izigame.me

Who am I:
Hi there! My name is Claire, I am 26 years old and from Denmark. I have over 20 years of gaming experience. I do all achievements for the game before I review it. So my review truly reflects a 100% completion of the game.
Eventhough my reviews are quite long and extensive, I try my very best to keep them as spoiler free as possible.
Remember to take everything I say with a grain of salt, as it is just my subjective opinion. Hope you enjoy! :3
Gameplay:
Metro 2033 Redux falls into the genre we know as a modern First-Person-Shooter. You play through a linear world where you interact and experience whatever the game sets out to show you. There is very little exploration and alternative paths to take. Thus it is more akin to games such as Call of Duty, rather than oldschool FPS' such as Doom or Duke Nukem.
The lack of player exploration allows the game developers to create some truly awe-shocking and atmospheric moments, both through it's gameplay but also its story. This is in my opinion Metros strongest quality, and will be further expanded on in the Story section.
It is clear that Metro 2033 Redux wants the player to truly feel immersed in the gameworld. This is very evident if you look at how the game handles its game mechanics.
When you enter the post-apocalyptic Moscow you have to wear your gasmask because the air is toxic. You, as the player, have to manually put your gas mask on. You also have to monitor your gas mask filter on your watch. Once your filter is running low, you have to equip a new one, or you will simply die.
The same goes with your flashlight. You want your flashlight turned on almost all of the time because the game is very dark, especially in the deep abandoned places of the Metro. However your flashlight has to be charged by the player manually, by taking out a DIY charger and pumping a new charge into the flashlight.
There are many instances of this mechanic in Metro 2033 Redux, and I thoroughly enjoyed it a lot. It not only makes you much more engaged in the gameplay, but it also adds a clever level of fear as your flashlight potentially runs out of power while being chased by monsters.
Throughout your time in the Metro you will encounter a variety of weapons to play with. All of the weapons feel distinct from one another, with the exception of a few of the assault rifles which in my opinion didn't have much of a different feel to them. You are able to customize your weapons with different scopes and handles etc. I feel that this was not expanded on well enough. There simply was not enough upgrades for it to feel very meaningful.
Metro 2033 Redux has a TON of stealth sections. Atleast if you play them "the way it's intended" because you are able to run and gun your way through all stealth sections of the game. The AI in Metro 2033 Redux is probably the worst AI I have seen in many years. You are able to literally walk right past NPC's that seem to be looking directly at you. Yet on the other hand if you end up getting spotted by just one person, the whole area suddenly knows where you are and will hunt you down until you either die or kill everyone in the area.
I wanted to stealth my way through the game, so when I got spotted I had to restart to the last checkpoint as there was no way for me to reset my "stealth". This felt gimmicky and is not the way you want your stealth gameplay to work.
It took me 9 hours to complete the game on Survival mode, and only 7 hours on Spartan mode. I would recommend Survival mode.
Story:
You play as Artyom, a young man from one of the Northern Metro stations. Your station has been under attack by the mysterious "Dark Ones" for a while, and your station needs help. You set out on your way to the capital of the Metro called Polis to help your station. On your long road through the Metros web of stations you will encounter many different people and maybe more disturbingly... Many different monsters.
I don't want to spoil anymore than that, as the story is truly one of the selling points of Metro 2033 Redux. The whole game is built up around a best-selling novel called Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky.
While the game is very linear it makes sure to give you a lot of dialogue that helps you understand the world you're in. I feel like they could've easily elaborated on the story a lot more. Although there is an expansion called Metro Last Light which I haven't played, which supposedly expands on the whole Metro universe.
Graphics:
While the game is a few years old now, it still has absolutely jaw-dropping graphics. The polygon-counts may not be the highest we have ever seen in a game, but Metro 2033 Redux has something most games desperately wants. It has soul in its graphical fidelity. By that I mean the metro stations looks run down. The people in the metros look ragged and dirty. The weapons look home-made, which most of them are. The disfigured faces and dismembered bodies of the people who died on the surface frightens the player of what to come.
I always felt that no matter where I looked in Metro 2033 Redux I would be looking at a convincing piece of a post-apolyptic world. I never lost my sense of immersion, because everything seemed just right for the world I had been placed in.
The lighting effects in Metro 2033 Redux is some of the best lighting effects I have ever seen. A lot of care and detail went into the lighting effects and it is a clever decision, because you spend most of the game in very dark areas where you can really show off some amazing lighting effects. The game even goes so far as to use this lighting mechanic when you fight some of the monsters in the Metro.
With that being said the facial animations of some, if not most of the humans in the game are not very good. They don't look very convincing in my opinion, but I think it boils down to the game being a few years old. I actually found some of the human faces much more scary than the monsters. :P
Sound:
The background music of Metro 2033 Redux is okay. I didn't feel like it was anything special, and I didn't stop and listen at any point in time. I think this was intentional by the game developers. They didn't want big musical scores booming in the background. They wanted their music to compliment their two strongest factors of the game. The story telling and the atmospheric immersion. If this was their intention, I think they hit it spot on.
The game uses sound to communicate to the player if they are about to be spotted during stealth sections. This is nothing new, but it works quite well in Metro 2033.
The gun sounds are okay without being anything special.
The sounds of the monsters range from okay to very good. The very good sounds from the monsters were the skittering of spiders crawling into holes behind you, or the distant howl of a Nosalis (A big mutant creature). These sounds were very useful to the game, as they helped to create tension and immersion.
I played the game with the english voices, and the voice-acting in Metro 2033 Redux is not that great. It is acceptable without being good. It is not bad enough to be a problem though, with the exception of the kids voice acting, which is just downright strange in my opinion.
Price:
You can buy Metro 2033 for 19.99€ or your regional equivalent. You can buy it as a bundle with Metro Last Light.
It frequently goes on sale on Steam, and I would recommend you to wait for a steam discount before purchasing.
Conclusion:
Metro 2033 Redux is a very atmospheric and immersive FPS game set in a post-apocalyptic world. It has average gunplay with some clever added mechanics through the management of gas masks, filters and your flashlight.
It has a great story with two different endings.
If you even remotely enjoy linear and story driven FPS games you should give Metro 2033 Redux a chance.
I give Metro 2033 Redux 8 out of 10.