Metro: Fast Light

I played Metro 2033 fourteen years ago when it first released, wholly unfamiliar with the landmark post apocalyptic Russian IP that it is. As a younger human, I was fully entrenched in Fallout and my history classes and the whole intrigue of post apocalyptia and the Cold War. Another thing that factored in with my age and playing Metro was that I was more tolerant on the mechanics of FPS titles than I should have been. I've learned twice now, once with Bioshock and playing it recently versus playing release year, and now with playing Metro Last LIght in 2024 versus 2033 in 2010, that these games did not age very well in the shooty shoot department. Of course in Metro's case that's not the catch all of its intrigue, that would be the psychological thriller and slight horror approach that the narrative and setting of the series calls home. A fragmented Russian society that operates underground alone railroad lines and the paranormal involved with a nuclear world guides our stories. Our silent Artyom in the first two titles must run, hide, and survive in the subterranean and even in the hazardous surface in his missions to prolong the survival of his people. That's why we play Metro.

This is a short review for a short game, it took me seven or so hours and it wasn't necessarily pleasant. Now, pleasant isn't an apt word to describe really anything in an IP as naturally dark as this one, but I mean it well. Mechanically the gameplay is milquetoast, combat is extremely one note and your enemy variety/AI is almost as basic as it can get. The setting, naturally restricted because of the nature of the series (a lot of vents, railways, tight segments) does get to you in its monotony. The pace of the Last Light is also frustratingly slow at points, with many many many lackadaisical walking segments where you're trailing a soliloquy-ing NPC for what feels like years. Lastly the story was... okay. It gets out there and that's what you're in for with Metro but to me it felt a little silly at times? Its naturally paranormal and as a result of the actions of 2033 you are in direct contact with elements of science fiction, but visually its hard to take seriously due to the age of the game and some not great effects work. Balancing between the extra-terrestrial threat and the human one and the conclusion that follows felt a bit cheesy to me and lost what I imagine was supposed to be some emotional weight.

I wouldn't recommend Metro Last Light to people, but if you've played 2033 recently and appreciated it, then maybe this is the game for you. It's nothing new and the gameplay feels older than the game itself is. It's short and I got it for free on the Epic Games Store, and that was the right price.

Reviewing Episode I (The only episode out at time of release, will update review as more comes out.)

Fallen Aces is a pretty damn cool immersive sim, and my highlight out of nowhere hit of 2024. The 1950's comic book sheen is slapped all across this game, from the impeccable jazz soundtrack to the gritty noir vibes of the environments, to the way the goons interact and how the story is told, and man... does it make for an awesome cartoon like vibe. When I saw the trailer for this title at Summer Games Fest, I thought it looked neat on the surface but initially wrote it off as a beat 'em up indie that was trying to fish people in on some beautiful art work with presumably not much behind the surface. I'm really glad to see and say firsthand that I was wrong. Impressions from friends and folks on Steam and Backloggd implored me to purchase and dedicate just a few hours to the first episode of the game which exists in five separately located chapters. Each of these chapters operates under varying parts of the same narrative, a detective hunted and on the loose trying to get to the bottom of the disappearances and murders of a city's heroic protectors. You begin your journey with a simple task, escape the goons zeroing in on your location with your head as their goal which quickly devolves into a devious mystery full of (comically simple, and I mean comically like literally a comic) twists and turns. The narrative is easy to parse and follow, and surely doesn't take itself too seriously, which I greatly appreciated for a title in this narrative genre. I enjoyed the way you interact with characters, friends and foes alike, giving life to the city you're exploring and the story at hand.

Fallen Aces is ostensibly an immersive sim, complete with the cathartic secrets and seemingly endless alternate methods of completion that objectives have. I generally think I'm not the best or brightest when it comes to exploring hidden paths and utilizing item combinations/notes to get into areas that were previously unavailable, but I will say Fallen Aces does a phenomenal job rewarding in making secret and puzzle solutions feel naturally intuitive. I felt like I was genuinely intelligent in the way that I could stack objects and make walls for myself to get to places that appeared unreachable, and that I could kick or throw certain objects to get into places that were fenced off/hidden from the apparent eye. In the same way that Metroidvania's need to do things right to succeed for me, Fallen Aces did for Im-sims. It made me want to search for and solve secrets, I felt vindicated when I did so and went out of my way to expand runtime on each of the game's five chapters so I could nab as many secrets as I could find without looking anything up.

Gameplay, vibes, presentation... Fallen Aces has it all and is my surprise smash hit of the year. I look forward to see what the developers have in store for the rest of the narrative and gameplay that will ensue. I highly recommend Fallen Aces to fans of Im-sims and newbies alike!

With potential to become one of the all time greatest DLC's ever made, Fromsoft's Elden Ring swan song falls just a couple steps short from being their greatest... yet still has a lot to love.

Unfortunately, I won't be providing a longform review for this as I was struggling pretty badly with a case of food poisoning and subsequent dehydration for the first few days of release. That being said, Shadow of the Erdtree continues to display what Miyazaki and company did so well with Elden Ring. As is customary with From, their DLC's add incredible depths to lore, locations, and combat... and it's all on full display here. My mouth was open in awe at several of the areas within SotE, as they are filled with detail and colour that I haven't seen done so well in gaming before. The legacy dungeons are intricate as ever, and filled with nooks and crannies that beg the player base to explore them to their fullest extent for neat gear and new paths to tread. I also greatly appreciated the majority of the difficulty tuning for the expansion with the existence of the Scadutree and Revered Spirit Ashes fragments that power up your character and summons respectively. This made the progression of the expansion feel natural and almost no boss or area feel too difficult.

Where the expansion greatly waned for me was, as many across the interwebs are lamenting about, the final boss of the expansion. As usual, I don't include spoilers in my reviews and I won't here but I will give a few of my grievances with this enemy that won't give anything away. The most egregious to me is the performance, with a 3090 and similarly up to date hardware within my PC no game should be dropping me to sub twenty-five FPS when a boss uses a move, unfortunately that happened here and tarnished (heh) my movements and my general enjoyment of the fight. Secondly, visual clutter within this fight is excessive. There's a lot of similarly coloured moves flying at you from all angles, all the time. You can in theory parse these out after getting used to their patterns and approaches, but there was a heightened frequency of me just not being able to understand which move was which because so much was flying right at my character in the same manner of the same appearance. Third, it's way too damn difficult. I beat the final boss of Bloodborne on my second try, I beat the majority of bosses in this DLC in less than five, I generally feel that other than gimmick fights that were annoying (Capra Demon in DS1 as an example,) that Sekiro notwithstanding, most of the DLC's in Fromsoft's catalog have been difficult, yet fair once you understood and learned. With this boss, I felt the build that I had used to clear house from DLC start to end was completely unviable, I felt like any skills I had learned throughout playtime were useless. It does not respect you as a player and will overwhelm you with one to two hit kill moves and sometimes seven or eight attacks in a row. It has AoE's that stretch the whole map following the player, a heightened aggro towards the player, and has several nearly unblockable (feeling) mechanics. There's an element of "git gud" always present, but I didn't feel like this was fair here. After a while of trying out my useful STR build, I went heavy on a block heavy shield-lance build that allowed me to effectively perma block my way through the bosses unending onslaught of attacks. I spent way too long here, a place that could have been a really epic way to end an otherwise incredible expansion to my GOTY of 2022.