REVIEW – Despite the young age of Dmitry Glukhovsky (currently forty years old), he did a lot with the Metro novels. Metro 2033 was written between 1997 and 2002, so it was a teenage masterpiece that the Ukrainian 4A Games poured into a video game format ten years ago. Then, in 2013, the story was carried on by Last Light, a departure from the official sequel to Metro 2034. And now, in 2020, we have the Switch version of the Redux which has now been released.

I think that it starts to be too often to see current generation consoles getting remastered/remake titles from the past two or three years instead of brand new games. True, both of 4A Games‘ products have performed very well, but I think it should have been released a little later.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say that it’s weak technically: Metro Redux runs absolutely fine on 60 frames per second in 1080p – something that the PC version can’t really cut, especially if the supersamplinged antialiasing is maxed out as well -, but if you played with both titles earlier, then I would only recommend buying it if you’re interested in this franchise.

2033

The 2010 game feels slightly… awkward four years later. I don’t find the gameplay the problem (survival horror, breaking gas masks, fighting for our lives, while something we get scared – good, in fact, it’s great), but instead the technical presentation. The characters’ look was the thing that caught my attention. They do look dated, they seem to still look closer to 2010 than to 2014. This is something that our Ukrainian friends could have worked a bit more on.

Gameplay-wise, the stealth parts didn’t give me problems this time around, probably because of the lowered difficulty. The developers were trying to get the two games together, to not have a huge difference between them. You can also feel the difficulty in your hand as well because let’s face it: you will have more ammunition than in the original. Of course, you can still die, if you end up reloading at the worst possible time!
On the positive side, the lighting got a huge tune-up, which is definitely a plus. This makes 2033 look much sharper compared to the PS3 release of 2010. Because of the lowered difficulty, even beginners can now take a look at what the metro lines have in offer for Ayrtom.

Last Light

This game had quite a problematic birth, to be honest. Originally it would have been released in 2012, but most likely the reason behind the two delays (the second one announced in March, stating the May release) was none other than THQ’s slow death. The second delay was obviously tied to finding a new publisher, but thankfully, Deep Silver picked up the assets and ran with them.

I recommend checking this game after playing through 2033, because both games have two endings – Last Light starts a year after one certain ending, that I would not like to spoil. This time around, the ending will be decided by our moral. Yeah, morals take apart now – let’s say you have some money with you. Do you give it away for charity? If you do so, the game will rank it nicely. Do you have greed and spend it on yourself? These things can decide whether you get a suicidal final movie or not.

Technically, Last Light still seems to have average facial models, but in every other aspect, the game received a very nice generation jumping remake. The higher resolution and frame rate gives the PS4 no trouble at all. Nice work.

Take the Metro with the Nintendo Switch (BadSector)

This basic article was written by V five years ago, but now I have recently tested the Nintendo Switch, which of course includes both games. The basic positive in both parts is that the graphics are excellent compared to the Switch, you hardly notice the difference with the PS4 version (not even on TV), you only really look at it side by side, on two TVs, and really eye-catch. By the way, the switch still has relatively few FPSs, so it’s a bit niche for the two very meaningful inside view shooters on the Russian subway.

As far as framerate is concerned, we can also note that it is extremely positive that the two games are practically never below 30 fps, although the Switch is generally less consistent in this regard, and I have never experienced a slowdown here.

Finally, the only negative about the Switch, which somewhat “overshadows” this version, is the fact that both games are played in extremely dark locations, so even in the daylight, you can hardly get out of the game even if the Switch isn’t shining. the sun (or not at all) on your screen. This is enough to limit when you can take it on-the-go on the go for a little game. By the way, the joke is that even the subway mentioned in the title, the relatively poor lighting of Russian subway cars was enough to barely remove something from the events, for example, in the very beginning of Metro 2033. Well, I’ll give the word back to V to finish the article.

It has its flaws, but it’s still a nice adaptation

Both games show how there’s much more powerful hardware behind the game, plus 2033 got a lot of graphical assets remade, albeit not all jumped the generational hurdle. And it might not really be called a negative, but somehow I felt that „I have been here already” – lots of stuff have been shared between the games, including weapons as well.

With enough patience, both campaigns can be beaten, but only if requested.

-V-

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Publisher: Deep Silver

Developer: 4A Games

Genres: action, FPS,

Publication: 2014 August