Metro: Last Light - Review

...I wonder if they have Nuka Cola in Russia.

Metro 2033 established a cryptic, and occasionally frighting post apocalyptic world that was filled with a unique take on the post apocalyptic setting, and really pulled you into the dystopian setting. IT had plenty of faults, but there was certainly promise, and while Metro: Last Light hits many of the same issues as the original, it offers an overall better experience, and stands on it's own as a story of despair and hope, and the thin line between them in humanities darkest hour.

Like it's predecessor, Metro: Last Light is based off of the novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky, throwing you into a post apocalyptic Russia, where civilization has been forced underground into the winding tunnels of the Moscow Metro, while all manner of mutated monsters now lurk both above and below ground. The survivors have fractured into several factions who now fight over the few remaining resources, instead of banding together, putting humanity at risk of destroying itself. While Metro 2033 did have two possible endings, Last Light goes with the normal/bad ending as the backstory in which the main character, Artyom, destroyed a sentient race called the Dark Ones with a missile strike. Now, several factions are vying for control of the entire Metro System, and war seems increasingly likely. The story focuses on Artyom's journey to find a Dark One who somehow managed to survive the annihilation of it's race, and unravelling an insidious plot that threatens to destroy what is left of humanity as he struggles with guilt over the destruction of an entire race at his hands.The plot starts out very strong, and helps, alongside the atmosphere and world, to immerse you fully in the game. However, around the last third of the game, the story takes a really odd turn into the supernatural. It's not an awful story from that point on, but it feels like there was a huge missed opportunity to focus more on the dystopian Metro's survivors and a plot more grounded in reality. The finale is really kind of a dud as well, ending the game with a thud, instead of a bang, but overall the story is even better than the original, and does a good job of telling a tale of it's own instead of rehashing the original.

The characters are, for the most part, kind of dull. The Russian accents occasionally sound really forced and bad, though there are a few bright moments in the conversations between people and characters. It can sometimes seem as if the other characters hold your hand a little bit more than they need to, but there are large stretches of the game where you are alone and left to your own devices too, which keeps it from becoming a real issue. You can also discover hidden journal notes that, in a interesting twist, are written by Artyom himself, that offer great insight into his thoughts on whatever events are occurring, places he is visiting, or characters he is interacting with. It's an odd choice, considering Artyom himself is a silent protagonist outside of the loading screens where he runs down what is about to happen, but it's still an appreciated feature.

The atmosphere of Last Light is outstanding throughout the game. Exploring the metro tunnels is both creepy and thrilling, and the forays above into the ruin of Moscow are breathtaking and chilling. Some sections in the metro can feel a little too drab, but the variety found over the course of the game keep things interesting and fun. The game does a good job of mixing up action sequences, as well as slower moments that allow you to explore a bit and really take in the attention to detail. These slower moments are frequently some of the best, and there are plenty of hidden secrets and moments that are well worth the time to find.

The gameplay offers plenty of choice on how to approach situations, but the fights can be quite frustrating. While you can go in guns blazing, Last Light really rewards those who take the stealth route. In fact, often times it almost seems like Last Light is more of a stealth game than a shooter. Don't be surprised if your knife or fist feel like your primary means of eliminating human enemies. Monster encounters though don't offer a stealth option, which helps keep things fresh, though these fights range from simply okay to downright ridiculous. There are also a few boss battle style fights that feel uninspired and forced, and are more of a nuisance than a challenge. They can be quite discouraging, and can break the immersion a bit.

The enemy AI leaves a lot to be desired. Human enemies are predictable, and easily manipulated along with being just downright dumb. There are occasions where they won't even notice you taking out a friend a few meters away. The monster AI on the other hand is a little too difficult. Aside from being tough to take down in the first place, many bounce all over the screen, and attack you in numbers that can overwhelm you. They come at you very aggressively as well, and sometimes mistakes even on the normal or easy difficulty can be fatal. There's no real middle ground either really, fights are either just too easy, or too hard.
Also just as important to the gameplay are your gas mask and filters, which help you survive on the toxic surface, as well as some more dangerous parts of the Metro. Extra filters can be scavenged from supply crates and fallen enemies, and without them your gas mask is useless. You'll be warned when you need to replace the filter, but without one, you will suffocate and die. Gas masks can be damaged, but every once in a while you can find a replacement. Damaged masks don't function less efficiently than undamaged ones, but the cracked glass can interfere with your vision.

The weapons, while not numerous, are very diverse and offer plenty of choices for everyone, and each weapon can be modified with several attachments, which helps you really outfit your arsenal to your style. There are also throwable knives, claymores, and grenades. The economy system is, like the original, interesting, if not well executed. In the Metro universe military grade ammunition is the currency of choice, and it's rarity makes it extremely valuable. This ammunition can be used in weapons increase the damage and gives an advantage over enemies, but every shot you take is one less you have to use buying weapons, lesser ammo, and other goods. You could easily go through the game without ever visiting a store though, and I often forgot I could even use the military grade ammo in my weaponry, though on the high difficulty you can occasionally be forced into using it if you get too trigger happy.

There are some technical issues that can derail the experience on occasion. Texture loading in issues happen a somewhat often, and on the 360 the game crashes on occasion for no real reason. The PS3 version reportedly has some even more glaring issues including constant auto saving, frame rate dips, and even a glitch that allows you to go through chapters with all enemies frozen in place, though having not played the PS3 version I can't speak of how frequent or glaring these problems are.

SUMMARY

Metro: Last Light is not the kind of experience you usually get with shooters. The game world and environments are extremely detailed, offering a visually stunning and immersive experience, while the plot does an excellent job of giving you a reason to really enjoy wandering the Metro and the ruins of Moscow. It's not as strong a single player shooter as it could be, but it's still a fun and unique experience if you can forgive the terrible enemy AI and technical issues.

Pretty Fluffy

Where Metro: Last Light Succeeds

+ One of the most unique and well designed game worlds.
+ Great attention to detail.
+ Plenty of reason to explore, even in the confines of the linear gameplay style.

Where Metro: Last Light Fails

- Gameplay is uneven
- AI is either too hard or too easy, never just right.
- Technical issues can jar the experience on occasion.

Information
Metro: Last Light
Developer: A4 Games
Publisher: THQ
Genre: First Person Shooter
Rating: M

Borderlands 2 Review

...A horse made of diamonds.

When the first Borderlands came out in 2009 it was a surprisingly different kind of game to many shooter fans. The focus on the millions of possible guns, the addictive co-op play, the unique art style and charm. Everything about the game felt refreshingly different, so much so that most forgave it for it's rather bare bones feeling. When Borderlands 2 was announced, many of us wondered exactly what Gearbox had in store for us. In the end the approach to a second go around on Pandora was simple: improve on every single part of the game, while sticking to the formula of the original. The result is perhaps one of the greatest shooter experiences in quite some time.

Despite all the improvements, Borderlands 2 isn't much different from it's predecessor as far as the core experience goes. This game is still all about hunting down as much loot as you can find, and then filling anything that so much as moves with lead. Guns are still the main focus of the loot you'll encounter. The weapons you'll find are visually impressive, and I can't count how many times the little quirks of a new gun I had found made it feel unique to me. There are millions of possible guns you can find, which sounds daunting at first to a new player, but for the most part each class of gun operates the way it should. It's the stats of the various guns that really make each gun unique, and the possibilities are complex enough that it really does feel like there are millions of weapons to find. However, there are plenty of other bits of loot to hunt down. Ammo, grenade mods, character and vehicle skins, class mods, and relics. You will spend most of your time searching for anything shiny and new.


The game world itself is both familiar, and wonderfully different. The games feel is much the same from the quirky humour to the cel shaded graphics. The places you'll visit won't remind you much of the places that you visited when you last were on Pandora though. The environments you'll visit are much more varied than the vast desert that the majority of the first Borderlands took place in. There are frozen wastes, snowy valleys, grassy hills, and even a wildlife preserve to explore and loot thoroughly. The characters too are much improved time around. They aren't just static quest givers now, they engage in combat at times, and have more fleshed out personalities that are supported by excellent voice acting. Several of the characters, particularly the main villain Handsome Jack, rank among the most memorable of recent memory. In fact, some of the dialogue is so hilarious, it can be disappointing when sections runs over each other on occasion. Nevertheless, it almost feels like a whole new world entirely, but  also a more lively and engaging one.

Nowhere are the improvements in Borderlands 2 more apparent though than the story. Borderlands had an interesting idea for a story at the start, but it never really took off. It never seemed like it was going in any one direction and characters felt rather lifeless and dulled overall. Borderlands 2 fixes this by giving the games narrative a much needed dose of direction. The story isn't anything all that different from the norm, and plenty of the plot points have been hit thousands of times before, but the game still tells a story filled with energy and emotion. In fact the story sometimes dips into territory that puts it at odds with the games humour, sometimes making you feel a bit uncomfortable. There was one section in particular where one of the characters is cracking jokes not half a minute after one of the most emotional moments of the entire game. The writing is outstanding for the most part though, especially in the side quests. While the main story missions are good, the side quests are where the games humour and smart script really shine, even if the quests themselves don't deviate much from the standard "go kill this" and "go get me that" formulas.


Creating a character in Borderlands 2 functions much the same as it did in Borderlands. There are four different characters you can choose for your character, and each has a unique skill they can use in combat. Sirens have the phaselock ability that can lock opponents in place for a few seconds, Gunzerkers have the ability to dual wield any two weapons in the game for a short period of time, Assassins can cloak and unleash a surprise attack, and Commandos can set up a turret that can help support your team. The ability trees this time around add some greater depth to how you can utilize your powers, and how you can build your character. Even within the same skill tree, there are options, and they allow you to really tailor your character to your playstyle. You don't even really need to worry about screwing up your class build because you can respec your class for a hardly noticeable amount of money. This really gives you the freedom to experiment and try things out if your not sure about them.

There is yet another component to building your character though. The Badass Rating system. It is a a list of all kinds of challenges for you to take one while your playing the game. Most revolve around things you'll be doing anyway, such as killing enemies with a certain gun, or killing the same kind of enemy so many times. After you complete a challenge, you'll get Badass points and after you quire enough points, you'll earn a token that can be spent on improving your character with a tiny boost to things such as weapon damage, accuracy, max health, shield capacity, reload speed, and others. These boosts aren't huge, but as you accumulate more tokens and add to your boosts, there is definitely a noticeable benefit to them. The best part is, these boosts are essentially unlimited, and benefit every character you create. You can turn the system off if you don't want the boosts, which is a nice touch too.

The gameplay is excellent all around for the most part. The guns all handle great and feel snappy and are just a lot of fun to use. There is a very good mix of enemies to take on with lots of variety in how they fight, whether it's psychos trying to bash you in the face up close, or a nomad with a huge shield. While there's plenty of canon fodder to take out, there are also plenty of enemies that will give you a good fight, and more than a few that will frustrate you to no end. It makes the game feel challenging without ever making it feel completely overwhelming. This makes firefights feel much more intense than they did in the original. The driving component of the game is still not strong enough though. Aside from a few missions that require it's use, they are largely just a means of transportation. That's a shame because the vehicles could be used to really change the flow of gameplay by throwing in a well designed vehicle based section now and again.

While the game does let you play on your own if you want to, Borderlands 2 is built to be experienced with others. Boss battles can often become a real chore on your own, and having backup can give you that extra support to turn a fight around. The combos and tactics that smart players can use to tackle enemy encounters make the game a lot less frustrating than when you are going it alone. It's also just plain fun to slaughter a horde of bandits with your pals.The second wind system that allows you to be revived by others, or to finish an enemy off to get back up, can't be utilized to it's fullest on your own either, and twice I was forced to bleed out because there were no enemies left to kill. There is a matchmaking system if your in a hurry to get into a group but you'll get the most out of co-op if you can team up with friends, that way you can communicate better and divide loot up properly instead of having everyone rush every piece of loot that drops.

Borderlands 2 is everything a sequel should be. It takes the formula that it's predecessor laid down and refines it, keeping all the things that made us fall in love with the original while simultaneously improving on all the things that needed to be improved. The gameplay is still amazing, but small tweaks have made gunfights downright thrilling at times, smarter writing has really fleshed out the world of Pandora and the people who live there, and the overall presentation gives the game a much more complete feeling. It's too easy to get lost for hours and hours wandering around, blasting through areas of enemies on a search for that next bit of loot, and the game offers enough incentive to keep coming back even without the soon-to-come DLC. Whether your looking for a great shooter game, or your looking for a great game to play with friends, Borderlands 2 delivers a great gaming experience.


Extremely Fluffy
Fluff Choice!

What Borderlands 2 Does Well

+ Perfect co-op title
+ Fun to explore and hunt down new guns and skins
+ Great gameplay mechanics
+ Well written and memorable characters and story
+ Plenty of reasons to keep playing

Where Borderlands 2 Fell Flat

- Single player can be very unfriendly
- Vehicles aren't utilized well
- Dialogue sections sometimes overrun each other

Information
Systems: PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developer: Gearbox
Publisher: 2K Games
Rating: M / PEGI 18



Image sources:
#1 - http://www.saint-ism.com/2012/05/collectors-editions-for-borderlands-2-announced/
#2 - http://daxgamer.com/2012/04/new-borderlands-2-screenshots-released/
#3 - http://i1.cdnds.net/12/28/618x347/gaming_borderlands_2_screenshot_8.jpg
#4 - http://4logpc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/borderlands2-2.png

My Seven Most Memorable Gaming Moments

This was originally going to go up on Sakurahana's blog section that I do work for but they have a character limit over there and I hit it. Worked to hard on this and put too much of myself into it to just cut it down or scrap it so it's going up here. If you read my stuff there, I'll get something else up later. If you read my stuff here, then lucky you I actually posted something! 

No offence to the many "most memorable moments in gaming" lists out there, but I rarely see games and memories that impacted me personally. Maybe that means I have really bad taste in games, or maybe that just means I am impressed by weird things. Either way, I like sharing the parts of gaming that make me happy to keep playing games, and I figure, what better way then to talk about the moments that just forced me to glue myself to a chair for hours on end. Why seven instead of a nice round number like ten or five? Because ten seemed to high and there's too many for me to narrow down to just five. That seems criminal. So seven it is. 

Oh and uh, *ahem*, there are a few ---> SPOILERS
You can't say I didn't warn you now.

7. Your Dog Dies (Fable II)

Fable II was a solid game, if a little disappointing. One of the features of the game was your dog. Though he was supposed to be so much more of a feature than he was, I still enjoyed having the dog around. The dog is with you from the start of the game, you and your sister rescue him from bullies in the opening hour of the game. From that point on he stays with you for most of the game as your loyal companion. So what better way to up the ante near the end of the story than for your dog to take a bullet for you? 

After all of your adventures, your dog saves your life because it's your best friend. From the opening moments of the game, your dog is by your side whenever possible. He fights alongside you, interacts with people you interact with, he even helps you find treasure. While the main villain, Lord Lucien, already took my sister from me at the start of the game. He followed that up by working hundreds of people to death building The Spire, a large tower that Lucien believes will grant him untold power. But when he killed my dog, I had nothing but the thought of killing that sick bastard. When the ending came around my vengeance felt hollow. The ending didn't give me the great battle I sought, nor did it allow me to really kill Lucien myself. But the second the three "epilouge choices" came up, I immediately picked the one that brought my dog back. I may not have saved the thousand or so people Lucien's evil killed, but I got my best friend back. 

6. Walking Out Of Vault 101 (Fallout 3)

Bethesda has, in my mind, become the master of drawing you into a game world. Many games have better openings, but few suck me in the way Bethesda's games do. But of all of the memorable "first steps" I've taken, this is the one that never gets old to me. In Fallout 3, your character has spent his (or her) entire life in the subterranean Vault 101, one of the last places human life survives on Earth. Or so you're taught anyhow. You see in Vault 101, no one enters, no one leaves. You live in the vault and you die in the vault. You spend the tutorial section of the game growing up in the vault with your father. Then one day he simply disappears, leaving all sorts of trouble in his wake. Though he tells you not to follow him, it becomes apparent rather quickly that you have little choice in the matter. 

After battling your way to the entrance, you finally reach the door to the outside world. A place you have been told is uninhabitable. As you emerge, the sun's brightness blinds you. After all, you have spent your whole life prior to this moment underground with artificial lighting. Then your eyes adjust, and you find yourself looking out over the wasteland that was once Washington DC. Your dad is out there somewhere, but you have no idea where. You've only just stepped foot in a whole new world (to you.) Where oh where might I head first...


5. Wandering New Mombasa Alone (Halo 3: ODST)

A great game? Not really, and probably the worst overall out of all the Halo titles. And yet, it's the one that I felt had the most potential out of all of them save the first. The reason I think that comes from the experience I had wandering the streets of the city of New Mombasa alone. Your character, simply called "The Rookie," is a member of an elite unit of marines whose job is to be be dropped from a planets orbit into the middle of a firefight. Kind of like the future's version of an airbourne division. You get dropped into the middle of a huge battle between the attacking alien species, The Covenant, and humanity. Your drop suddenly goes wrong when one of the Covenant's ships leaves the battle and sends out a shock wave that flings your drop pod off course and into the city. A few hours later you wake up, alone in the middle of the city which is now largely abandoned except for roaming enemy patrols. Your job is to simply find your squad and get out of the city. 

That experience is the part of this game that just blew me away. Taking on a large enemy patrol, sneaking by enemies when out of ammo, and just trying to survive. Something about the city itself really immersed me in the game, and the ever present sense of danger meant you could never let your guard down. The other parts of the game where you have to play as your other squad mates felt unnecessary and were more in line with the traditional Halo experience. But when I was in control of the Rookie, the game felt fresh and new. The feeling of being alone in a giant city filled with enemies was something I had never quite had before. 


4. Stalingrad (Call of Duty)

Whenever someone asks me why I used to love Call of Duty, this is the moment that pops up immediately. Back before the series was all just over the top set pieces and anger inducing multiplayer, the original Call of Duty has a simple World War II shooter that attempted to bring you into the many different fronts of the war, whether it was the Americans on D-Day, the British trying to covertly blow up a Nazi ship, or the Soviets fighting in the intense Russian winter. The missions in said Russian winter were about the most intense parts of a game I have played. When your first arrive in Stalingrad your taking a nice boat ride. Well as nice as a boat ride can be with German artillery trying to blow you up and you superior officers shooting any survivors trying to swim back to shore. Just as you reach the dock, you step off and then get knocked over as everyone else on your boat gets blown up by an artillery round. You are then shafted by the military supply officer, who gives you a single cartridge of ammo...and no gun to even fire it with. 

You spend the next fifteen minutes acting as bait for a sniper to take out targets and generally trying to do as much as you can without a weapon to defend yourself with. The battle itself is spectacular, as you watch wave after wave of Soviet troops try to over run the German position in the city. As tense as the Normandy landings have been in other shooters, the first few Soviet missions in Call of Duty tops them ever so slightly. 

3. The View of Palaven (Mass Effect 3) 

That shot right there is one of the most chillingly beautiful shots I have ever seen in a game. In the Mass Effect universe, a sentient race of machines called the Reapers comes through the galaxy every 50,000 years or so and harvests all space faring life in the galaxy. The first to games are about Commander Shepherd, the main character, first learning of the threat, and then trying to prepare for it even as the major forces in the galaxy all call the threat a myth. The third and final game of the trilogy is about the war with the Reapers itself. Though watching Earth become overrun with Reaper forces in the first hour of the game was a chilling moment in and of itself, something about seeing the war from an up close and personal perspective really brought it home for me. When your journey brings you to this battlefront, you really get a solid understanding of just how bad things are going. 

Seeing all those fires burning on the surface of the planet, and looking around on the moon and seeing all of the enemies ships and forces just drives home how one sided this war is, and how much life is at stake. I always felt like I was Commander Shepherd, but that moment gave me an insight into how much this war must weigh on him (or her) knowing all those lives are riding on him (or her.) 

2. John Marston's Death (Red Dead Redemption)

It's not my favourite game of all time, but Red Dead Redemption was an amazing game nonetheless. The characters were varied and felt real, the gameworld was fun to explore, and the story was absolutely gripping (when I got around to playing it). And having a character with a story, yet having the control of who he ultimately is was great. While some people played Mr. Marston as a criminal outlaw, and others played him as an impartial man who cared nothing for the events of the world, I played him as a man truly seeking nothing more than the freedom to live his life away from the sins of his past. Whether he regretted the actions of his past didn't matter. By tracking down and killing his former partners in crime one by one, Marston was cutting himself off from his past, in order to have a future, even if he was being forced to do it. 

After he finally kills his former gang leader, John is finally released from his service to the US government and allowed to go home...until the same men who forced him to kill all of his former gang show up with 20 officers to finish the job. It was the saddest and hopeless moment I have ever played. No matter how many of them you take with you, there's no running from his fate. For some this moment was nothing more than Marston getting what was coming to him, but for me it was a shocking and sudden end to a man who truly wished nothing more than to go home and give his family a better life than he had. Through his death, he was redeemed, and gave his family that chance (though the "epilouge" shows it was probably all or naught.) There have been some shocking deaths in gaming, but nothing reduced me to tears the way John Marston's did. 


1. Choosing My First Pokemon (Pokemon Games)

Come on, did you expect anything less coming from me? While choosing my first pokemon was a moment in and of itself, I always have the same feeling every time I start up a new game. Some people cast off their starters if they have others they want to bring in from a previous game through trades, but I always reserve a spot for my starting pokemon. No matter how bad things get, and no matter how many others I catch, my starter is my partner in the world of Pokemon. It can be either my first one out, or my ace pokemon, who turns a tough battle around. I don;t really know how better to put it. 


These are just my moments though. Obviously we are all influenced by what we play. Obviously there is a lack of some JRPG's on my list, but that'because I was raised on western titles, and that's the bulk of where the games I play today come from. That doesn't mean any other moment is any less significant. I'm curious as to what moments everyone else will never forget, just because it's interesting to see how different games and experiences impact people. 

Note: Not sure how this white stuff got here, honest. 

RIP Neil Armstrong

One of the most important men of our era passed away today at 82 years old. He may not be a gaming figure but he is, in my opinion, one of the most iconic men to have lived and is deserving of what meagre praise I can offer. Neil was an expert pilot, who served the US Navy during the Korean war, flying 78 missions, and tested planes afterwards. He was married twice and had three children However, Armstrong will forever be remembered for being the first man to set foot on another body of our solar system besides Earth. His words, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind," mark one of the most important moments of human history. Obama that he is "among the greatest of American heroes - not just of his time, but of all time." I personally feel that he is so much more than that. He is one of the men who will be remembered long into the future. When the first person sets foot on Mars it will be another large step of human history. When we live among the stars and travel vast distances to see worlds beyond our wildest imaginations we will remember the man who took the first step on that journey. Perhaps it speaks levels of his desire to help us continue that journey when two years ago, at the age of 80, Armstrong said he would gladly offer his services as commander of a mission to Mars if he were asked.


RIP Neil Armstrong
August 5th 1930
to
August 25th 2012