One of the reasons for the success of the novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky “Metro 2033” is in win -win setting. Moscow metro is more than just a transport system. This is a living legend, a valid monument to communism named after.AND. Lenin. One hundred and eighty stations and more than seven million people who descend and rise underground daily. At the same time, a simple audience does not see and a tenth part of everything that the metro accommodates: passengers sit in wagons, the composition touches, shakes in pitch darkness for several minutes, and then emerges at the next station. This is almost like a teleportation: there is the start and final points, and what happens between them is strongly incomprehensible.
Looking behind the scenes of the Moscow metro is a dream, comparable with childhood desire to find out at all costs, what the parents do in the bedroom to such secret. You do not need to be a detective or a conspiracyologist to understand: there are much more interesting things in tunnels and strokes than at stations. Have you ever been able to look into inconspicuous hatches, from which techniques and repairmen periodically get out? Have you tried to look around when the train stops in the tunnel? Have the signs with the inscription "Women's shower" and "Phone" in the middle of smoked pipes and dusty distillations?
But this is so, real little things, routine things for any metro employee. But what if you look deeper? Metro-2, underground laboratories, bomb shelters, experiments (of course, sinister)-any normal person should be interesting if you do not personally get to the bottom of the truth, then at least speculate on this topic.
Be respected
In the book, Glukhovsky let the fog in full: post-apocalypse, mutants, ominous ghosts in pipes and blind dead mannibals at the Victory Park station. You can't come up with a more successful literary basis for video games. Especially considering that the Metro 2033 goes not only in the CIS, but also abroad. For Western man, the Moscow metro is the same intriguing thing as Putin and the “mysterious Russian soul”. IN 4A Games This is perfectly understood – perhaps that is why the game has so many Soviet posters, vodka, songs for guitar, earflaps and gas masks.
It would seem that the conditions are better nowhere. There is a ready -made script in which there are few memorable characters, dialogs in essence, but quite a lot of action. There is a detailed setting. Varieties of weapons and the features of the behavior of monsters were also meticulously listed in the book. At the same time, the developers had to solve the most important problem: how to make the player interesting? After all, tunnels and metro communications are not the most picturesque place in the world, and if you thoughtlessly start monsters and angry men in gas masks – it turns out to be the devil who knows that. Level design and design in general, setting and balance – all this had to be monitored especially carefully, in case of error, the whole structure would immediately crumble.
We are happy to inform: most of the underwater stones developers quite successfully managed to get around. So, “Metro 2033” is a linear shooter that looks like dozens of games at once: to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. , on Half-Life (mainly on the first part), on BIOSHOCK And even a little on You are empty. The gameplay can be divided into three parts: completely staged scenes are replaced by walks in the open air (we go along a given route, periodically shoot off the monsters) and shootings in a closed space. In the latter case, 4A Games includes such a “chamber Sandbox”: multi -storey architecture, enemies everywhere, and how exactly to deal with them – everyone’s personal business.
We could serve in intelligence
With the help of these three gamed -designed techniques, the developers manage to beat almost any situation from the book. The plot in general repeats the events of the source. The main character named Artem goes to the policy (an underground city located in the premises of the former. stations "Arbat", "Library for them. Lenin ”and“ Borovitskaya ”) in order to protect the native station“ Riga ”from the attacks of the ominous race of“ black ” – the latter, by the way, according to 4a Games, are very reminiscent of filthy aliens from cheap science fiction.
And it begins: the first trip on the valley, the first timid run along the dark tunnel, the first exit to the surface … The Metro 2033 works on battered gamemeraduer principles, but events replace each other at a crazy speed – and not a non -original mechanics usually once complain. Here is a shootout with bandits, here is a daring raid on an enemy outpost using armored trolley, here is a breakthrough through the front line in the middle of a violent battle between the Nazis and the Communists, here is the chase, but the horror scene begins: there are not enough cartridges, from the tunnels there is a continuous stream of rod of some then the biting Brandashmys, the first -aid kit are over, and in this situation we need to run to the opposite end of the station and minute the underground transition.
And closer to the end of the game, when it seems to you that you have already seen everything, the developers will stuff Artem into the Lenin library: there, recall, ominous monkey -like monsters live, which is almost impossible to kill in an open battle. Moreover, in no case should they turn their backs to them – they will regard as weakness and wiped off. You have to carefully back up, not taking your eyes off the monster, but as soon as the case is presented, it is to drape.
There is nothing in the Metro 2033 that we would not see in other games. But at the same time, for some reason, I really want to go to the end. Perhaps because the developers with the dexterity of a professional thimble braid other people's ideas – it turns out great. When necessary, they turn on a fierce shootout. When the shooting is bored – they give a little walk around the peaceful station, stock up on new weapons, cartridges and medicines. Well, when the eyes begin to wate from the hopeless darkness, the player is expelled to fresh air: in the columns – hoarse breath, glass of gas mask interfere with the review, which, as the filter is worn, are covered with treacherous vapor, and in the end – with an icy crust.
Without appropriate administration permission
According to the Rules for using the Moscow metro, “these Rules are mandatory for all persons in the subway. Failure to comply with the requirements of these Rules entails administrative liability in accordance with the Code of the city of Moscow on administrative offenses ". Watching employees of Gamery studied the behavior of the characters of the game "Metro 2033" and found a number of gross violations
2.11.20. [Prohibited] to breed bonfires less than 10 m behind the fence and in the territories inside it on the ground sections of the metro line, as well as less than 25 meters from the ventilation kiosks.
2.11.14. [It is forbidden to use the territory of the subway for entrepreneurial and other activities without the written permission of the metro leadership, as well as trade in unidentified places.
2.11.1. [It is forbidden] to drink beer and drinks made on its basis, alcohol and alcohol -containing products, consume narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, and appear in a state of intoxication.
2.11.26. [Prohibited] not comply with the legitimate requirements of the people's combatant in the performance of his duties to protect public order.
2.6.2. It is forbidden to move through an unemployed escalator without the permission of the subway workers.
2.10.5. [It is forbidden to transport animals and birds outside the cells or special containers (bags) in the subway].
Our mothers in helmets and armor
Here – level design and atmosphere. In the early interviews, the developers were very proud of the existing, as it seemed then trifles: for example, the fact that in the game you need to personally, using a special button, change the filter at the gas mask, recharge the flashlight with a pocket dynamo and manually injure the pressure in the cylinders of the pneumatic weapons.
Then it seemed to everyone that 4A Games was simply show off, but now it became clear why they needed to torment the players like that. At least seventy percent of the time, the hero "Metro 2033" spends underground. All this time they are trying to devour it every minute, shoot, take hostages or call it with a bad word.
Now imagine: we are in the middle of an intense fight. They kill in the game quickly, so there is no time to think – you need to maneuver, shoot back. And then the air suddenly ends in the cylinder of the pneumatic corner-accuracy and range fall dramatically, getting into someone becomes almost impossible. And what to do if, say, in a full monsters tunnel, the hero suddenly sits out a flashlight? Or (already on the surface) a filter for a gas mask will run out – where you will look for a new?
Add to this a constant lack of cartridges and the pressing feeling that you are experiencing while in a musty stage in several tens of meters underground – and you will understand why it is physically unpleasant to be in the world of Metro 2033. And this is the largest compliment to the creators of the game.
Our children swear obscenities
I really want to believe in the Metro 2033, but it turns out somehow through force. Although it is clear that the developers tried very hard (when we were in the 4a Games office, almost every studio employee considered it his duty to approach us and ask about impressions), the Slavic roots of the games stick out literally from everywhere. The front animation was as if borrowed from the vile pre -crisis domestic shooters: all the characters seemed to be pumped up with Botox, and now they will helplessly move their lips, make strange faces and cause an irresistible desire to spread them a slap. Opponents in the prevalization version of the game also behaved more than strange.
While the hero was outside the zone of their visibility, they were mainly engaged in the fact that they walked around their rooms and shouted in a bad voice (“I see you! Falled, switched off!"). As soon as Artem caught his eye – they immediately opened fire from all the guns, but, hiding around the corner, one could not be afraid of persecution. Иногда у AI, впрочем, случались проблески сознания, но и в этом случае они деликатно выжидали минуту-полторы, прежде чем начать закидывать героя гранатами.
Plus, unexpected problems with the production. Most of the time everything seems to be normal: every now and then there are a KAT scenes with the beating and attack of monsters, in the right places the hero honestly hallucinates. But, for example, the scene with the first visit to the policy – pure water switches: the local Council of Elders seems to have to decide the fate of the Riga station. The player at this moment rubs his hands and waits for an epic scene now: the leaders of the people scream, splash out to each other glasses of water, pathetically raise Space Wins Casino their hands to the sky … Instead, we are shown a rapidly rotating dial of the watch, after which they explain without unnecessary ceremonies that the meeting is over, please get acquainted with the verdict. And even the policy itself is not really shown: the camera flies past the fantastic beauty of the station, after which Artem is spurly sent to the next task.
There are also very small, but unpleasant problems. Say, the damage system: many enemies in the game wear armored helmets and gas masks. It is logical that with such equipment, even a shot in the head does not always turn out to be fatal (first you need to at least knock down a helmet from the enemy). But what to do in cases where a perfectly calculated shot in the neck does not kill the enemy? What is there, in fact, it turns out that the hedshots in the “Metro 2033” almost never work: as if we are not playing for a heavily -armed fighter, but for a very purposeful sadist who shoots his victims from traumatic weapons until they are firing for them Do not die in terrible agony from pain shock.
In general, everything is somehow strange with weapons in the game: for example, in the version showed to us, shotgun are almost useless, and the most ordinary gun, on the contrary, helped out more than once in the most difficult battles. As the developers explained to us, the fact is that different types of weapons are good against various types of enemies, and the same shotgun is recommended to be used against monsters. Alas, no one speaks about this directly in the game, and then – even after such explanatory work of worthy use, we could not find it.
* * *
Nevertheless, we have good news for those who are suffering from the soul for Slavic developers more than the successes of the Russian national football team: 4A Games did everything. Moreover, as it turned out, the game from the Metro 2033 is even better than the book. In general, everything that we really wanted to complain about while reading the book of Glukhovsky, the game looks surprisingly natural: strained dialogs are drowned out by the roar of armored trolleys, and complex moral problems completely fly out of his head as soon as the hero is under a hail of fascist bullets.
The bar that 4a Games took is still low: they have a worthy, competitive shooter, who is not a pity to devote eight to ten hours of free time (by modern standards the game is quite long) and get sincere pleasure from this. And this is already worth a lot.
P.S. As for the bugs and optimization (a sore topic for all Russian -speaking games), then we have nothing to say here – we took place on the computer in the developers' office, and all the time we were able to find only one noticeable bug: if we leave the game for several minutes , she automatically turned to the desktop. We also have no complaints about the performance of this version of the game, but, remembering what happened to " S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear sky " And Disciples 3 , We advise you to be vigilant. So, just in case.
Reigracy – No
Cool plot – No
Originality – No
Easy to master – Yes
Evidence of expectations: 80%
Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 8
Sound and music: 8
Interface and management: 9
Waited? The shooter about the metro, which shamelessly borrows ideas from the cult games of the last decade, but does it so deftly that I don’t even want to swear.
Mania rating: 8.0
"Great"