INDUSTRIA

I spent the first hour or so just moving up and down stairs and ramps. When I thought the game was finally getting started, I found out I needed to find matches, turn water on, then light a furnace of some kind, and I realized I was playing a worse version of Kings Quest, perhaps crossed with a worse (if possible) version of Myst. Also, the controls weren't very good, which didn't help.

Actually I liked the game very much, it's a mixture of shooter and survival game. But unfortunately, after the train sequence the game gets incredibly slow (FPS drops down below 10!). It becomes in fact unplayable. This is a known issue and we can only hope there will be a patch to fix this.

And to be perfectly honest, I am not much of a fan of Bioshock. As a long time Half Life series fan, I have no idea why people keep comparing this to HL. Metro can be compared to Half Life... but apart from some ideas arguably stolen it has nothing in common other than being a FPS. Pretty weak story set in Germany during the fall of the wall. You play as a woman scientist uncovering what is basically an alternate reality, reaching it through a machine BUT. There is nothing sciency coming from this woman apart from oogling at the machine and following basic chemistry instructions on a blackboard. There also is no backstory on how she can shoot just as well as Gordon Freeman. She just... picks up guns and starts murdering AI machines. Nothing in the story suggests her having any kind of field training. It's just.... I don't know. If you were into Bioshock you probably might want to give this one a try for the atmosphere, other than that perhaps you're incredibly bored and want anything that resembles a FPS maybe. Otherwise you can safely skip it and actually go play Half Life, Black Mesa or even Metro.

**Let me pregface this by saying I received this game for free via Prime/Twitch loot crate** Nonetheless, for such a small, indie team this game is solid. You can feel the Half Life 2 inspiration in just about every part of this game - hell, they even credited the HL2 team in the credits; The surrounding environments of Hakavic are extremely reminiscient of City 17. I love how they took a page right out of Valve's playbook as far as level design - the environments are open, but they guide the player through the levels; There's nowhere you can go that will take you too far from where you need to be, and there's always visual clues that point you in the right direction, and the game doesn't tell the player how to play and make your way around (like in Portal or HL - never any instructions, just kinda threw you into it). This game features combat, but not to where it's overwhelming - just enough to where you are always on your guard when you walk through a doorway, down a dark hall, enter a new area, etc. Weapons in this game don't carry too much ammo, but for the amount of actual combat you come across it really isn't much to worry about. Also the flashlight mechanic is odd - you can collect batteries to give it a charge, but if the battery dies out it just gets a little dimmer... I was stressing trying to find a battery only to be mildly inconvenienced. The story is nothing new - AI bad - but it's vague enough to keep you invested and immersed in the beautiful landscape designed by the devs; The bits of story they give out are collected through notes, occassional conversation with Brent, and through Lynchian cutscenes between chapters, which feature a black and white office-space and a theater stage. There are some tricky spots where the game not telling you much of anything is to its detriment, but honestly it's not much that would take away from the overall experience. Def get this game, especially if you're a fan of HL; I just wish it was longer in total.

There are few enemies, game is too dark in some places, enemies are dumb af and are hardly a threat. Nice story and game is very short, is works in its favor.