Metro 2033 Redux
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, OS X, Linux, Stadia
First Release Date: March 16, 2010
Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: 4A Games
I finished Metro 2033 Redux the other day after playing for 17h36m and I could not tell you half of what was going on in the game. I wrote a First Impressions article back in March that goes into a bit of my confusion as to what was going on around the main character of Artyom, but even after finishing it, I am not entirely sure what was happening.
As I mentioned in my First Impressions article, I went into Metro 2033 Redux thinking that it was going to be a survival horror game. You know, like Resident Evil (1/ReMake, 2, Code: Veronica X, and parts of Revelations), Silent Hill, and Dead Space (just the first in my opinion). In my honest opinion, Metro 2033 Redux was closer to DOOM 3 as an action game with some horror elements and this was pretty disappointing coming to this realization. I had sat down with the intention of playing a game where I was not playing an action hero armed with multiple guns and upwards of 270 rounds of ammunition on a modified AK-74 with a 46 round clip, laser sight, short-range scope, and apparently some type of something-or-other than made enemy mutants catch fire; and while writing that sentence I had completely forgotten in the last stage that I had upwards of 15 grenades too. That being said, once I mentally got past the game not being a traditional survival horror, I did enjoy the game for what I felt I was playing, not what was advertised.
That being said, there were some elements in the game that were survival horror-esque such as the air filters for your gasmask, the gasmask itself, and the near-constant fear of running out of ammunition and what that would actually feel like to have to stab massive mutant monstrosities to death half-way through a stage. The character of Artyom appeared to be the only character who was required to change the filter on their gasmask and it was not until I was over halfway through the game that I realized that the watch on Artyom's hand was actually a timer that counted down until you have to change the filter; the game also promoted you with on-screen text as well as Artyom beginning to gasp for air. You were also only able to carry enough air filters to max out at 15 minutes, for whatever reason. Gasmasks too could become broken and useless if you took too much damage while wearing one and there were a couple of times I had to restart from a checkpoint because my gasmask was too cracked to function properly, but thankfully scattered throughout each stage you could usually find a corpse or two with a fresh gasmask to loot; sadly you could only carry one-at-a-time so you could not have a backup in reserve. And as far as running out of ammunition goes, I always tried to have weapons that would use different types of ammunition so I was not draining one type of ammo with multiple guns, and I thankfully never actually reached zero rounds on all my weapons.
So the story! The story. . . Let me recap for you what I remember before referencing the Wikipedia page for the plot, not the book which I do want to read if I could ever locate my Kindle that I haven't seen since mid-February. You play Artyom, a member of a group of survivors living in the Metro beneath St. Petersberg (or Moscow, I forgot and my Russia geography is crap). Your station is awaiting the arrival of an influential and well-known Ranger, an elite warrior/soldier. Shortly after he arrives, your station is attacked by mutants and (maybe?) Dark Ones. You leave with Soldier-Guy to get to Polis, a large hub of civilization for the purpose of requesting help in fighting off the mutants and/or Dark Ones. All I can tell you about the Dark Ones is that they appear to be some type of supernatural/paranormal beings. On your way to Polis, Soldier-Guy dies and you meet up with a scavenger who also ends up getting killed while you are able to escape. You eventually reach Polis but their governing body decides to not help you, but another member of their Rangers finds your calls for help credible and honorable, so they help you to get from Polis to a library to find/locate old pre-war (pre-2013 war) documents that lead you to an old Russian military facility where you launch rockets at. . .your target.
There are also a few stages where you get caught up in a war between Nazis and Communists, which happens, I think before you reach Polis, or it might be after. Either way, it felt more like a footnote that I was happy to get out of because those stages were mostly me hiding and picking off Nazis with the Duplet (although the one I had was modified to a Quadlet?). These stages with the Commies and Nazis I found to be the least interesting in the game, mainly because it felt less like I was playing a supernatural shooter (shooting monster/mutants) and playing any other run-of-the-mill fps, which is not what I was wanting. Thankfully this was only a handful of stages and once it was over, it was back to killing large bipedal creatures with way too many teeth.
You know, I apparently was able to follow the story a lot more than I thought after reading the plot section on Wikipedia; it kind of reminded me how I felt after listening to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and feeling that I had no idea what was going on until I read the Wikipedia page and realized I had actually understood about 75-80% of the novel. The point is, I am now impressed with myself. Except I apparently blanked on Artyom or one of the Polis Rangers knowing the location of where the Dark Ones were hunkering down. And it looks like I ended up going with the canonical ending and fired the missiles at the Botanical Gardens where the Dark One's hive was located.
Well then! On that note, I think I may just read the book before I jump into Metro 2033: Last Light Redux with a newfound confidence in following the story in this series; I will try not to let it go to my head. Maybe having a better sense of what this series is trying to be will allow me to at least start off enjoying the game a lot more than I was when I first started this game. Which is always a good feeling to have after completing a game.
P.S. I just wanted to point out something that will make me look like a total idiot, but I am okay with that because only three or four people will actually read down this far. I started playing Metro 2033 Redux back in December, and it was not until April that I discovered that you start the game with a compass that tells you in which direction your objective lies. This would have been stupidly useful had I known about it when I was running around in circles the first time you find yourself topside in Moscow wasting I do not know how many air filters.
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