Should I get Metro 2033?

[Dawn1113]

Hi there. I'm new to gaming on PC and am only now learning how to really enjoy them. I'm looking to expand my experience a little and am thinking of getting Metro 2033. I've heard good things about it and have looked at a few uploaded gameplay on Youtube. It looks fantastic and the plotline seems promising
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I understand this game is quite demanding on hardware. I like eye candy, like everybody else. It's also important to me that I get smooth gameplay in singleplayer at the very least. But I don't really mind turning my settings down once I game online.

I also favor games that have a strong, re-playable singleplayer foundation over those that offer good online gaming but have poor singleplayer campaigns. (There are few games that I play exclusively in campaign mode over and over again, in fact, no online gaming at all.) So should I get this game or would I be wasting time and money?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Marnomancer]

You can read up the reviews on IGN or GameSpot. You'll get all the info needed.
Personally, I'm a Halo Fanboy. Rip out those alien guts!
The crux of this game, like Resident Evil, Half Life 2, is that you must know how to use a crowbar once you run out of ammo. Haha.
And, like Halo and Resident Evil, you must have nerves of steel and a strong stomach accompanied by quick fingers, for the more-than-often sudden guest appearances. If you satisfy these needs, you can think about hardware requirements.

 

[dividebyzero]

If you like the survival-horror genre then Metro 2033 is very good game. Based on a strong storyline ( book by Dmitry Glukhovsky), good gameplay mechanics and little leeway in how to complete the tasks - via stealth or firepower, or a mix which adds a degree of replay ability. Very atmospheric and communicates the claustrophobic nature of the tunnel enviroment. This also makes the game fairly dark as you can imagine.

If you've played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series ( Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, Call of Pripyat) then the feel of the game is similar since the design team for M2033 originally worked on the STALKER early builds, although M2033 is nowhere near as vast as the STALKER game area, task/mission component, or RPG elements (trading, upgrade system, health maintainance etc.)

Here's a few screens from the Shadow of Chernobyl (Narodnaja Solianka mod - which basically turns the game into a 3-6 month long singleplayer game covering ~30 maps and 300+ tasks/missions + very large freeplay and added political/faction component with multiple story branching) - full sized (1920x1080) screens in the forum gallery

 

[EXCellR8]

If you ask me STALKER walks all over Metro in nearly every way, so there's barely a comparison.

Metro 2033 may have nice graphics, but it was super linear and the guns all felt incredibly ineffective. It was a lot of dark cramped boring gun play and bad scripted sequences. It had its moments but at the end of the day the best part was knowing you never had to play it again once it was finished. I loved the atmosphere and the story but the game just wasn't very good.

The new one is due out this year I believe, it's called Metro Last Light... might be a good idea to skip out on 2033 and wait. But then again it's only $19.99 on Steam

 

[treetops]

Metro 2033 demo, I played it a bit thought it was unique and had awesome graphics, idk if it has multiplayer, have you tried fallout3?

 

[Dawn1113]

Hey, thanks for the tips, guys. I have to admit, I don't do very well in certain hand-to-hand fighting situations. A crowbar, as pointed out by Marnomancer, sounds daunting. My reflexes aren't that sharp yet. So I'm sure I'll get butchered some, but hey, that's part of the fun, I think. For me, it's when a game actually starts to make you desperate for the next checkpoint that gaming is at its best and immersion is most intense.

I'm afraid I've never played Halo, Fallout 3 or STALKER. I've heard of these games (I think my brother has Halo on his OC'ed PC) and read some reviews. They sound equally impressive. The screenshots above look terrific. I'm looking forward to trying them out one by one. The three-month campaign sounds awesome!

But I should mention that I don't plan on overclocking any part of my system soon. It's going to remain all stock until I learn a bit more. That may take quite a while since I don't have a natural aptitude for electronics. So can stock machines run these games smooth -- with a nice bit of eye candy, perhaps? They all (Metro 2033 included) sound like they require substantially overclocked hardware.

 

[LNCPapa]

If your profile info is correct I think you'll be able to play any of the games mentioned just fine. Maybe not completely maxed out, but at medium to high on all STALKERs and Metro and maxed on the other games.

 

[Marnomancer]

Bioshock is also a good title.

Halo isn't that demanding...it runs quite well on my lamentable rig.
Spoiler ahead!: The scary thing about Halo is not the skill of the Sangheili Elites, but the Flood. When you first arrive, you can't see any other living organisms than the Marines and Covenant. But, the sudden, unexpected encounter with the Flood will make you spray out your Coke (If you drink and play. No pun intended.). When you tip-toe the maps, it's the Japanese Resident Evil-Style audio that makes you break into a cold sweat (Use headphones for best effects). That furious clicking and zombie groans...urgh..

P.S.: You haven't heard of Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, apparently. That one, on Soldier of Fortune difficulty, can be a real pain in the ar*e, because you can rarely pinpoint where the bullets are coming from, and enemies always know where you're going to be in the next 2 seconds. Not the mention the (apparently) mutated canines that are difficult to notice in the tall Colombian grass. But the gore spatter makes up as a revenge. Haha.

 

[Dawn1113]

Yes, the components listed on my system specs are accurate. My brother noted them down for me. The two 470s were on his PC originally: his donation to my system. I'd say the pair performs well, but I'd overclock them a bit if I knew how and had the experience. I'm hoping they will hold me over until the end of the year at stock speeds. A lot of good titles are due for release this year, and then there are the likes of the games mentioned here which I haven't even tried yet. (I'm getting Halo and Bioshock soon, though, as I'm 99.9% sure I can chip away at my brother's resolve to keep them on his rig.)

 

[Marnomancer]

Your rig is good. Your Experience Index will tell you more. I don't think you'll need to OC anytime soon, but if you need to, let me know. My rig would've been history if not for OC. I'm good at it. (No boasting). Or better still, go to overclockers.com and check the i-series OC guide.
Happy fragging,
Marnomancer.