Metro Exodus

The creators of ME were among the people that worked on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, and it shows. Once again, they bring a post-apocalyptic Russia (which, in some cases, is no different from regular Russia) to life with nary a false note. Anyone from the former Soviet Union that plays the game will confidently say, “Yes, this is my country”. The graphics are very impressive, some crude textures and outdated facial animations notwithstanding, and all the locations are memorable. The widely-advertised ray tracing and DLSS technologies deserve mention, since ME is one of the first games to feature them. Unfortunately, there is not much to be said. All DLSS seems to do is make distant objects blurry, and the effects of ray-tracing (other than the fps drop) are so subtle that you could never tell if it were on or off. In fact, when you compare screenshots, the lighting seems less realistic when ray tracing is on. At any rate, with RTX off, the game runs smoothly; there are some fps drops, but not so big as to impair the gameplay. As I said, all the locations are memorable and distinct, marked by a great attention to detail, which is what makes them so lifelike, beautiful, and, in some cases, scary — scarier, in fact, than some games that brand themselves as “horror”. Overall, attention to detail is one of the game's strongest points; for example, when an NPC offers you a key, and you choose to take it, your character will actually reach out and grab that key, and it's the same with a myriad other small things. You have to take care of your weapons and gear, and, unlike some (I'm looking at you, Far Cry 5), Metro offers you a ton of customization options. Whatever your playstyle, you can create a gun that suits it. All the weapons are fun to shoot, but, if stealth is your thing, your knife (or fists, depending on whether or not you want to go lethal) is all you need. Silently clearing out enemy outposts was my favorite part of the game, by far. Whether or not you kill your enemies does matter and is reflected in subsequent dialogue and events. Speaking of dialogue, there is a lot, and I mean A LOT. There are few notes throughout the game, and they are all short, which is a wise decision (as far as I'm concerned, there shouldn't be any reading in such games at all), but the game overcompensates by making you watch custscenes that feel like they last forever. They should have broken those up into shorter ones, in my opinion. The Russian voice acting is not exactly bad, but it is obvious the English dialogue was written first and then translated, which results in some awkward phrasing, and some of the actors sound stilted. The game's only real flaw, however, is that it is too short. Only the Caspian Sea location has enough content; the rest of them are over before you know it, even if you take the time to explore them thouroughly, and the last one is almost entirely underground. I feel like there is a chapter missing, and I understand why, but no one said getting an 8 from me was easy.