If its hostile ..... kill it....
Story (7.5/10)
There is a threat in the metro called the dark ones and Artyom, the main character is called upon to eliminate this threat once and for all. Apart from the "dark ones", other threats in this game include mutated creatures you do not want to mess with and also flying animals called demons which can only be encountered on the surface. Going topside in Moscow is dangerous without being eaten which is why people stay underground. The metro is littered with people who somehow survived the bomb blast. When it starts, you can feel the surferring and agony of the inhabitants of metro 2033. Children make the atmosphere more authentic and while playing the singleplayer campaign, you might end up asking yourself when this nightmare is going to end.
Gameplay (6.8/10)
The shooting gameplay seems to be broken. Shooting creatures or your fellow humans is very poor and the linearity does not help put it at the same level with most triple A titles. Mission completion is going from point A to B which is understandable as there is no room for manoeuvrability or questing underground. Interacing with people is also limited. Every weapon in the game does not fire right which lowers the overall quality of this game.
The currency in metro 2033 are bullets. Trading only happens when you have bullets and you can buy other bullets with bullets. The shinier bullets kill foes a lot faster than the old ones. After a long run and gunning, checking your ammo only happens when you switch weapons for use which is a downer. Once in a while, you are forced to go outside and complete some missions but remember to put on your Gask mask with lots of oxygen so you do not suffocate in the toxic filled atmosphere.Enemy A.I is retarded and should have been fixed before the whole package shipped. Reacting to bullet shots is somewhat realistic but sometimes those guys are downright dumb
The atmosphere is spooky and scary and also varied for a tunnel crawling game. Every tunnel is unique in its design albeit extremely dark in some areas in such a way that you need a torchlight to survive or be eaten.If you here faint crying in the distant, do not bother going after it because there is nothing there except terror. The ending is somewhat disappointing and should have been better and also felt rushed.
The most annoying part of this game is that if you have an Xbox 360 controller, unplugg it while playing because you will be forced to use it to enter the next level by clicking on the start button on the pad and also interacting keyboard keys like "E" appear on the screen as "X" which is extremely retarded. I hope this is fixed.
Presentation and Sound (9.2/10)
Technically, Metro 2033 is superior in graphics rendering to other games in this genre. The only game to bring PCs to their knees was Crysis back in 2007. Running the game in Direct X11 with Advanced Depth of field with Tessallation will bring framerates down even for the most powerful GPU on the planet. Human Character seems to be the only objects with tessallation properties. The atmosphere is brought to life by the spectacular engine this game is running on and requires a ridiculously heavy duty desktop to play it at its full glory. Lighting is one of the best I have seen in a game yet and shadow rendering is top notch but all at a detriment to you framerate. Still, if you can run this game on high, please by all means enjoy crank it up and enjoy the beauty.
Also impressive is sound withs enough backgound noise to make you jump out of your seat. Voice acting is extremely well doen and you can decide to play the whole game in russian for authenticity.5.1 surround is the best way to go as you can here those creatures approaching from behind.
Overall, Metro 2033 is an good game that is worth trying out if you have the chance. Hopefully there will be patches coming out to fix the bugs and smoothen the gameplay and if you think, youu PC cannot withstand the pounding, by all means get a console.