Now Playing: Last Light

I can’t say I was the biggest fan of Metro: 2033. I thought it was a solid first person shooter, but aside from its setting, atmosphere and a few minor touches here and there relating to its unique weapons and the way it handled the UI, I wasn’t all that taken with it. It was short, very linear and, in terms of story, it became increasingly muddled. Towards the end it felt like several scenes were cut.

Ultimately, 2033 struggled to make me care. It nailed the setting, but not the characters of the world, many of whom appeared only fleetingly. But wait, I’m not supposed to be reviewing 2033 again. I suppose the question is, does Metro: Last Light address the issues I had with 2033?

For the most part, I’d say it does. Last light excels at building a living, believable world. Once again it creates an immersive and atmospheric setting, but this time we get to know some of the people who inhabit it a little better. The story is far more cohesive, taking the player on a tour of a variety of dangerous locations and situations.

It introduces characters who actually stick around for a time and play their own roles within the story. Unlike 2033, I actually cared about what was going on, and this was largely thanks to the more developed characters. Okay, so there’s nothing particularly outstanding about it, but compared to the first game it’s definitely a step up in the story and character department.

Like 2033, Last Light is a great looking game, and I was pleased to see the same neat UI features carry over, at least on certain difficulty settings. Speaking of difficulty though, playing the game on Ranger Hardcore was surprisingly easy thanks to the extremely forgiveable stealth system. You can sneak your way through entire sections without alerting a single enemy.

There’s certainly more emphasis on stealth in Last Light than in 2033. You can still take a guns blazing approach if you wish, but taking down an entire room of bad guys silently is always satisfying, even though it can be way too easy.

One thing Last Light also does better than 2033 is its exterior environments. They are more expansive and grant the player far more scope to explore and scavenge. I was a bit disappointed though by the somewhat limited enemy types, particularly the mutants. Like 2033, Last Light suffers the same issue that the creature combat just isn’t as engaging as fighting against human opponents.

Most of the mutants just follow the same charge and attack pattern. It’s not very interesting. Human bad guys at least have a few tricks up their sleeves, such as flanking, calling for reinforcements, taking cover and throwing grenades. It’s nothing spectacular, but it does the job.

I have to be honest and say that Last Light initially struggled to win me over. The first quarter or so is chopped up into lots of quite small, extremely linear levels, many of which feature ‘roller-coaster’ moments where you just sit back and watch an action set piece play out. It can be a bit irritating, but fortunately, it’s an issue that quickly begins to fade after a certain point.

Last Light, although longer than 2033, can still be cleared in about 12 hours or so. I’d say it has a little more replay value though, and the DLC packs that come with the GOTY edition do add quite a bit of decent additional content to play through.

So Last Light is certainly an improvement over 2033, but there’s still plenty of areas where it could be improved further. Overall though, if you’re looking for an immersive and enjoyable shooter, you really can’t go wrong with it.

7/10