Recent reviews by Spannungsbogen

Best autism project in a while

Nostalgia Nostalgia Nostalgia Nostalgia

The nostalgia of playing this years and years later hit me like a sledgehammer. The fantastic soundtrack got me excited and at times laughing at loud. I loved this game. I'm not sure if my love for it comes solely from the fact that I hadn't play much better than this game on my PS3 in middle school, but it still captures my imagination playing it today. The gameplay is a mixed bag.
The missions can be way too short, have some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ enemy placements and spawns, questionable collision detection, and the very very VERY wonky controls make the back and forth difficulty a bit troublesome at times, but I found all of these things hard to fault the game for once I realized what the game was built around: the co-op. The AI is a braindead ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of parkinsons and alzheimers. Theyre not good for much. But if you somehow scrape together a team of your buddies and give this game a run, youll find a tactically rich co-op shooter. Rolls have Iframes for dodging large boss attacks, and combat areas with monster akrid or human enemies are build around multi-faceted gunplay and coordinated strikes. There are also these badass mechs called Vital Suits, from massive bipeds to mini helicopters that you can pilot--some of which your teammates can hang onto the side of and fire from. They add a lot to the gameplay whenever theyre present and are great for mixing it up. AI can be pretty unimpressive in the campaign, though. I have yet to see them run away from grenades so far.
You can customize not only your characters appearance (Only for multiplayer, but once you beat the campaign you can use custom chars in campaign), but also their loadouts (weapon variety is surprisingly good when youve unlocked more of them), countless goofy emotes, and even abilities and specializations that can completely alter your approach to combat. Note that these have to be UNLOCKED, but the loot mystery item box things that enemies and bosses drop award you wish ♥♥♥♥ tons of credits to spam the slot machine to unlock them. Best part about the unlock system is that there really isnt any of that pay to unlock ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Boxes are extremely easy to farm, which give you the credits for the slot machine, which you dont have to wait for. You start the slot machine, can immediately stop it, then get your prize really quickly. I think it's great and adds replay value to the game, because the more you unlock, the more you want to go back through and try these new items to see how they work.
The story really falls by the wayside and I dont even remember what all happens besides a really big akria needing to be destroyed yadda yadda it's not impoirtant. If youre coming for a story, you might be disappointed.
Graphically, the game holds up decently well in 2019 and I dont have a hard time looking at it whatsoever. I have an AMD Radeon RX 470 4GB and this game runs at a CONSTANT 120 fps on max settings. It never really goes up or down (when I do the performance test it goes higher, but that doesnt really matter too much to me)
Multiplayer....... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this game is dead lol. It has like 20 concurrent players. You can play against AI but theyre braindead lmao.

I'm not sure what else I have to say about it. It's easily an early favorite of mine. I 100% recommend giving it a try.

+++Impressive Co-op Gameplay
++Great Bosses - require teamwork to take down
++Vital Suits
+Excellent Customization
+Interesting Weapons
+"Abilities" To Specialize playstyle
+Impressive Graphics (for its time, but it still holds up pretty well)
+Great Soundtrack
+Unlock System is easy to farm

-Braindead AI
-Cringeworthy Characters
-Cringeworthy Voice Acting
-Forgettable Story
--Wonky Controls
---This game is dead in terms of multiplayer

OVERALL: 7/10


idk if theres anything else to add. I'll keep playing through and add stuff later perhaps. ggs

SPOILERS


SOME atmosphere, and little else.
I play on ranger difficulty on survival settings

What atmosphere there is is ruined by some of the most obnoxious on-rail sections and of any game I played. I'm not exaggerating. This game is either incredibly tense, gripping, and believable in times such as when you first reach the surface and are separated from your partner and must rendezvous at another location-the growls and snarls of nearby mutants haunting your tiptoes-or utterly ridiculous and borderline obnoxious with the Nazi machine gun trains chase scene or the Indiana Jones-esque mine cart section where you are assaulted by one of the 3 or 4 kinds of monsters you will encounter. I went into Metro amazed by the level of complexity and detail that made the linear and claustrophobic environments feel immense. The echos of footsteps and the shattering reverberations of wooden planks snapping at your feet, calling out to whatever mutants lie around the corner was fantastic. But as i put more time into the game and moved further and further along in the story, the more annoying the gameplay became. Annoying is definitely the fitting word there because often the feel of the action-centric gameplay and the stealth-oriented gameplay didn't feel nearly as great as they could have. I don't see why I should continue to invest time TRYING to enjoy this game when I can play something else like Call of Chernobyl and do all of the same things, better. I shouldn't have to just look the other way every five minutes when a bandit leans forward through a wall and spots, then shoots me. I shouldn't have to pretend that it isn't asinine for a game to repeatedly respawn you within killing distance of an enemy.

tl;dr
Everything this game tries to do is done better by something else.

10/10 would reccomen to fren