izigame.me

Metro Last Light Redux is very similar to Metro 2033 Redux in presentation. However, nearly all of the changes are for the worse. I gave 2033 a positive review in spite of quite a few issues, but this game committed the cardinal sin of having a bad story; I found it contrived and riddled with plot holes. The game overall wasn't a disaster, but when the foundation is shaky and the structure on top of it is deeply flawed, that's a skip in my book.
Incomplete list of story gripes:
* Why did Artyom bomb the Dark Ones with no remorse in 2033 if he had a childhood memory of them helping him and was essentially "adopted" by them? You're seriously going to tell me he wouldn't have a single flashback, or note, or comment about that? He was nothing but confused and scared of them in 2033.
* The church sequence was awful. Why did Artyom not immediately tell the Order members at the church that the Reds were planning to bust into D6 via the church? Even without him saying anything that section made no sense. Anna spied Artyom all the way across the marsh on the way in, but a huge group of Reds were able to just walk right up to the door and blast through it with no resistance? Then why did the Reds leave Artyom alive in the church when they attacked? Don't tell me they didn't see him under the door or just assumed he was dead, and don't tell me it was Pavel who didn't want to kill his "buddy" after leaving Artyom for dead earlier in the game.
* There were a ton of sections where the plot was Artyom, and just Artyom, is going to kill dozens upon dozens of enemies. Artyom's plot armor is ridiculous in this game, and it was already pretty thick in 2033.
* The mysticism was already cheesy and irritating in 2033, but I felt it was even more over the top and irritating in this game (e.g. jump into the entirely unexplained magical pool of sewer water and see your destiny!)
* The silent protagonist thing just doesn't work well. Artyom is already voiced in the loading screens. Give him a voice so the player doesn't feel like Miller is afraid of the Dark One because Artyom is mute and can't just tell him that they can talk to each other and it's not a threat whatsoever, for example. There were a handful of examples like that, and it makes conversations feel awkward regardless.
* Dark One after I wipe out its entire species: I sleep. Dark One after I kill an animal that has the potential to throw me off a roof to my death: Why did you kill it?! It wasn't even red?! Idk, maybe you should show me that it's red, then? Besides, at another point in the game you are encouraged to fight a dangerous enemy that is also just defending its young, but here you get judged by a cosmic first grader for it.
Grab bag of other complaints:
* This was no longer a survival horror game. This was an action shooter, right down to the excessive explosions and crappy slow motion sequences.
* The audio was still a mess. Someone out of your field of view but right next to you would sound distant, while someone you're looking towards who is behind multiple walls and reasonably far away would be easy to hear. This is unacceptable in such a dialogue heavy game.
* Most of the women in this game are portrayed as sex objects, either as prostitutes, love interests, scantily-clad burlesque dancers in a theater full of men, or damsels in distress you need to save from bandit would-be rapists. Anna was incredibly rude to Artyom in the beginning of the game, belittling him constantly, and like the second time you see her after that she sits on your lap, takes her top off, and tells you to touch her. And then not only does he, but they have a child who features in the closing cut-scene... Men are brutes, women make babies, little nuance. I found it all off-putting.
* Throwing grenades over railings, through doorways, etc. was a nightmare. They usually got stuck in thin air.
* Stealth sections are not fun. Standing up instantly attracts attention even while in the dark and not moving. It also takes 18 years to wait for the clumps of enemies to split up. The convenient "tactical gutter" in every single stealth section to move to the other side of the map was dumb. So was the fact that you need to be rubbing enemies with your chest before you get the stealth kill prompt, and if you do it a centimeter too far away you won't get a one hit melee kill and the entire enemy force will immediately spot you.
* Every last little thing seems to have a meter for realism (flashlight, your breathable air supply via a gas mask and its glass/filters, ammo, etc.) but you have an lighter that never runs out of fuel. A big chunk of one of the missions is around finding fuel, but that is only a thing when it's necessary to advance the story, I guess. To be clear, I am not arguing that there should be fuel pickups for the lighter. I am arguing that having to constantly charge your flashlight, change your filters, wipe your mask, etc. in what is clearly no longer a survival horror game is just stupid and only detracts from the game.
* The end sequence was counterintuitive garbage. You can only do damage to the tank if a given part is subtly colored red, but grenades do nothing to the tank regardless, so even if you notice the color it's easy to assume you need to be doing something else to damage it. Once I figured out that they just wanted me to abandon logic and shoot the red thing, I tried to apply what I had learned to kill the flamethrower guy by shooting his brightly glowing tank. That did nothing after probably 10 sniper rounds, though, and I ultimately killed him by shooting him in the face.
* The boss that was supposed to spawn right before you enter the church never spawned when I got there. I had to reload my save.
* Like 2033 Redux, there's no FOV slider and the default FOV makes me feel sick. You need to edit a config file to get around this.
* There was a game-breaking bug near the end of chapter 11. Every time I crouched or interacted with something I got stuck in place. I could look around but no other controls worked. Someone figured out that interacting with the bell with E on the keyboard while playing with a controller would let you dodge the glitch, but if I didn't find that forum post I would have been stuck and unable to progress. Internet searches confirm that this is a common bug and can happen in a number of different levels.
* Reload and interact are the same button and you can't interact while reloading. I think you can imagine how irritating this gets while trying to pick up ammo off the ground.
* My controller settings would reset between play sessions.
* Hitting the note button after picking up a note usually didn't open the right note. When I picked up the first note in chapter 12, all previously collected notes were missing from the menu.
* The default auto aim will literally rotate your camera 180 degrees around if an enemy runs past you.
Good aspects of the game:
* For a game that came out in 2014, this game looks great. The water effects on the mask and such must have been mind-blowing to people who played it on release.
* I played 2033 with keyboard and mouse, but switched to controller this time due to a shoulder injury. The control scheme was way better with a controller, and the interface meant there was no need to guess about which button to press. It did a good job of keeping all functions accessible despite having limited buttons to work with on the controller.
* A couple of the flashbacks of the bombs falling were powerful. The plane crash made me tear up.
* The old guy asking the fisherman to bring a woman into the station next time was named Semenovich. Not sure if that was chosen for the wordplay, but it gave me a chuckle.
* The Venice guitarist was great. Would tip again.