Fucking Hell!

If there’s any major reason why the PC Gaming industry is losing to consoles (and honestly, I have no idea where either stand in regards to sales, I’m just venting for my own purposes here), it’s probably due to how freaking unstable PC games are.  Seriously, can someone release a game that actually works without being patched 50 times? 

And do you know what’s worse than a crashing PC game?  A crashing PC game with a checkpoint save system.  FML. 

/rant

Ok.  Anyway.  I was just playing Metro 2033 for about 45 minutes (before it FUCKING CRASHED, if you couldn’t have assumed that by now), and I’m not exactly sure what I think about this game yet.  Of course, the crashing isn’t helping it’s standing either, but I’ll see about updating my video drivers.  Assuming, you know, they still don’t melt video cards.  Whee. 

At first glance, the graphics in this game confuse the hell out of me.  I mean, look at this shit:



What is this, a Tim Burton movie?  What I’m thinking though, now that I’ve gotten past the introductory chapter, is that the “outside world” is designed like this to make it feel foreign.  It’s supposed to be completely inhabitable up on the surface (you have to wear a gas mask when you go outside), so I guess that makes sense.  Things look a lot better underground:



I’m actually pretty impressed with the modeling of the humans, because usually that is the WORST part.  This, naturally, is because I know what a human is supposed to look like and it’s a pretty big challenge to make that jump in total realism.  I do not, however, know what a three-foot tall slobbering cave-goblin mutant is supposed to look like, so as long as it doesn’t look like I’m shooting Elmo I’ll think it’s pretty damn well done.  (And let’s face it, I wouldn’t complain a bit if I were shooting Elmo in the face, either.)

I’m noticing there appear to be a lot of “scripted” events in the game.  This is both good and bad.  The good is that it gives you that “Hey, I survived!  Cool!” feel to it.  The bad part about it is that it gives it a bit of an arcade-ish feel to it.  I’m still on the fence about this too — I’ll have to experience a few more of them before I decide if they’re good or bad for the game.  But generally, they are a lot of fun, and that’s the most important thing.  The first of these was being locked in a room with five ventilation shafts (one on the  ceiling, four on the walls).  Mutants were trying to break into the room using these five openings, and you had to make sure they didn’t get in.  Lots of swinging the camera around from opening to opening to see where they were coming from next.  Hectic and entertaining: 



The next one was a hand-car race down a tunnel with hordes of mutants in hot pursuit.  And old, old, old idea, but oh-so-fun every time you see it rehashed and reincarnated: 



My game crashed shortly after this, and sort of killed my desire to play any more of it right this minute.  I’m sure I’ll continue at some point, however, so expect an update about my thoughts in the near future.  In the meantime, here are a few more screenshots of random cool stuff.


Hey!  Why didn’t I get a cool backlit entrance?


Secretly, it’s actually The Joker that’s killing people.


“Yes, this hat is made of rat.  You gotta problem with that?”


Heil!  Oh wait…this is Russia…


No, I don’t want a hug!


Excuse me, I believe that’s MY knife stuck in your face.


I like how you can see all of the NPC’s gear hanging off of him.

Now playing: Goo Goo Dolls - Name