METRO 2033

Quote from Sentura

i get a feeling this is gonna be one of those games are art things. no, no matter what the interface is not part of the game. you wouldn't judge a hotel just by its lobby, or a restaurant by its facade or interior rather than its food. while there are valid criticisms for interfaces of any kind, these are not what distinguish game quality (and certainly we can have a brilliant game despite a bad interface).

Well, I see you got your opinion on the matter, and I got mine. But personally, of course I would judge an hotel in part for its lobby, and a restaurant in part for its interior. Eating in a smelly basement with cockroaches running around isn't going to leave me a great impression even if the food is amazing. What I was meaning to say is that, yes, a great game can exist with a bad interface, but it shouldn't, and a bad interface isn't going to get people to consider it a great game. It's not exactly the game, but it's part of the experience and of the feeling it's going to leave on you, even if it's not as important as the actual game.

Quote from Sentura

i don't think i have ever heard of anyone complaining about the interface in a game being part of the gaming experience, so i'll have to disagree. so yes, a game can still be brilliant despite a worse than average interface (not saying that metro 2033 is).

Did you ever play Borderlands on the PC? Fun game, but the interface...good god!

You dont think the reason why you've never heard anyone complain about interfaces in games before is because

1) You haven't read many good reviews

2) An interface isn't that hard to make in most cases, and it will take a lot to fuck it up, so encountering a bad interface isn't common. (But it is still valid as a criticism, because it detracts from the whole game experience if it is bad).

The game is by no means bad, it's remarkably competent compared to many other games from the eastern block. It owes much of it's fun to the great atmosphere they created and I'm grateful they stuck good high res textures for PC gamers. But the purposefully annoying decision do stick out for me, and the gameplay while fun just never go's in to the territory of brilliant either by adding a twist or doing it so good it makes other games look bad. It's a good game I would say 8 out of 10.

edit: also game would have been better if you could carry all the weapons you wanted. As would many games.

Wouldn't even work for me. Just kept freezing after the pub and dev intros, even after reading how to fix it. Gave up.

I'm on "Outpost" level (right after

Quote

"Child" escort on back

level). I don't have any filters to gas mask... Doh, pure block...

Picked it up on sale from Steam over the weekend. Really terrific atmosphere, digging the story and setting, and the gunplay is alright. I'm not too keen on the sections involving human bad guys, but the parts in the tunnels with the mutants and other little surprises are absolutely awesome.

There are a few irritating bugs though. I'm out of filters, so I can't take off the gas mask, and the damn thing just refuses to break, so it's a little irritating looking at the world through a half-shattered visor.

The stealth segments would be really great if there was some grey area between the human AI being oblivious to your presence and every enemy knowing exactly where you are at all times. They put in all those cool elements like knocking over objects, broken glass, and sound traps to give away your position, so going the extra mile to add the guards searching for you would have really enhanced those parts of the game.

Glad to hear they're doing a sequel. Hopefully this one is doing well so they can afford that extra polish on the bugs and AI to make the next one really shine.