Metro: Last Light is not quite a masterpiece but it pushes the franchise ever closer to one
No one asks “why?” of any good apocalypse. I don’t know why Russia in Metro: Last Light was nuked into oblivion any more than I can guess about the virus in the The Walking Dead or The Road ’s cataclysm.
I can’t speculate much on the 20 years hence in Metro either; how the splintering human factions eked out life in the Moscow subway stations or the birth of the Dark Ones — antagonistic mutants who feed on the irradiated wastes above. I do know I got the Bad Ending in the first Metro game. I’d missed enough of the moral binaries (help a homeless man? Return a lost child? Listen to someone’s story? They’re not tough choices when you can find them) to fail to achieve Enlightenment. I’d been too busy watching bullets pass harmlessly through enemies’ heads as their bodies clipped and jittered maniacally around a level or fighting against a control layout that at one point just stopped responding altogether.
Eventually I settled into a strategy of sprinting madly in whatever direction my compass — which you can only look at by holstering your gun — was pointed hoping to get to the end of the level before being torn to shreds. It wasn’t a bad game — darkly atmospheric mechanically clever and with a good story — so much as badly uneven in its Xbox 360 form. Luckily you don’t have to play it to enjoy its sequel.
It takes all of 10 minutes to feel that Last Light has improved meaningfully on its previous shortcomings — simplifying a list of mechanics that when I explain them might seem kind of overwhelming (they aren’t). At its heart this Metro is still a first-person shooter with an emphasis on story stealth gameplay and exploratory scavenging with a handful of unique ideas that maintains an uneasy tension.
Pre-apocalypse military grade ammunition is the de facto currency in Metro of which you’ll never find quite enough. It’s terrifying to shoot a couple health packs worth of cash into a Puma-sized monster only to have it pounce on you and shatter your gas mask. Oh you need to wear a gas mask sometimes and when you do you’ll need to holster your gun every five minutes to put a new air filter in to keep breathing. If you kill that mutant point blank you’ll have to tap a button to wipe the blood off your mask and even then the moisture and hairline fractures in the glass remain. You’ll need to decide when to use your flashlight in part because it will draw attention to you and in part because to replenish the battery you’ll need to holster your weapon and crank a charge out of your portable generator by hand. All of this is on top of the compass thing.
These are great tense mechanics that play out differently through the stealthy escapes and desperate fire fights provided by the game’s variety of levels. You’ll feel creeping helplessness as your paltry inventory is shot out the barrel of your gun and the thrum of relief when you spot an upcoming encampment. It all informs the precariousness of the world. From the shadows and filth of the tunnels to the destroyed alien wasteland above and the packed oppressive stations themselves you’ll find atmosphere dripping down every ruined wall. The world feels real peppered with ancillary vignettes each ready to break your heart with the horrors of humanity’s new existence. That’s without spoiling an engaging story where Nazi phrenologists aren’t the strangest thing you’ll encounter.
It’s not a perfect game; the difficulty spikes a few times and the enemy AI isn’t always up to snuff. I sat through 11 minutes of what remains of the Bolshoi ballet not because I enjoyed whatever symbolism-heavy stuff was happening onstage but in hopes of getting Morality Points towards the Good Ending this time. At the end the hollow ding of an achievement popped up. “Patron of the Arts” it said. Don’t think this is art at least not yet but Metro: Last Light is a big confident step in that direction. Highly recommended.
Metro: Last Light is available now for PS3 Xbox 360 and PC through Deep Silver.
