Metro 2033 review

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WabeWalker

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This article has been translated by Google, since it wasn't written in English - but you can get the gist of what it's about if you read through it quickly.

They gave the game a 7 out of 10 for the PC - very poorly optimized was the verdict. The reviewer even seemed to suggest that the graphics were a bit of a mixed bag. At the bottom of the article some other reviewer played the 360 version, and he said the game was extremely polished, and awarded Metro with an 8 out of 10.

The most damaging sentence: "... the PC version does not feel ready..."

http://www.n4g.com/pc/NewsCom-490788.aspx?CT=1#Comments

Also, take a look at the comments below the article (on the page I've linked to). We tend to see a lot of that sort of thing pre-release. People wanting to defend a game that they haven't played. I'm not saying that they don't have interesting comments to make, or that their points aren't valid, but too often we see people getting pissed off when a game they've wanted to succeed hasn't scored high enough for them. They want to blame the reviewer for that. I think that if the game isn't nearly as polished as the 360 version then it probably isn't deserving of a high score?

But I love the way everyone was critical of the reviewer for supposedly docking a point for lack of multiplayer - it appears, rather, as though the points were lost because of poor optimization and lousy gunplay. I love it how just one person at the bottom seemed to be worried about the poor optimization - just one! LOL! People see what they want to see, and read what they want to read.

Hey, just like it is at this forum!
 
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WabeWalker said:
The most damaging sentence: "... the PC version does not feel ready..."
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Never surprised when I see the likes of this.

EDIT: Also, take a look at the comments below the article (on the page I've linked to). We tend to see a lot of that sort of thing pre-release. People wanting to defend a game that they haven't played. I'm not saying that they don't have interesting comments to make, or that their points aren't valid, but too often we see people getting pissed off when a game they've wanted to succeed hasn't scored high enough for them. They want to blame the reviewer for that. I think that if the game isn't nearly as polished as the 360 version then it probably isn't deserving of a high score?
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Agreed. A bad port deserves to get marked down. There's no excuse for this. There never is.

If only developers would start on the PC and port outwards everyone would always win.
 
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seems legit since it was written just 2 weeks ago, but to me this is just an amateur review trying to look out for pc players by being overly critical. major evidence is all the other game titles peppered throughout the review, I give absolutely no repect to any reviewers that need to compare their material to other games. and lack of mp has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the game, valid comments if they're going to make a fuss over it. docking points for instability is not much better, imo they should just point it out clearly and move on.

compared to something like this:
http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/m...r/a-20091125105451375003/g-200812191616522092

even tho obvious it's a generic console review I would give much more credit to since they concentrate on the mechanics only. nowhere in the review itself do they mention any other games besides a few allegoric references here and there. obviously not as useful to us if they don't mention pc performance, but smart buyers should take note of that.
 
Q-BZ said:
Never surprised when I see the likes of this.



Agreed. A bad port deserves to get marked down. There's no excuse for this. There never is.

If only developers would start on the PC and port outwards everyone would always win.
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Its not a port, the PC version was the primary. However, pretty much every game made in the area of the world Metro is from (Ukraine) is buggy as hell. Look at the first two STALKER titles. They were a complete mess on release and some of the people who worked on those worked on this. If they're able to patch it we might see it fixed up nicely, again like the first two STALKER titles.
 
Derangel said:
Its not a port, the PC version was the primary. However, pretty much every game made in the area of the world Metro is from (Ukraine) is buggy as hell. Look at the first two STALKER titles. They were a complete mess on release and some of the people who worked on those worked on this. If they're able to patch it we might see it fixed up nicely, again like the first two STALKER titles.
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Do you have a source for your primary statement?
 
Derangel said:
Its not a port, the PC version was the primary. However, pretty much every game made in the area of the world Metro is from (Ukraine) is buggy as hell. Look at the first two STALKER titles. They were a complete mess on release and some of the people who worked on those worked on this. If they're able to patch it we might see it fixed up nicely, again like the first two STALKER titles.
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Stalker was never a mess on me. Always worked fine.
 
Derangel said:
Its not a port, the PC version was the primary. However, pretty much every game made in the area of the world Metro is from (Ukraine) is buggy as hell. Look at the first two STALKER titles. They were a complete mess on release and some of the people who worked on those worked on this. If they're able to patch it we might see it fixed up nicely, again like the first two STALKER titles.
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You're right. I guess that means I should wait several months before buying this game for the sake of several patches and some sweet mods if that trend is anything to go by. ;)

I will say this: I've never heard of the review outlet Wabe linked to and I'd be inclined to agree...or at least really hope...that the poster who suggested it's some fly by night trying to get attention by being "overly critical" is correct.

We'll find out soon enough!




speedrat said:
Do you have a source for your primary statement?
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Anyone that ever played a Stalker game?




almalino said:
Stalker was never a mess on me. Always worked fine.
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Good for you. The first two STALKER games were a buggy mess when it first hit the streets for a lot of people including a number of the review outlets and such. Well documented all over the net and in print.
 
I was hoping this game wasn't made in eastern Europe.....

STALKER is an excellent franchise, but I have to agree, the first release, Shadow of Chernobyl was a little buggy; good but when I played it, I was always waiting for something to crash or just not work right.
After the fourth or fifth patch, things were fine.

Now we see Metro 2033 is another import out of the same mold.....oh well, I ordered it.
I hope this early review is wrong.:D
 
magoo said:
I was hoping this game wasn't made in eastern Europe.....

STALKER is an excellent franchise, but I have to agree, the first release, Shadow of Chernobyl was a little buggy; good but when I played it, I was always waiting for something to crash or just not work right.
After the fourth or fifth patch, things were fine.

Now we see Metro 2033 is another import out of the same mold.....oh well, I ordered it.
I hope this early review is wrong.:D
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I very seriously doubt this is a "bad" game. :)
 
Q-BZ said:
I very seriously doubt this is a "bad" game. :)
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Yes. I hope it doesn't suck, because I already bought a copy.....I'll know by the end of the week.:D

Jellylesg said:
Why?
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My experience with the GSC GameWorld guys in STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl.
If you played that game from release day....it was really in need of some polish (not POLISH) when it was released.....later patches made up for it, and overall I very much enjoyed the game.....but it was quirky....and I suspect since the core of the company is from the original STALKER group, this may be similar.
 
magoo said:
Yes. I hope it doesn't suck, because I already bought a copy.....I'll know by the end of the week.:D



My experience with the GSC GameWorld guys in STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl.
If you played that game from release day....it was really in need of some polish (not POLISH) when it was released.....later patches made up for it, and overall I very much enjoyed the game.....but it was quirky....and I suspect since the core of the company is from the original STALKER group, this may be similar.
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I did play it from release. I have to be honest, not only did I have one of the best times I've ever had from a game, the issues I experienced were pretty insignificant. Maybe I got lucky, but then the point is I've never said I hoped a game wasn't made in Japan or America because another game from those areas was shit. Seems a bit of a logical fallacy, innit?

I didn't think the core of the team was working on this, I thought they just had some staff members working on it.
 
Jellylesg said:
I did play it from release. I have to be honest, not only did I have one of the best times I've ever had from a game, the issues I experienced were pretty insignificant. Maybe I got lucky, but then the point is I've never said I hoped a game wasn't made in Japan or America because another game from those areas was shit. Seems a bit of a logical fallacy, innit?

I didn't think the core of the team was working on this, I thought they just had some staff members working on it.
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I had a great time in this game as well, but early on I recall the game just getting lost, quests with no end, no proper direction, and a number of functions that didn't work well. It just seemed rushed out the door.......but it was fixed.....and the game was good....finally.

ClearSky was much better right from the get-go.

I don't recall saying the game was "shit", I just thought it was not as finished as it could have been with a few more months of polishing........I like perogis too.
 
magoo said:
I had a great time in this game as well, but early on I recall the game just getting lost, quests with no end, no proper direction, and a number of functions that didn't work well. It just seemed rushed out the door.......but it was fixed.....and the game was good....finally.

ClearSky was much better right from the get-go.

I don't recall saying the game was "shit", I just thought it was not as finished as it could have been with a few more months of polishing........I like perogis too.
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No, I know, I was just giving an example.
 
Q-BZ said:
You're right. I guess that means I should wait several months before buying this game for the sake of several patches and some sweet mods if that trend is anything to go by. ;)

I will say this: I've never heard of the review outlet Wabe linked to and I'd be inclined to agree...or at least really hope...that the poster who suggested it's some fly by night trying to get attention by being "overly critical" is correct.

We'll find out soon enough!
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I've heard of Gamesreactor here and there. Never heard anything bad about them so I'm inclined to give them some level of trust. At least more than Gameradar who gave the game the most generic review ever that didn't even touch on technical aspects of the game.
 
Steam unlocks this game in 3 hours - so is anybody here willing to admit that they've already bought it?
 
Same here.

Oh my god stop the presses! I've just agreed with Q-BZ and Derangel. There must be something wrong with the universe.
 
All I know is that on an i7-980x at 4 GHz with 12 GB of RAM and 3 GTX 480s this game better FLY, no matter how buggy it is.
 
Just bought this and Bad Company 2. Guess I can see how those games run on my current rig and then I can compared against my i7-980x rig when it gets built.
 
This quotation was removed from the TeamXbox forum - the person had bought the PC version.

"Just a little warning to anyone buying this for the PC, the game is horribly optimized. Im runnung it on a AMD phenom 2 X4, 6gb DDR3 and a GTX 275 and Im getting anyhere from 20-70 FPS with DX9 max settings and no AA.

I guess I'll be getting the inferior console version tomorrow."

Yikes, and double yikes!

The dude has the exact same card as I do - a GTX 275. My days of running games at fewer than 30 FPS are over. Yes, I'll be upgrading my GPU very soon - but come on, a GTX 275 pulling in 20 frames per second... that's just plain silly.

If the game is staggeringly beautiful then alright... but I'm not seeing that myself?

EDIT: Would this game perhaps run better in DX 11 mode, or is DX 11 going to be even more taxing?
 
WabeWalker said:
This quotation was removed from the TeamXbox forum - the person had bought the PC version.

"Just a little warning to anyone buying this for the PC, the game is horribly optimized. Im runnung it on a AMD phenom 2 X4, 6gb DDR3 and a GTX 275 and Im getting anyhere from 20-70 FPS with DX9 max settings and no AA.

I guess I'll be getting the inferior console version tomorrow."

Yikes, and double yikes!

The dude has the exact same card as I do - a GTX 275. My days of running games at fewer than 30 FPS are over. Yes, I'll be upgrading my GPU very soon - but come on, a GTX 275 pulling in 20 frames per second... that's just plain silly.

If the game is staggeringly beautiful then alright... but I'm not seeing that myself?
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Dude didn't happen to say what drivers he was using or res he was running the game at did he?

Some guy on GameTrailers posted this:

"OK now that Steam unlocked it I ran the first 20 minutes of the game on my rig with all the settings maxed, Advanced Physx on and off (didn't see a difference in the opening minutes for Physx) and all DX11 features on at my monitor's native 1440x900 resolution.

CrossFireX frame rate - FPS range 80-29. Majority of the time in the 40's and 50's.
Single 5870 frame rate- FPS range 50-17. Majority of the time it hovered at 31."
 
Derangel said:
CrossFireX frame rate - FPS range 80-29. Majority of the time in the 40's and 50's.
Single 5870 frame rate- FPS range 50-17. Majority of the time it hovered at 31."
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This looks like a pretty demanding game if you're getting tint kind of performance at that resolution. Boy, I wonder if multi-monitor gaming is even a realistic goal with this game?
 
Here's the first ten minutes of gameplay. I'd seriously check this out if you're contemplating buying this game. It looks kind of cheesy to me. This is the 360 version, and it looks pretty horrible. I have my doubts that the PC version is going to look a whole lot better - it might, but I doubt it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO6uBPQcLdQ

What's worrying here is that it looks like another game in which a whole bunch of NPCs are glued to a certain spot, and it's your objective to go from NPC to NPC and talk to them and accept missions. That type of gameplay is starting to get a little stale for me personally.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but this game appears to be a lesser version of Stalker, except that you don't have a slightly open world to explore?

This isn't looking too good, I don't think.
 
heatlesssun said:
This looks like a pretty demanding game if you're getting tint kind of performance at that resolution. Boy, I wonder if multi-monitor gaming is even a realistic goal with this game?
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Gah and thats just at 1440x900. Makes me think his results were CPU-Bound but I'm gonna hold my tongue on that until I see more.

Need some 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 input.
 
WabeWalker said:
Here's the first ten minutes of gameplay. I'd seriously check this out if you're contemplating buying this game. It looks kind of cheesy to me. This is the 360 version, and it looks pretty horrible. I have my doubts that the PC version is going to look a whole lot better - it might, but I doubt it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO6uBPQcLdQ

What's worrying here is that it looks like another game in which a whole bunch of NPCs are glued to a certain spot, and it's your objective to go from NPC to NPC and talk to them and accept missions. That type of gameplay is starting to get a little stale for me personally.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but this game appears to be a lesser version of Stalker, except that you don't have a slightly open world to explore?

This isn't looking too good, I don't think.
Click to expand...

Looks like it might be like Bioshock. Poor gunplay but really good atmosphere.
 
I bought it.. I love atmospheric games.. and the impressions I've read of this one are pretty positive in that regard.

I'll let you guys know what I find with regard to performance.. I'll try multi-monitor too to satisfy your morbid curiosity :D
 
The first STALKER ran pretty horribly on any computer when it launched. Remember the huge delay between firing your weapon and the bullets actually hitting their targets? Not to mention the FPS was awful. A few patches later, the game ran a lot more smoothly.

It might be worth holding off picking this up until the patches start coming through. From all the interviews I watched and read, the developers sounded like they were developing for PC and porting to the 360, with a "what can we leave in and what do we have to turn off?" approach when it came to performance.

This isn't a superdeveloper like Valve, DICE or Ubisuck - it's a bit easier to forgive a rough start. Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky turned out to be great/good games, but it took time.
 
DX 11 is not playable at 1920x1080p on a 5870..

Those scores are accurate.. it stays between 14 and 26 fps or so with DX 11 enabled.

Framerate gets much better in DX 10 mode... 30-50.

This is an amazingly beautiful game, though.. in a very bleak, depressing sort of way.
 
Andrmgic said:
DX 11 is not playable at 1920x1080p on a 5870..
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Holy crap.

Okay, so we really do need a GTX 480 to run this thing in DX11? Is this an Nvidia thing? Are ATI cards just not working well with this game maybe? Christ. A 5870 can't run this thing in DX 11 at 1080p - that's just... gahhhhh.

EDIT: And you have an overclocked Core i7, as well as fast RAM. Jesus.

Oh wait, hold on a second, you only have 6 GB of ram, when they're clearly recommending that you have 8 GB. Well obviously that's your problem right there. Get another 2 GB of ram bub. :)

EDIT AGAIN: Oh damn. Word on the street is that the game has been pirated already and is getting heavy traffic. :(
 
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Those benchmarks above seem to suggest that in DX 11, this game will run like crap if tessellation, anti-aliasing, and depth-of-field are all enabled, but that if you switch those three things off you're good to go.

I'll bet that those 3 things make all the difference though.
 
WabeWalker said:
Those benchmarks above seem to suggest that in DX 11, this game will run like crap if tessellation, anti-aliasing, and depth-of-field are all enabled, but that if you switch those three things off you're good to go.

I'll bet that those 3 things make all the difference though.
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lol its so fucking dark in the game from the videos that I've seen that dropping Depth of field shouldn't really be all that noticable.

Its HARD to do without AA though, even just 2x.

Got no opinion on the tessellation though, I haven't delved enough into pics to see on/off comparisons.
 
I'm waiting for a demo. I love the book, and I don't want to see it being badly ported into machine, turning to some dumb shooter. If demo proves that this has something common with story and world portrayed in book, I'll buy it.
 
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