A few weeks have passed since the release of Metro Last Light. Having read many a glowing review for the game, I set out to try it myself and hoped to be bedazzled by this hidden gem. Unfortunately, all those positive reviews were bogus. Finally getting my hands on the game, I realised just how out of touch some game reviewers are. It’s is easy to overlook flaws in games and rate them high, even though those flaws ultimately belittle any joy you might eek out. Metro Last Light is one such case. Here are 5 reasons the game simply sucks.
5. Demeaning Women
Metro Last Light does nothing to give a good name to women during the Apocalypse. No where is there a shining beacon of a proper female character, just stereotype after stereotype. Some of you will be glad to know that there is a strip club in Metro Last Light, full of scantily clad females gyrating here, there and everywhere. It is nevertheless still pathetically executed and being this is one of the few instances you get to meet female characters, is quite forgettable. The only ‘lead’ female in the game is really there simply to become enamored by Artyom (the main character, ie. you) and to simply get boned by Artyom. Pathetic.
4. Passable Story
The story in Metro Last Light – aside from demeaning women – is merely passable. There’s an air of the supernatural within the story of Metro Last Light, but given how most of the game is rooted in concrete logic, these moments become laughable rather than important. I’ll never forget getting pulled in by some mystical ‘river’ to get thrown right where the next objective is. Lucky me. Outside of the supernatural stuff, you’ve also got this supposedly important impression that during the Apocalypse, everyone is basically out there to screw each other. Whatever gang you are aligned too, apparently killing non-members nonchalantly is a way of life. Some of these guys even have such simplistic reasons behind their thirst for blood, such as a leader being fooled by his adviser. It is so hard to feel any sympathy or empathy for the characters in this game.
3. Sneaking Is Way OverPowered
We’re moving onto gameplay here. Plain and simple, sneaking is overpowered in Metro Last Light. There are videos on Youtube showcasing this, such as here. Where at first I thought I was sneaking around effectively, I later realised that the guards in Metro Last Light are blind as a bat. They can’t see even one foot in front of them, so long as you are ‘hidden’ in the dark, as shown on your watch. Sorry, but that is too easy. Sneaking was no longer a tactical choice, but instead became simply staying in the ‘dark’ areas, no matter if someone could actually look at you directly and see you. This was such a let down.
2. Awkward Gameplay In Metro Last Light
The overall gameplay in Metro Last Light is awkward. The overpowered sneaking ability is one thing, but the whole game felt clunky. This is more obvious during melee fights with creatures than shootouts with humans. Melee was awkward because your character’s movement was not fluid. Moving felt clunky and running wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to do in the game. This made any fight where the enemy gets right up in your grill particularly annoying. Add on to this the fact that knives were WAYYY stronger than guns in this game too. Guns take ages to kill, but knives? One hit kills. Immersion killing, not that the game was immersive to begin with). A little note too on the filters required in the game. It’s weird because the filters were plentiful where travel was mostly linear, but rare where there was open space. You couldn’t really explore much out in open areas (not that the game had many anyway), and so the filters became restrictive in this regard. Not exactly fun. Of course, you could save yourself filter time by constantly putting on and taking off your gas mask or diving into swamps, but the game should’ve just been designed better.
1. Bugs & Glitches Galore
What can I say, Metro Last Light has a lot of bugs and glitches. Maybe it was just my copy (well no, I know I wasn’t the only one), but damn, I had a lot of bugs in my playthrough. From bosses glitching out to weird moments where enemies wouldn’t attack you and you couldn’t kill them. All of them just added up to destroy any sort of fun I could’ve had with the game. You can see a variety of glitches in the game in this Youtube video here.
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Would the game have been better without these glitches? Most definitely, but in the end, all the other complaints I had were valid enough that even if the game had no bugs or glitches whatsoever, I’d still be filled with regret at having wasted money on the game. The bugs and glitches just compound that.
What say you? Was Metro Last Light perfect in your eyes? Did you experience any bugs and glitches too? Or are you as disappointed as me?