Wesley Thomas

Metro 2033?

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My main gripe is the save system. Why would a PC game ever not allow you to make your own saves?

This is becoming increasingly common in narrative-driven PC games, even in games that aren't just console ports. I'm of mixed mind. On the one hand, I completely understand that a designer would want to heavily discourage behavior that breaks a game with nonstop risk-eliminating quicksaving. On the other hand, when I'm in a situation where I really need to quit the game right this second but I know I'll have to lose a lot of progress if I quit, I'm really irritated because my PC is obviously capable of saving at any time but I'm being kept from doing so.

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I don't mind it IF it is done right, but most games don't do it right. Metro 2033 did not do it right (for me) and it irritated the shit out of me. I definitely would've had more fun with it, if it had let me done quicksaves. The reason for that being that I tried to sneak as much as possible, without killing. It made it next to impossible for me to play that way without laborious pattern memorization. When a checkpoint broke my sneaky playthrough by checkpointing me just as I was caught, I gave up and just started killing everyone from that point on.

On the other hand, I think that developers should give you the option of quicksaving. Fuck it if I want to break all tension by quicksaving the game every 5 seconds. I bought their flipping game, at least allow me to play it how I want to. If the game does checkpointing decently, I forget about quicksaving most of the time anyway.

On the other hand, when I'm in a situation where I really need to quit the game right this second but I know I'll have to lose a lot of progress if I quit, I'm really irritated because my PC is obviously capable of saving at any time but I'm being kept from doing so.

You know, I still don't understand why, if they have a checkpointing system, they don't just let the game save the moment you hit quit. A lot of these games have a "continue game" option in the menu, setting you back to the nearest checkpoint, but why can't it just resume me from the point where I last stopped playing?

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There's a difference between saving the full game state and just jotting down your inventory and health as you pass a checkpoint though. I was sure they did the latter in Metro 2033, but from your story it sounds like they saved everything. In that case, saving when quitting should be trivial.

For what it's worth, I never had an issue with the checkpoint system. Could just be me being an awesome gamer.

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There's a difference between saving the full game state and just jotting down your inventory and health as you pass a checkpoint though. I was sure they did the latter in Metro 2033, but from your story it sounds like they saved everything. In that case, saving when quitting should be trivial.

For what it's worth, I never had an issue with the checkpoint system. Could just be me being an awesome gamer.

Their saving system is weird, man. It had some of the same weirdness that STALKER had. There was a point in Metro 2033 where the enemy saw me and one of them threw a pipebomb. I quickly reloaded to the last checkpoint where that pipebomb then proceeded to explode 5 seconds later putting everyone on alert yet again.

So it might just save very basic information. The AI doesn't seem too smart as they all become aware of your presence at the same time if you mess up. Maybe it's just a "EnemyAwareOfPlayer = true" variable. I dunno, just guessing.

Could just be me being an awesome gamer.

I know you are. :kiss:

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I bought Metro 2033 during the THQ sale the other week and I'm loving it, but I'm having troubles actually wanting to play it. I think this feeling was mentioned on the podcast, but it's just hard for me to willingly jump into such a dark and oppressive environment.

I played for an hour or two the other day and when I turned it off I felt a huge wave of relief pour over me. I realized that I had been barely breathing for the past few minutes and all my muscles were tense. I may be acting slightly overdramatic, and I definitely love what the game is doing, but it's hard for me to play more than an hour or two every few days.

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That's the same problem I have with most survival/horror games. It's just kind of mentally exhausting. The Left 4 Deads are the worst because they're so damn stressful. With this game though it only applies for me when I'm fighting the monsters. For the humans I find myself turning off all the lights in the room so that I can see even better and the atmosphere improves quite a bit. This is the only game I've ever really done that for though.

I wish the gunplay was a little better. They're a little weak for my taste, but I liked Far Cry 2, so it's not that big of a deal.

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That's the same problem I have with most survival/horror games. It's just kind of mentally exhausting. The Left 4 Deads are the worst because they're so damn stressful. With this game though it only applies for me when I'm fighting the monsters. For the humans I find myself turning off all the lights in the room so that I can see even better and the atmosphere improves quite a bit. This is the only game I've ever really done that for though.

I did the turn-out-the-lights thing with the Thief games back in the day. Come to think of it, I suppose those were equally oppressive and isolating, but perhaps the increased graphical fidelity is what's proving different in 2033.

I had a similar experience with Dead Space where I kept thinking to myself "I just wanna get off this fucking spaceship" and finally I said "Wait, I can" and ejected the disc. I definitely like Metro 2033 enough to not do the same thing to it, but I'm afraid that I'll just never get around to beating it.

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You really should beat it. It's not that long, and the ending is magnificent.

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That's the same problem I have with most survival/horror games. It's just kind of mentally exhausting.

I get that in stuff like Stalker. As soon as I achieve something I immediately want to stop playing, so I end up doing loads of short sessions.

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I also picked this up in the THQ pack during the sales a while ago now but only just got round to playing it.

It's amazing so far! Can't believe I put off playing it for so long. The atmosphere is intense. Most of the cool stuff has been mentioned in this thread already from what I can see but what I do have to add is this:

There are a few situations in the first couple of chapters where I thought I'd died and then it turned out I'd survived and I was in a scripted 'survival' sequence before giving me back control. At the time it felt amazing because I was sure I'd died and the way it handled it was unexpected and surprised me.

However now I think about it, could I even die in that situation? I haven't died yet. The couple of times I thought I had turned out to be these scripted events. It would make it less cool if I found out you couldn't die in those situations but it wouldn't change my current experience of them.

I guess it's the kind of thing Kieron Gillen was going on about in his mechanic spoilers article. Hmm maybe I should spoiler that then...

Can't wait to get back to it though. Being a STALKER fan and part time masochist I started on Hardcore with all voiceovers in Russian and English subtitles. If you felt like you were missing out on stuff in the crowd scenes in English try it in Russian! Only the main characters are subtitled. I properly feel like a stranger in a strange land.

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I've bought it on steam yesterday when it was on sale for only 7.50 EUR (~6.25 GBP) and already played it for around three hours. I'm not liking it much so far, though. The visual presentation of the metro environments is neat (exteriors not so much). And it's running at a decent framerate thanks to a muscly GTX 470. The ability to freely mix spoken and subtitle languages is fantastic.

What's annoying are the constant interruptions (every two to ten minutes a loading screen) and broken stealth sections once again (if someone sees a corpse and becomes alert, everyone will instantly know where you are and will be able to spot you even in previously safe spots).

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No, I think you bought the wrong game. Apparently there are two games with the same name or something, I dunno. You have to get this Metro 2033. You'll know you got the right one when you load it up and then it immediately blows you the fuck away into a world of excitement.

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I definitely need to pick this game up again. I was enjoying it but then some other games came along and distracted me.

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Same here, then when I went back, the game locks up when I try to load my save. I never looked into it, but I want to finish it by the end of the year.

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Is the game just optimized poorly, or is that that demanding on hardware? I thought I had a decent machine but i have to run it on low just to get a consistent framerate.

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Is the game just optimized poorly, or is that that demanding on hardware? I thought I had a decent machine but i have to run it on low just to get a consistent framerate.

It's more demanding than Crysis, so you'll have to stick with those lower settings unless you have a DX11 or a high-end DX10 graphics card.

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No, I think you bought the wrong game. Apparently there are two games with the same name or something, I dunno. You have to get this Metro 2033. You'll know you got the right one when you load it up and then it immediately blows you the fuck away into a world of excitement.

Shit, I must've bought the wrong one. Mine has shitty action and bleugh bleugh boring.

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Thank God it was so cheap when I bought it. This game is horrible! And I am not sarcastic in the slightest. I'm currently at chapter 4 - "The War" - and need to sneak through a battlefield where commies and fascists seem to shoot at each other 24h a day (which reminds me of the chapter with the bridge in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - except that the joy the film brought you has been replaced with utter frustration :bomb:).

I guess there is a fixed pattern you have to strictly follow to succeed, which I failed to discover several times in a row. I then decided to try the "stop worrying and love the gun" route which ended in more frustration, as it is absolutely futile to get past more than dozen men, who you can barely see in the dark, but who can see you like you've got some christmas lighting blinking on your jacket. :frusty:

I then stopped playing and had another try an hour ago. This time the level starts with everybody already alarmed and prepared to pummel me with all their unbeatable precision a computation can deliver. :(

toblix, I ask you to help me falling in love with this game, like you did. What is the secret? Fate? Masochism? Vodka?

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Thank God it was so cheap when I bought it. This game is horrible! And I am not sarcastic in the slightest. I'm currently at chapter 4 - "The War" - and need to sneak through a battlefield where commies and fascists seem to shoot at each other 24h a day (which reminds me of the chapter with the bridge in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - except that the joy the film brought you has been replaced with utter frustration :bomb:).

I guess there is a fixed pattern you have to strictly follow to succeed, which I failed to discover several times in a row. I then decided to try the "stop worrying and love the gun" route which ended in more frustration, as it is absolutely futile to get past more than dozen men, who you can barely see in the dark, but who can see you like you've got some christmas lighting blinking on your jacket. :frusty:

I then stopped playing and had another try an hour ago. This time the level starts with everybody already alarmed and prepared to pummel me with all their unbeatable precision a computation can deliver. :(

toblix, I ask you to help me falling in love with this game, like you did. What is the secret? Fate? Masochism? Vodka?

When I got past that bit by being the world's most badass ninja I felt like an awesome person, but when I was bashing my head against it a million times in a row to precisely execute every step of my plan perfectly I hated it with all of my being.

Although that generally describes my entire experience with this game.

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I remember that part. I'm not sure I remember exactly how I got past it, but there was some sneaking around and ducking behind things involved.

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I just treated the game like Far Cry 2: be stealthy at first so you can begin the engagement on your own terms, then when it starts to get crazy, improvise and hide when needed.

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Okay, I finally managed to get through this. But it was no fun, I can tell you. I made it to the MG under the bridge when they discovered me. This was the moment I started a killing-spree.

This sure was a challenge (I'm playing on "hard", btw). But not a rewarding one. It was a very unfair fight. One - who can only rely on human senses - versus sheer countless Übermenschen - with psychic powers. And the game insisted on constantly reminding of the fact, that everyone is aware of my position at all times, by letting enemies say "I know where you are!", even if I am in complete darkness, one level above them and solid concrete between us. It was ridiculous.

But in the end I killed them. All of them...

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I don't remember having a big problem with this, in fact, I remember quite the opposite. I could kind of be a boogey man for the enemies and hide in the shadows and shoot out all the lights while they freaked out and backed up. Maybe it's the difficulty setting?

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I might as well just spoiler tag all of this, so if you don't want to read how I got past the bridge part with ninja awesomeness don't click the black text below!

My first 20 attempts were basically: Throw grenade, run in, shoot some dudes, die from guys on other platform. Then I decided that I was bored enough to hear out the entire speech and dialogue stuff and when it got to the end... holy crap, they all went away! Now I could just go up and take out the 2 guys on the platform and winnar, right? Kind of. After much trial and error I eventually did this: I got the 2 throwing knives I had and ran all the way back up the tunnel you start in and silently killed the 2 guys up there for extra ammo then retrieved my knives and ran back, luckily at this exact moment it checkpointed me AND the dudes all started walking away. I now had a save at the exact point where I was standing close to the dudes all leaving while holding 2 throwing knives. I proceeded to take out the last 2 dudes walking away before they went downstairs and grabbed their ammo and my knives back again. Same story for the 2 other guards on the top level but I also got a sweet shotgun and plenty of ammo. I creeped half way down the staircase and waited till one of the enemies was in the light and one was in my sight but not looking at the other then wiped them both out. I picked up the silent pistol and night vision goggles and crept over to where the prisoner was being held and once one of them went off to look for a manhole I killed the other silently and went off across the pipes and catwalks under the bridge all the way to the Nazi side. That's when things got messy, I climbed up into the Nazi base and had no way to silently kill enemies anymore so I had to destroy the guys who were underground and then climb the staircase and throw a million grenades out a doorway into a hall full of Nazis. From there on in it was complete devastation and I got out looking like a bad motherfucker.

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Just beat it yesterday.

Like others here, I was really impressed by how alive the stations felt. People were there doing their own things. Didn't feel like they were saying anything for my benefit. And it feels weird seeing children in games again, when so many action games go to such pains to exclude them.

The characters weren't especially well fleshed out, but the dialogue walked a fine line between gravity and levity that I absolutely loved.

Combat was solid enough. I didn't experience any issues with psychic guards on normal, but there were many, many ways for stealth to go awry. You could step on grass, hit dangling cans (intentional jury-rigged alarms!), walk into firelight, have a throwing knife glance off your target's body armor, not notice the dude walking up stairs behind you, forget to turn off your flashlight, etc. Plus, I couldn't afford

the stealth suit, which was apparently only sold in one location in the game(?)

, which made things a lot harder.

The ending was satisfying, if a bit emotionally dissonant. Although apparently that's intentional, since

there are two possible endings, and I got the more violent one

.

Only glitch I ran into near the end was hilarious and not at all game breaking:

The enemies tried so hard to stop me with psychic attacks that a loading screen took me back to the main menu, without even seeing any credits. I wasn't entirely sure whether this was a rushed Bioshock-style ending or not until I continued and found myself in a new area.

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