Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Two new videos of upcoming shooter Metro 2033 have surfaced via the omnipotent vid-tubes of GameTrailers, and I’ve posted them below. There’s some interesting elucidation of the plot, some discussion of the interaction with NPCs, and some talking about how bullets are currency. For a closer look and some thoughts on the game from our own Mr Meer take a look at these impressions.
Read the rest of this entry »

Hey! Stop that, you’ve got it wrong: this is not Stalker by another name. In fact, it’s not Stalker to the extent that, were you to say “Is this like Stalker?” to one of the ex-Stalker developers behind it, they’d probably punch you in the the nose, walk to the top of the nearest mountain and then scream in raw fury at the skies until someone shot them up with enough tranquilisers to knock out a blue whale. It’s very determinedly not like Stalker, and I can’t imagine how many times the poor dears have had to bat away the same questions and presumptions. Metro 2033 is a post-apocalyptic shooter set in mutant-strewn modern Russian, but it’s not open-world survival fantasy. It’s a strictly linear first-person shooter, albeit with a touch of shopping and soaking up the atmosphere of civilian settlements in between dealing death to things that go bump in the subterranean perma-night. It’s Half-Life, it’s Bioshock, it’s Call of Duty – it’s anything but Stalker.
Read the rest of this entry »

The incidental detail and little flourishes of scripted events are looking like the main thing that Metro 2033 has going for it. We understand that it’s all set to be a fairly traditional monster-shoot, but there’s no denying the loveliness of the ruined-Moscow in which it takes place, as you can see in the trailer I’ve posted below. I believe we’ve got some detail impressions of this in the pipeline, so expect an RPS brain-dump on the excitement-value of this game fairly soon.
Read the rest of this entry »

After several years in development hell, it looks as if the Ukrainian shooter Metro 2033 will finally surface in “early 2010″. THQ have put out another trailer, showing a little more about the world, and the challenges that the lead character, Artum, will face. It’s worth mentioning that despite the post-apocalyptic theme and Ukrainian heritage this is not “another Stalker”, as it’s a traditional scripted shooter. Nevertheless it’s looking good, as you’ll see below.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been following this Ukrainian shooter since the first footage appeared a couple of years ago. Metro 2033 appears to be what THQ did after the split with GSC, and it has the same dark-future apocalypse vibes as Stalker. This time it’s set in a Moscow ravaged by monsters, with the survivors of the apocalypse hiding in the Russian capital’s epic metro system. It’s got a strong “Russian Fallout” whiff to it, which echoes what a 1c boss said to me last year about their love of the game. THQ’s blurb reads: “You are Artyom, born in the last days before the fire, but raised Underground. Having never ventured beyond your Metro Station-City limits, one fateful event sparks a desperate mission to the heart of the Metro system, to warn the remnants of mankind of a terrible impending threat. Your journey takes you from the forgotten catacombs beneath the subway to the desolate wastelands above, where your actions will determine the fate of mankind.” Anyway, go take a look, this is very promising.
Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I saw Metro 2033 was during Games Convention 2006 when 4A Games‘ “pre-alpha” footage was released. A bit of quiet for two years, and now some, um, pre-alpha footage has been released. However, if you go back and forth between the two almost shot-for-shot-the-same trailers, you can see quite how much progress has been made with their 4A Engline.

Read the rest of this entry »