Metro Last Light review
Love
- Chilling atmosphere
- Great world-building
- Decent story
Hate
- Glitchy gameplay
- Seedy lapdances
- Rubbish boss battle
Video game fans have traversed more post-apocalyptic landscapes than most. We braved giant scorpions and mutants as we trudged through the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3.
We sought out multiple government rescue efforts in a zombie-infested Deep South US in Left 4 Dead 2. And we fought high-tech fascists and insane road agents in a world that had been mostly obliterated by an asteroid in RAGE.
Metro Last Light: Setting
All of the above games cut players loose in worlds where some horrendous event had put paid to social order as we know it. But few of these dystopian vistas can compete with the bleakness of the post-apocalyptic Moscow in Metro: Last Light.
The action in Metro Last Light takes place in the remnants of Russia’s capital after a nuclear war put paid to civilisation on the surface. The remaining survivors of the Motherland eke out an existence underground in the city’s public rail Metro tunnels, which incidentally were constructed deep enough beneath the ground so they could double as bunkers in the event of a nuclear strike.
Not only does radiation on the surface make life above ground impossible, the survivors also have to contend with mutated wildlife that see them as a light snack in between main meals.
To make matters worse, the survivors have started splitting off into different factions. Communism is making a comeback, as is fascism. In substations that aren’t dominated by some faction touting hard-line polemic, crime and graft run rampant.
Beyond the substations, survivors risk running into armed road (or in this case rail) agents, armed zealots or creatures intent on turning them into dinner.
Metro Last Light: Characters & Plot
Even though Metro Last Light is set in a future that’s pretty much hell on earth, its lightened somewhat by the fact that its inhabitants have a rather laconic attitude towards their surroundings. Many of the characters the player encounters deal with hardship with grim gallows’ humour and stoic understatements.
“We call those animals shrimp!” says one NPC, gesturing in the direction of an aquatic beast that seems to be mainly comprised of tentacles, suckers and teeth.
The story of Metro Last Light centres around Artyom, a member of the only faction in the game that could be considered even vaguely heroic, the Rangers.
He’s dispatched to wipe out the last of a race known as ‘The Dark Ones’ who were almost obliterated in the first game. In short order he finds himself captured by fascists and thrown in a concentration camp. During his escape, Artyom discovers a heinous plan that’s being hatched by one of the Metro’s factions and is tasked with warning the Rangers about it.
Metro Last Light: Gameplay
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The game’s plot isn’t exactly Shakespeare but it keeps the action ticking along nicely. The only real hindrance to one’s enjoyment of the proceedings is when Last Light hurls the player a curveball like the opportunity to pay for a rather tawdry lapdance or an instance where they break up a harrowing rape scene.
The latter is particularly nasty since, once the player has gunned down the perpetrators they can offer nothing in the way of comfort to the sobbing NPC victim.
The gameplay also contains its share of glitches – at least on the Xbox 360platform, which is what we tested it on. Occasionally enemies pop out and then back in, causing the odd desperate shotgun blast to miss them entirely. When this happens against human adversaries, it’s irritating enough, but against feral beasts that swarm the player, it’s downright aggravating.
There’s also a boss battle set in the catacombs of a church against what looks like mutated vole that should have been left out of the proceedings; it’s an arduous war of attrition in which there’s no way to tell if your tactics are working and, unless you’ve stock-piled like a boss, you’re more than likely to run out of bullets mid-way through it.
Metro Last Light’s best moments come in the sections where players are forced to resort to stealthy means to win the day. It’s here, where players use silenced weapons and the ability to darken areas of the map by unscrewing lightbulbs and blowing out lamps where the game’s chilling atmosphere is allowed to do its work.
One section, involving a slow-climb out of a concentration camp where discovery will cause Artyom’s enemies to flood the tunnel with gas is particularly nerve-wracking.
Metro Last Light: Verdict
Metro Last Light isn’t groundbreaking in the slightest, but it can be easily described as ‘resolutely solid’. Its plot and level design isn’t consistent throughout, it’s genuinely enjoyable and contains more than its fair share of hair-raising moments.
There are certainly some technical issues players should be aware of going in and the absence of any multiplayer mode whatsoever may be a sticking point for some. But we’d recommend it alone for the way its decent storytelling gels admirably with its unique, dystopian world and its choking, gritty atmosphere.
Metro Last Light release date: Out now
Metro Last Light price: £35
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