I just decided to uninstall it after 99 hours, I had enough. Why? Here are my thoughts: The GOOD: • Fantastic atmosphere • Detailed world • Beautiful hand-drawn graphics, excellent voice acting • Wide variety of available gameplay style and characters The not-so-good • Incredibly tedious gameplay. Lore is (verbatim) all over the place. Everything must be searched and read. • Can't zoom out enough (camera angle choices are limited) • Spell & fight animations can not be skipped, accelerated or shortened. Skirmishes dreadfully long, let alone major battles (sometimes I literally went on a coffee break while all enemies had their moves, and returned with a mug of freshly brewed coffe in hand, with time to spare) • Difficulty level settings are "interesting". Example: enemy on "normal" ~400/500/1000, on "explorer" (next setting down) it is ~150/200/350. • Getting proper gear is deliberately hindered, which is not very nice for such a heavily gear-dependent game (usable traders are far and few in between, crafting was practically useless for me, drops are seriously filtered, and you can't effectively use higher level gear even if you accidentally have a lucky drop) My advise? 1) Feel free starting on Explorer straight away, there is no shame in it. Spare your nerves, the "challenges" are really not worth it. 2) Save on every corner. The game LOVES to drop uneseen/hidden/burrowed/teleporting enemies on you (but maybe not so much of a problem in Explorer mode) 3) Search the forums on the net if you stuck, straight away. Some of the mechanics/puzzles/choices are really just plain stupid, and there is no point wrecking your mind with some twisted "logic". If you follow that, maybe you will have a wonderful experience. Clearly lots of love went into creating this game, which is now completely lost on me: I can't bear the sight of it anymore after nearly a hundred hours of misery. Learn from my mistake, ignore the "challengers" on forums, and enjoy the ride :)
I just decided to uninstall it after 99 hours, I had enough. Why? Here are my thoughts: The GOOD: • Fantastic atmosphere • Detailed world • Beautiful hand-drawn graphics, excellent voice acting • Wide variety of available gameplay style and characters The not-so-good • Incredibly tedious gameplay. Lore is (verbatim) all over the place. Everything must be searched and read. • Can't zoom out enough (camera angle choices are limited) • Spell & fight animations can not be skipped, accelerated or shortened. Skirmishes dreadfully long, let alone major battles (sometimes I literally went on a coffee break while all enemies had their moves, and returned with a mug of freshly brewed coffe in hand, with time to spare) • Difficulty level settings are "interesting". Example: enemy on "normal" ~400/500/1000, on "explorer" (next setting down) it is ~150/200/350. • Getting proper gear is deliberately hindered, which is not very nice for such a heavily gear-dependent game (usable traders are far and few in between, crafting was practically useless for me, drops are seriously filtered, and you can't effectively use higher level gear even if you accidentally have a lucky drop) My advise? 1) Feel free starting on Explorer straight away, there is no shame in it. Spare your nerves, the "challenges" are really not worth it. 2) Save on every corner. The game LOVES to drop uneseen/hidden/burrowed/teleporting enemies on you (but maybe not so much of a problem in Explorer mode) 3) Search the forums on the net if you stuck, straight away. Some of the mechanics/puzzles/choices are really just plain stupid, and there is no point wrecking your mind with some twisted "logic". If you follow that, maybe you will have a wonderful experience. Clearly lots of love went into creating this game, which is now completely lost on me: I can't bear the sight of it anymore after nearly a hundred hours of misery. Learn from my mistake, ignore the "challengers" on forums, and enjoy the ride :)
I think the generic execution is good. But controls are rreally cr*p, the critics were now exaggerating this time. The constant chaking is really ruining the experience, while the blurry menu/terminal screens are just truly idiotic and annoying. I have tried to apply the fixes available on the internet. 1) controls were successfully applied, which transfromed the game "from unplayable mess" to "something actually fun", so that's good, first problem sorted (I even could actually play a bit) 2) Then I have tried to apply the fix for the unstoppable shaking and blurring effect, but no banana. After a few tries it managed to crash even the Windows kernel (!). Removed the files I have edited, but then something somewhere was already overwritten, it didn't even start anymore. 3) As for the third gripe (blurry menus/terminal screens), I couldn't find any resolution, but those are less annyoing as it is not in your face constantly. I really can't be bothered any more. I wanted to love this game, as I have loved the original on Amiga, but this is just messed up. And when I spend more time of trying to get a game work than playing it, then I know something is wrong (and I have spent just over 3 hours playing, according to GoG). This is a missed opportunity, ruined by the stubborness of the developers, sticking to their "vision", while ruining the experience for a large portion of the players. The trully insulting bit is that it could have been so easily rectified (make their "visionary features" optional in the menu - problems solved)
I bought the game just in august, delilberately delaying the experience to give it a fair chance. Well, it worked, because I didn't have any game-breaking issues: it installed and run flawlessly on my rig (3600+3060). It is not flawless: the NPCs are still dumb as f...furrballs, yes, and police behaviour is particularly stupid (no wonder there are multiple mods addressing it). Graphics-wise, frankly, I was not overly impressed : it sure looks nice, but nothing groundbreaking, especially considering the HW exectations (BF V for me looks the same level, and it runs smoothly with half the HW). RTX is particulalry "meh": I played with it for a few hours, but didn't see anything definitive (tons of YT videos confirmed the same), so eventually I just turned it off, tuned details up and enjoyed the view :) The story though...it managed to keep me engaged, to care about certain characters and to loathe others, to go and check out what the background of this or that is...in one word, the story stirred emotions in me. For that alone I'm willing to forgive all faults and be a fan. But that is not all: it gives incredible freedom of choice, from looks to different builds, from origin story to various endings. That is another huge positive for me: I think anyone can find a combination to their liking. I understand some of the criticism, and heaven knows I can agree with some too, but the game deserves to be appreciated, because after a truly sh....shunt, yes, start, it became stable and enjoyable, for the most of it. Is it perfect? Far, far from it. Is it worth your while? Hell yes, absolutley!
It's their "difficult third album" in the Metro franchise, and yet, fortunately, the game doesn't disappoint. It is being a bit different, but not too much, so it provides something new, while you can still feel that unmistakable Metro atmosphere. Gun selection restrictions not my favourite, and sometimes I was indeed pulling my hair out....but then again, I'm pondering to re-install it and go through it all over again, so that should show how "bad" it really was :) Can't coment on the DLCs, as sadly, I didnt buy it here on GOG. I wish I knew it would come to this platfrom, I would have waited!! Still, it is very good news that Exodus is available here (I hope this trend continues), and I think the game itself is well worth the investment (btw: DX11 run better and more stable for me, but your mileage may vary)
