Metro 2033 – Preview

There will be times when you need to go to the surface as well. In these instances you need to wear a gas mask. Your gas mask only works for a short amount of time (indicated by the watch Artyom wears) and you need to constantly be on the look out for canisters that will give you more time. Additionally, your gas mask can break if you take too much damage from enemies. You will see it start to crack which could potentially make it harder to see. At that point it is a good idea to switch gas masks if you can so you will want to keep your eyes open to see if you find any laying around. This is a first person shooter so all of the action is right in your face. It actually can look pretty cool as you see cracks starting to appear in your mask.

This is also one of those shooters were ammo is scarce. There are two basic types of ammo in the game. There is ammo that you can buy underground that has been created from other things. Then there is the military grade ammo. The military grade ammo is ammo that you find up on the surface that was manufactured prior to the nuclear holocaust. This military grade ammo is incredibly popular and serves two purposes. The most obvious one is that you can use it in your weapons and it is more effective then the ammo you can buy underground. The second purpose is that since it is so popular and hard to come by, military grade ammo has become the currency underground. You can and will use the military grade ammo to buy various things underground, to upgrade existing items and more. This presents an interesting dilemma while you are playing the game. Do you use this ammo in battle (essentially throwing away your money) or do you try and save it? There will also be some moral dilemmas where you can give some of the ammo to someone in need and things of that nature.

Our biggest complaint once our preview session was over was the lack of ammo in the game. The game can be pretty hard (even on the easier settings) which some people will really enjoy and some people will really hate. Now keep in mind we only played through the first couple hours of the game and the game is still in the process of getting tweaked before it hits store shelves next month. Overall the game does show promise and hopefully it all comes together. It’s coming out during a heavily loaded release schedule (which isn’t the best time to release a new IP), however, be sure to make some time to at least try this game out and form your own opinion.  At the moment Metro 2033 is a XBox360 exclusive with no indication whether we will see a PS3 version.