Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Launch trailers are released weeks before anything launches, trailers have their own trailers, and one day there will be a fifteen millisecond teaser for the reveal of the logo that is set to appear in a five second viral video that is itself advertising an advert for a web-based spin-off of your favourite game. I’m sorry, that’s just the way of it. Metro: Last Light is defying convention by opting for a post-release trailer that is there minutes long and also a thing of beauty. The creation of Alexander Bereznyak, 4A’s lead technical artist, the ‘Mobius’ video is a journey through a single moment in the life (and death) of a Metro station. The camera drifts through the frozen figures, tableaux in a high-tech ghost train, and lingers on scenes of desperation, heroism and catastrophe. Watch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Metro: Last Light is my current slithering, senses-constricting conquest, but I haven’t quite finished it yet. Thus far, however, my feelings align pretty well with Jim’s, bringing Hivemind Orgiastic Synergism rates up to 212.5783 percent. Last Light’s different from 2033 but still of a similar spirit, and I quite like the idea of viewing its intoxicatingly disheveled world from different perspectives. That’s precisely the idea behind 4A’s summer flood of single-player DLC, so I’m definitely not complaining. According to legends, complete Hivemind synergy will actually cause the apocalypse, so you’ll probably want to dive into the break’s dank tunnels for safety. Also, details.

Read the rest of this entry »

To hear former THQ boss Jason Rubin tell it, Metro: Last Light studio 4A Games is maybe not the best place to work. He doesn’t mean that in a whip-crack-y, everyone’s-a-jerk way, though. Quite the contrary, actually: he recently claimed it was a case of absurdly talented people working elbow-to-elbow in “appalling” conditions. Their offices? “More like a packed grade school cafeteria than a development studio.” Picking up new hardware was apparently also quite the ordeal. “When 4A needed another dev kit, or high-end PC, or whatever, someone from 4A had to fly to the States and sneak it back to the Ukraine in a backpack lest it be ‘seized’ at the border by thieving customs officials,” said Rubin. But what about 4A’s side of the story? Creative director Andrew Prokhorov recently saw fit to chime in.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve yet to WiT Metro: Last Light on RPS, thanks to the review code not working, but its recent release has prompted ex-THQ boss Jason Rubin to write an astonishing article on the development of the game. Over at GamesIndustry.biz, Rubin has written an incendiary post on the daily struggles that Kiev-based dev team 4A Games faced, calling their game “a stunning achievement”, and asking for more recognition of their abilities. If accurate, he paints a team building a game with a tiny budget, in a country where implied corruption necessitates smuggling higher-end equipment past customs officials, for a company he describes as “irrational”. I’m British, so my monocle is currently on the floor.

Read the rest of this entry »

Confession time: I very frequently feel like I am neither clean nor deadly enough, which is the root cause of most of my insecurities. I sometimes think, you know, maybe if I were just slightly above-average at one or the other, everything would be all right. But goodness, I don’t even know where to begin. Fortunately, the final entry in Metro: Last Light‘s “Ranger Survival Guide” series is here to clear up a few things – including my grit-caked, horrifically pockmarked skin – for me. Apparently, my biggest mistake was failing to wipe rain, grime, and radioactive goop off my face all the time. Also, I need to buy a gun. I am, however, hopeful, because a charmingly rugged Russian man has told me I’m infinitely capable of both.

Read the rest of this entry »

Metro: Last Light is so close. So very, painfully close. Sometimes, on cold, lonely nights and also in Russia for some reason, I can almost feel it sidling up to me, locking me in a warm irradiated embrace, telling me everything’s going to be OK. Patience, however, is not my strong suit, so I think frequently subjecting myself to these very nice promo videos constitutes some form of masochism. The latest one’s quite the ride, too, taking us on a whirlwind tour of Last Light’s various factions, human murderjerks/WWII allegories, and mutant creepy crawly stompy blaaarghies. Take a peek for yourself after the break, and then join me in a moist state of anticipatory writhing for the next month.

Read the rest of this entry »

The world of Metro: Last Light is grim and dark, as these things tend to be, but it’s not yet clear whether it crosses the line into grimdark. Calculating such things is difficult, and requires prolonged exposure and comparative flowcharts containing pictures of fetishised death factions and tattered children playing with burnt toys in the rubble of their homes. The children are ghosts but even so a mutant dog, formerly their pet, will eat them soon. Through all the horrors of this most recent video, which provides an overview of the Metro system, factions and threats, a disconcertingly cheerful man explains the situation and provides survival tips, such as “try not to lose your head”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gritty-looking Russian-accented choochoo-themed tunnel shooter Metro: Last Light was bought from THQ by Deep Silver, and will come out in North America on May 14th and everywhere else May 17th, which is weird because we live in an electronic age and I am an electronic girl and everything-should-come-out-at-once please. Anyway, here is a new trailer for it. It looks a bit chilly in that there Russia, and everything seems to have a rust problem.
Read the rest of this entry »

April showers bring incredibly bleak May doomsday scenarios. My mother always used to tell me that, right before encouraging me to succeed with sagely tidbits like “Your generation will doom us all.” I’ll admit that a bit of it went over my head. Now, though, it’s beginning to make sense, seeing as Metro: Last Light‘s  blown back the radioactive vapors from THQ’s nuclear self-destruction to reveal a May launch date. So hooray! I finally understand my childhood. Also, videogames. Details after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Update: Helpfully, reader and probable Prince of Handsomeness The JG Man dug up the court form outlining details (including amounts, back-up bidders, etc) of each sale. You can peruse that here.

Original: Well, I suppose it was inevitable. After THQ’s attempt at averting a Humpty Dumpty sales situation failed miserably, the writing was pretty much on the wall. So now the grim reaper’s scythe has hacked the once-gargantuan publisher into itsy-bitsy pieces and scattered any remaining ashes to the winds. On the upside, pretty much every major THQ franchise and developer (minus Darksiders dev Vigil, sadly) landed safely in less-likely-to-kerplode homes. Also, Relic and Creative Assembly live under the same roof now. Can Company of Shoguns: Total Homeworld or some other dream team RTS be far off? Probably. It’s still kind of a silver lining, though, and anyway SHUT UP I’M SAD.

Read the rest of this entry »