a fan of open world shooters. Strife was excellent, and Stalker, to me, beats the crap out of any railroaded shooters I've played. Sure, stuff like FarCry2/3 sucks, but that's for other reasons entirely. You still have to actually have a good game and an interesting game world for open world gameplay to be good.

As for Metro, I don't see why it would be all that hard to make it open world. Make the stations into hubs of sorts, give some more focus to NPC interaction, jobs/quests/economy/trading, and add interesting locations to explore outside of the main storyline. Add some dynamic monster roaming, or bandits traveling, encounters, etc. You can still have linear parts in it if you feel that's important to the storyline or the sense of urgency, though that's not really a sentiment I share. If anything, I'm starting to despise those 'tight', scripted, cutscene infested shooters more and more. I want interactivity.

 

[DeepOcean]

It wasn't even necessary to make an open world game, it was only necessary to hide the linearity better. HL 2 is as linear as Metro 2033 but Valve did a very good job hiding that with clever level design but it is kinda hard to have complex level design that remain believable when you have metro lines to work with. They could have a hub system like Bloodlines where you can go to different metro lines in the order you want but that would have an impact on the story.

 

[toro]

- The railroad nature of this game is a source of huge frustration throughout the entire game. Is true that the world opens-up a bit in the second half of the game, but the corridor feeling never goes away. Less freedom than in Metro 2033.

I'm not sure how you'd be able to tell the sort of story that Metro 2033 does, one in which the central plot revolves on urgently reaching a location, in an open world environment; it would end up being a very bad example of the player wasting time wandering around doing ancillary tasks while the main quest NPCs tell you about how little time there is for you to accomplish your mission. I guess you could open up the individual levels a little more, in the vein of Deus Ex...but given that game takes place entirely in underground subway stations...

I just don't see the railroading as a negative, since it's a very deliberate design choice and they do it really fucking well.

You are correct and I know that the game linearity is a design choice. But my nerves went a bit wonky after a while because I know there are better ways to do it.

And you know it too: "I guess you could open up the individual levels a little more, in the vein of Deus Ex..." ... this stuff was always in my mind. An free-roaming-metro-network.

Of course that would require more work, but it's a shame they don't do it because they already have all the necessary ingredients: the engine, the combat game-play, the background story.

 

[toro]

Frankly, I'd rather the whole thing be given to the Stalker devs.

Meh, in shooters, I don't like open world games, Metro LL is better off being a linear game. Open world games are boring most of the time, because you can't make a tight story.

And somehow Fallout's story implementation bitch slaps this argument every time.

 

[chestburster]

Frankly, I'd rather the whole thing be given to the Stalker devs.

They ARE the STALKER devs, those that are responsible for the good parts of STALKER (engine, underground levels, etc.) anyway.

After 4A guys left GSC, GSC had done nothing but recycling old stuff.

 

[J_C]

Frankly, I'd rather the whole thing be given to the Stalker devs.

Meh, in shooters, I don't like open world games, Metro LL is better off being a linear game. Open world games are boring most of the time, because you can't make a tight story.

And somehow Fallout's story implementation bitch slaps this argument every time.

Umm...why is that exactly? I don't think Fallout's story implementation is so amazing.