Metro: Last Light Has All The Graphics, None Of The Hope
God probably died. That's the most prominent point put forth by a new Metro: Last Light trailer's wearily somber narrator, and it pretty much sets the tone for the whole game. Society's in shambles, monsters and radiation seep from every crevice, and everything above ground has turned gray for some reason. Except things that were gray before. They're now double-gray. Pretty dismal, huh? And by the looks of things, Metro will leave your PC's insides looking like the bleeding ruins of a bombed-out Russia too. By which I mean it's completely gorgeous. Just in an awfully depressing type of way.
I still fondly stroke my copy of Metro 2033 and tell it that it's a beautiful, beautiful triple-A snowflake amongst a permafrost of uninspired rehashes, so it's only natural that I'm worried about each and every aspect of Last Light. But then I see trailers like this and my heart flutters like a giant radiation pterodactyl happily munching on a small family.
I mean, the atmosphere's foreboding without being overbearing, the narration manages to be shockingly un-cheesy, and the non-shooty bits look suitably detail-rich in their depictions of down-and-out squalor. Assuming 4A's managed to de-clunkify the shooting and iron out a few other kinks, Last Light could well realize the promise Metro 2033 brought to the table. And that, for the uninitiated, is quite a lot of promise indeed.
Actually, you know what? Just play Metro 2033 right now. It's completely free on Facebook if you just go and "like" THQ's Metro page. Yes, yes, I'm fully open to the idea of a discussion about how icky it is to ask people to "like" something they've presumably never played, but I also have a policy of only speaking to people who've played Metro 2033. So it seems we're at an impasse.