Metro: Exodus. Sad «outcome»

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office, readers and devoted fans of the series.

On December 19, a post-apocalyptic Christmas tree was held at Bunker-42-an entertaining event for journalists, organized by the game unit “.Video "with the support of Intel. In addition to a truly atmospheric place – a real bunker of the time of the "cold" war – visitors entertained an interesting program and demo "Metro: Exodus".

This is how my personal acquaintance with the game took place. And she disappointed me.

I'm not afraid

I do not belong to the army of fans of this universe: the books were rejected, the games made me get bored … But I really waited for the new part: the trailers seemed to be some level that it would be some new level, that the “metro” would get rid of all their minuses at once, bursting out From cramped tunnels. And she breaks out! In a slightly wider corridors connecting small arenas on which you can fight with opponents or tickle them on a tiptoe.

Demo starts … in the water. Our hero is pulled out of her pioneer Olga. Pioneers – a local group living according to the covenants of a certain teacher and organization of young Komsomol members. Apparently, during the war, they hid in a pioneer camp and saturated with his young communist ideology. A grouping of pirates lives next door – in spirit, these are the same pioneers, only with a slight bias in pirate romance. In general, both resemble one large gang, who decided to play the Cossack robbers. And since they grabbed our comrade, Artyom needs to go through their territories and find a friend.

Listening to the conversations of the characters, you quickly understand that the guys are not bad, they are just too afraid of strangers. It seemed wrong to me to kill them in vain, so by their possessions I preferred to move in stealth; Fortunately, this is not too difficult: the enemy sometimes does not see Artyom literally point blank. There are two woe-wary, talk-I can calmly go unnoticed behind any of them. But if buch rises, the hero is killed literally from two or three hits. So it’s better not to bring to this, if only because shooting at opponents is an immoral business.

And uninteresting.

Showing the game in Bunker-42 is a great idea. The place is really powerful: a real underground bunker, designed for a nuclear bombing, with its own generators, an underwater source of water and, probably, an exit in the subway. It is especially amazing that each room has its own air. But the organizers did not limit themselves to a surrounding location – there was an excellent buffet, a shooting range and a game zone, where a whole platoon of cosplayers quite believably reproduced the spirit of the game and entertained the guests who dared to wander there. Definitely, it was the best Christmas tree in my life!

I don't believe

Weapons, despite the creative visual design and the pumping system, are not felt powerful or enjoyable in use: it fits slightly, lazily flows bullets and regularly wedges. The crossbow turned out to be more or less slaughter, but it reloads directly painfully for a long time. The stunted guns collected from the foot trash is very in the spirit of post -apocalypse, but we play in action, including in order to enjoy the weapon and shooting from it. Even a construction gun can be made impressive and frightening! Here the weapon would like to rush into the nearest swamp.

In addition, flirting with realism looks half: if the flashlight should be regularly pumped with a dynamo, and from a gas mask to wash adhering dirt, then why does not suffer from hunger, thirst or lack of sleep? Survival elements (which I do not like) in such a setting would be like relatives.

In general, to perceive the game seriously and I could not plunge into it, because something constantly pulled out. Either the clumsiness of Artyom, then the primitive functions-functions in which you do not believe at all, then the design of locations-they are insanely beautiful and worked out, but at the same time artificial. There is no feeling that people really live here: you immediately understand that the designers drew this place, and people were placed in places half an hour before your appearance.

For example, here we have a pioneers' base, which is completely made of trees and surrounded by a decent height with a wooden fence – all simply breathes with a pioneering theme, as if you got into a thematic entertainment park. But at the same time, there are no felled trees in the district or disassembled into parts of old houses. And from what, excuse me, all this splendor is built?

… or you go into some pre-war house, you see that local residents have been in it not so long ago-but all sorts of useful things like details and chemicals are still lying in the corners.

It seems – you think, a trifle, game convention! But such things break the atmosphere pretty. And even the last parts of the same Fallout It was also sometimes sinned by this, there the loot really had to look for and pick up crumbs over past looters. And then the developers had to put something useful for the player-well, they put. Without fooling yourself and without linating your decisions with the internal logic of the game world.

I am glad that in some places the developers still thought about the details. For example, I found a good loot in the basement of the house where some gas accumulated, and a hefty snake chose a room with a valuable troph. And the corpses of my less successful predecessors also complemented the picture well. That's what I believe in it!

I do not ask

But back to the adventures of Artyom. After passing through the territory of the pirates and walking through the night forest in https://sister-site.org/amazon-slots/ the company of dogs, deer and mutant-media our heroic stalker falls into the trap to the local. While the pioneers argue with the pirates about what to do with our hero, a bear familiar with trailers crawls out of the bushes, like a piano, and explains to stupid people who have the most right to Artyom’s juicy body.

The hero runs away under the nook, creeps into the camp of pioneers and finds out that his comrade escaped and headed for the destroyed church. In the cemetery near it, the native of the subway will once again meet with the ubiquitous bear, and this time you have to fight. The demo ends on this battle: if you know where to run, and not be distracted by studying the terrain and alternative routes, it could have run in five to ten minutes.

But not to be distracted decisively. In beautiful, detailed locations, perhaps the main advantage of the game is – in the “outcome” it is really nice to wander and consider the environment. But the genre chosen by the developers does not contribute to this: when you sneak in tall grass or desperately shooting away with enemies, you are not up to the examination of the beauties. Walking simulator or role -playing game, probably, would be allowed to reveal the environment much better.

In addition, where artists have worked well, designers of levels frankly checked. All locations are built according to one principle: there are key points to which you can get in different ways. In practice, nothing has changed from my choice. There was no such way that one path suggested exclusively a force clash, and the second – a hidden bypass. Some routes came across interesting places like a clearing with a bandit who was left to eat wolves … But, as for me, this is clearly not enough to create genuine freedom of choice or at least her illusion.

"Exodus" is felt as an action movie from the middle of the zero with modern graphics. By the way, I did not notice the special visual depths that the Ray Tracing technology was supposed to give the game, although demo computers were collected precisely on the RTX video cards. Just a worthy picture that is interesting to look at. This, perhaps, applies to the whole game as a whole: looking at it is much more interesting than playing it.

Perhaps, with complete passage-when the improved weapon will shoot more vigorously, and free time will make it quiet to cut down the entire guard at the level and calmly look at the surroundings, simultaneously collecting loot from all corners of the map, the “outcome” will also show other strengths. But while I see a project that is so stuck in the past that it cannot be pulled out of there by any patch.

Surely there are many people for whom it turns out to be a plus. But I, alas, do not belong to them.