Nerd Mentality

PREVIEW — Metro: Last Light

Posted September 23rd 2011 by Frankie Aguilar.

In a market flooded with sequel after sequel to blockbuster first-person shooters, there's little room for anything new to blossom. There have been a few originals that made it through the big name blockade, namely Bioshock and the recent Fallout games, but those gems are few and far between. Those games expertly utilized the first-person perspective to navigate deep and intricate dystopian landscapes and showed the wide range of gameplay that can be extracted from such a perspective. Last year, another game came out that fit into both the dystopian/post-apocalyptic and first-person genres that was a critical success, but it failed to show up commercially. Metro 2033 was a brooding and immersive first-person horror game taking place in a bleak Russian future, and in 2012 we'll be treated to its sequel, Metro: Last Light.

What's probably even less popular than the Metro 2033 game is the book of the same title by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Although being a Russian bestseller and very obviously being picked up and made into a video game, Metro 2033 hasn't got a lot of attention stateside, but the intricate sci-fi–driven satirical view on modern Russian life made for a very interesting and enthralling game narrative. This was due in no small part to the fact that Glukhovsky worked closely with the developers at 4A Studios throughout the development process of Metro 2033 and his presence will surely be felt on Last Light.

The differences between 2033 and Last Light will be minimal on the surface, but when you delve into the game, both in story and gameplay, you'll see that Last Light takes some major steps forward. Metro very literally takes place in the Russian underground and this world, for all intents and purposes, is the only world the characters know. In 2033, a big part of the story was focused on the fear of the overworld, which is still highly irradiated after the atomic fallout that forced everyone underground. This affected the gameplay in the previous game by having the player constantly wearing gas masks outside the Metro tunnels and constantly fearful of airline punctures. Last Light's overworld, however, is no longer toxic, due in part to the dispersion of the ash cloud cover. It will be interesting to see if the horror elements from 2033, which were so successful thanks to the ambiance of the dark metro setting, can be sustained in post-apocalyptic Moscow. The graphics engine has been upgraded in a big way, mostly to accommodate the increase in above-world locales you'll see in Last Light. Hopefully the new engine can increase the claustrophobic and tense atmosphere from the previous Metro game in a way that's barely noticeable yet completely awesome at the same time.

A few things returning in Metro: Last Light are some of the most interesting parts of the Metro universe overall. Of course, the protagonist Artyom returns in Last Light and his experiences from 2033 will have him primed to be the total badass he's supposed to be. One of my favorite things about 2033 was the lack of a traditional Heads Up Display. Using the now-standard recharging health system (displayed to you by your character's increased heart beat) along with a greyed-out ammunition counter, the game provides an increased feeling of immersion. These factors, along with the first-person perspective, made you really feel like you were traversing the tunnels of Moscow as Artyom, which goes a long way towards scaring the crap out of you.

Metro 2033 allowed for two separate outcomes driven by key moral choices you made throughout the game. Last Light picks up from the "normal/bad" ending in which you destroy the supernatural antagonists of the game with a precession missile strike. These "Dark Ones" are actually shown in the alternate ending to maybe not be as evil as they appeared to be, which will be heavily fleshed out in Last Light. But the Dark Ones aren't the only things Artyom will be battling. The different factions present in the first Metro return, and with Artyom being the newest hero, all the power players want to use him to further their own plans...or just kill him. Between the Neo-Nazis buffeting the people of the Metro with nationalistic rhetoric, the more numerous but generally disliked Communists trying to keep their tenuous hold on the people, and the mutated monstrosities stalking the cave systems under Moscow, Artyom has plenty on his plate.

Much like the first game, Last Light is going to rely heavily on the narrative to get it through. Although the 2011 E3 trailer made it seem like the action-oriented sequences will play a bigger role in this game, don't expect this Metro to stray too far from what made 2033 work. Having the author Dmitry Glukhovsky helping to write the story for Last Light from the ground up guarantees that it'll take everything that made the first one great, ratchet it up, and add enough new experiences to keep it from being a simple retread. This is the type of game people should be excited for, and if you haven't played Metro 2033, give it a shot. Look for Metro: Last Light sometime in mid-2012.

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Tags: preview, first-person shooter, 4A studios, metro 2033, metro: last light

Posted in: Gaming, Features

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