10# - Wild Card

Jing Wu

Wolf Warrior is a 2015 action film directed and staring Jing Wu as a Chinese special forces soldier who like all good action heroes does things his own way. In other words he is a loose cannon and those skills apart from getting him punished get him a new job, as a Wolf Warrior part of elite branch of the already elite special forces. However before I continue with the review of the film I first have to say that the reason that I even watched this film is because of the article I did on Chinese YouTuber Accented Cinema who was discussing why he think Chinese films are currently pretty bad at the moment. He showed as examples critically acclaimed films like the 1991 film Hang the Red Lantern but he also showed the film Wolf Warrior as a not so critically acclaimed film. He talked about this film and its sequel Wolf Warrior 2 are "war" films that portray China's military strength but, also have messages saying to whoever the enemy to beware. The second part of his point is definitely true with a character in Wolf Warrior stating, " Those who challenge China's resolve will have no place to hide." The one thing I will take issue with is that this is not a "war" film because their is no war in the movie, it is just an action movie with military hardware everywhere. The film serves more as a display of military hardware, tanks, helicopters, infantry doing maneuvers with all of the latest and greatest gear.


This really shows in the main villains of the film who are at the beginning a foreign drug smuggling operation that our hero Leng Feng, his special forces unit, and the Chinese police must break up. This is where our main character gets himself locked up for being a wild card and as I said ultimately ends up a Wolf Warrior, this is where he meets the cast of cliches that are in the unit. The Chinese equivalent of the yokel chewing straw, the hard-ass sergeant who dosent like him, the guy who has a little girl as his only defining trait, and his sexy female commanding officer who he has tension with. After this are characters participate in a training exercise where we get to see how good Leng Feng and we also get to see more tanks, helicopters, and stuff. Once again I need to state that their is not anything inherently wrong with that in a film it is just the way that it is handled, everything in this film is shot in a very flat, boring, and not interestingly lit way. Action scenes dont really seem to have much if any atmosphere or tension as things just kind of happen in plain and generic way. There for the most part is not really any impact in many of the actions scenes and some of them look god awful like when Leng Feng and his team have to fight off a pack of wolves. That being said that action is not all bad there are a few times when the film cut to first person cameras so that everything becomes claustrophobic and personal the actions does look somewhat better. There is also a flashback scene that I though looked better but not much else was.

Scott Adkins

This is the way the action is until the villains show up and they are team of foreign mercenaries who are all American or British which is not surprising to me. Considering the speech that one of the characters gives im guessing that these mercenaries are stand ins for the nations that actors are from. These mercenaries are however hired by a Chinese drug kingpin so that they can kill Leng Feng, because Feng killed the kingpins brother in the drug raid at the beginning of the film. These mercenaries whose names are only said about once during the film are lead by English actor and marshal artist Scott Adkins. All of these English speaking actors are either not directed very well as Jing Wu was not familiar with directing English speakers or they just decided to dub in their dialogue later either way their performances are wooden. They are just very one dimensional villains with not much personality so when they are killed off it really does not seem like much of anything was accomplished. During the scenes of direct fighting between the Chinese army and the mercenaries these parts of the movie are actually filmed better but they are still missing something. I really am not sure what but it just feels like there is not really any punch or weight to any thing that happens in the film even soldiers are killed. The action in the film is contradictory as it has it feet in two worlds, that of the realistic war film where there is strong attention to the way soldiers move, hold their weapons, look,where people die quick, or gruesome deaths.  It wants to be that in a way or at least look like that and also wants to be a mid 80's or early 90's action film. Something that Stallone or Arnold would not be in, but someone like Chuck Norris would be that caliber of action film. You will have scenes where soldiers are ripped apart by snipers and booby traps, but then their will be a fight scene between a little Chinese soldier and a giant mercenary with comedic editing. Leng Feng is the perfect example of this he moves, looks, shoots like a real person but in the course of this film he is shot around 9 times to little effect. There are some films where people get shot quite a few times and keep going but being shot makes their lives miserable. Leng Feng can take a bullet just barely flinch and keep sprinting at a full clip into a fist fight.

Later in the film after most of the mercenaries are dead it is reveled that this drug kingpin also has stole biological secrets and it going to sell them to a bio-pharmaceutical company which is going to make a strain of disease that can only a effect genetic Chinese people. This part of the plot comes up and we dont here anything else about it until the end of the film when Leng Feng recovers a briefcase full of blood vials. Which just makes it seem like the bad guy in this film during the first draft of the script was not actually bad enough so they had to also make him want to commit a genocide. The film wraps up like you would expect with our hero Leng Feng defeating Scott Adkins, although it was done in martial arts fight that was well done. Then the main villain the drug kingpin and his cronies try to escape disguised in Chinese military uniforms but is stopped after Leng Feng kills all of them. Then he and the cliches come home to heroes welcome where medals are handed out. Leng Feng and his love interest/commanding officer drive off into the sunset.

It is really surprising to me how much i found this film to be boring, cheap looking, and overall bad. I thought that from the clips AccentedCinema showed and just the little I knew about the film I wouldn't like it but, I did not expect to be so uninteresting. This movie is not really worth anyone's time or money unless you just want to see the state of Chinese action movies in a modern setting. Where the gear, guns, vehicles, and the overall almost pornographic quality of all of it is on full display. This film is right in line with some of the other clips of modern Chinese films that AccentedCinema showed strangely directed action scenes, unnatural dialogue, a reliance on CGI which makes the film look cheap, and trying to copy others while not doing it correctly.

9# - Classmate Blog Critique

For this classmate blog critique I wanted to take a different approach, instead of focusing on just one person I would discuss my three favorite blogs and in my opinion their best piece. When discussing the blogs I think it is important to say what about it so good whether it be the writing, aesthetics, personality, or analysis. Mainly because I want to make sure that I am giving out compliments and criticism at the same time so the person who I am talking about might think my opinions. So lets talk about the blogs:

1. Suzanne Lauoue 

The first thing that I really appreciate about Suzanne blog is that she writes in clean and understandable way that makes any of her posts a breeze to read through. This really shows in her article about soap opera critic Carolyn Hinsey, where from the writing it is clear that she knows a lot about the this person and about soap operas. Not just because Suzanne explicitly mentions that she has been watching these shows for a long, but because she talks about things most people wouldn't even mention like production design and the difficulties these shows have in introducing whole new characters. She also shows her personal opinion a lot especially in the blog post about the Chevy Chase and Richard Dreyfuss vehicle "The Last Laugh", when she makes the point that the film is really marketed to people closer to her age, however I have parents closer to her and they would most likely have hated this movie. That is her opinion and I am glad to hear it but, this film was more than likely marketed to people who are much older. The only real criticism I have is with aesthetics, I really do not like the background that she chose for the blog. The hummingbirds going to bushes and then as we scroll down it goes from a peach color to like a darker pink that just stretches on forever. This is not a large criticism but, I have just never liked this preset background before.

2. Desmion Owens 

The back for his blog says everything you need to know about it that this is Desmion Owens's blog and that you are going acknowledge and respect that. Personality is the most important factor when it comes to his blog, not to say that their is anything wrong with any other part of his blog. The writing is always good and the sourcing providing background to the piece is always very good. But, when you are reading his blog it is clear that we are looking at his personal interests and what those mean to him like in his most recent post talking about The Source a magazine covering hip-hop music, hip-hop culture, and culture broadly. We get to know that he actually has some connection to this magazine as it was a window to a world that he was so interested in that he actually tried to participate in it. So, when he brings up the problems that The Source has with how much does its rating system matter in the era when stars are made off of hype and social media. We see that this world and the quality of the work within it actually matters to him. I also think that this problem that he sees at The Source is really a problem that all media criticism is facing because almost everything is available online or free people dont really care as much about quality.

3. Justice Seymour 

Right off the bat I have to say the name of the blog Justice Seymour Started A Blog is exactly what a blog with an all black background should have as it's title. I like that, it shows that the blog is a repository for the writing and not an elaborate background piece with writing on it. The writing itself from Justice is and has remained at the same level of all of his stuff and that is to say that when I read it, it is in his voice. That to me shows how much his writing is connected to him and it also makes it easier to read as it comes off a lot more casual. I really liked when he dunked on Bill Maher for making fun of people who like Superhero movies, not just because it showed how Bill Maher is really behind the time when it comes to understanding current day pop culture. But mainly because I really have never been a fan of Bill Maher as he came across as a prick to me. Although I will say that I am sick to death of Superhero movies and I think personally that they need to take a break for some time. But I am not in charge of Disney who owns just about everything these days and seems as if they will run all of the properties into the ground as long as people are willing to pay for it.

8# - International Media

In a paper that I wrote for International Media Trends I talked about how Chinese companies have started helping with the production of films in the west the result of which is the 2019 Best Picture winner Green Book  So, we collectively as a country, as a human race, and Spike Lee can all blame not only Steven Spielberg's Amblin entertainment and the Chinese for that derivative "entertainment". The Oscar is a monument to success and Chinese audiences also loved Green Book probably because they hadn't seen a formulaic plot about race relations from the 1990's before. Jack Ma CEO of Alibaba the company that had a hand in producing Green Book went on to say, "Alibaba pictures will introduce more movies like this into China, and we will learn from them and gradually produce movies like this". This is what I want to use the topic of international media to talk about the ways that the Chinese cinema tries to copy American films, but does not put their own spin on it. 

In a YouTube video by the Channel AccentedCinema called Why are Chinese Movies so Bad, where he talks about how most of the big films coming out of China have been as the title would imply bad. How Chinese cinema is mocked by not only many around the world but, the Chinese people themselves. This is not because of a lack budgets or bad production design as many of the films that are shown as examples in the film have money practically dripping off the screen. The problem is communicated through the repetition of showing a scene in the film Crazy Rich Asians were a woman says that, "We were inspired by the Hall of Mirror in Versailles". In that these Asians standing in for all of Chinese cinema have plenty of money but can only be inspired by things that were produced in the west in other words Hollywood. One of film examples is the film Wolf Warrior 2 Chinese action movie where a lone Chinese special forces commando who's a bit of a rouge has to get this single handily stop foreign mercenaries in Africa from terrorizing the country side. The visual comparison that AccentedCinema uses is Rambo specifically Rambo III, where a lone commando single handely kills the entire Soviet Army in Afghanistan. We see critics in China ask the director why can your protagonist kill everyone by himself and save the day, he answered essentially if American characters can do it why cant we. There isn't and his character can do anything he wants but movies like Rambo III and action movies in general besides oddities like the John Wick series are not really made anymore. If they are they are vehicles for Stallone and Arnold to make some scratch before going on to do something bigger and better. 

AccentedCinema points how in the 1990's Chinese films were at the top of movie festivals and critics minds, films like Raise the Red Lantern and Farewell My Concubine. That the directors of those films were trained in film schools and were cultural workers so there was less of a concern about the bottom line. How after China became the Ultra-Rich nation that it is today that private companies have started to produce all of the of the worst CGI riddled garbage that they are known for today. This is essentially the same problem that the US film industry has today with large monopolies making the same film over and over again, endless remakes, and nostalgia cash grabs. In the US if you want to see a "real" movie made by a filmmaker they are all in smaller studios that for the most part which dont spend to long in the theater or they are buried behind The Office in your Netflix queue.

 The films that are the "real" films that he is talking about are unmistakably Chinese and they are not afraid to be what they are.  That from what he says appears to be a problem that the Chinese themselves are dealing with. He says that there imitation is because they are ashamed of Chinese culture, I am little skeptical of this not that I think that he doesn't think this. China is one of the largest countries in world and a new superpower you would think that a people like that would be annoying you with how proud they are. I think honestly that he sees these trash films as a stain on the totality of Chinese Cinema and if were him I would have the same opinion. Chinese film needs to unmistakably Chinese of course and it also needs to aware of the larger world around them. He makes this point by saying that films about the issues facing China today and the larger human condition that we all share are the important ones.  

7# - Social Media

Social media like twitter is incredibly popular in that almost everyone uses it from the lowest retail
employee to the President of the United States and it does not show any sign of stopping. Since all of the people have congregated on social media then it is only a matter of time before companies show up and try to sell something to you. This is not in any way surprising but, what is interesting is that these companies like Wendy's or McDonald's focus on the "clout game" that is social media. Instead of showing you an ad of the new product they will instead have a snarky conversation with some random person on twitter, so that they will be seen as in touch with current culture and you will have a more favorable view of them. However, the "funny" social media accounts of companies don't interest me that much as all they are is new way to accomplish an old goal of getting you to buy there product.

What is interesting to me is the social media presence of movie stare John Wayne and the most well known film critic Roger Ebert who last time I checked were both very dead. John Wayne's twitter account serves mostly as a fan page to him showing behind the scenes photos of himself, director John Ford, and many others on various different projects in his career. This twitter account is owned and operated by the John Wayne Enterprises website that among that various articles about Marion Morrison's career offer a large catalog of John Wayne branded items. From t-shirts, to coffee mugs, trucker caps, hatchets, and even leather goods which honestly seem like something that they should sell. John Wayne Enterprises is doing what anyone would do with a name recognition like that, but I think the time is fast approaching when that name wont mean much as I really dont think many people have any connection to John Wayne. Roger Ebert's twitter account on the other hand is very different in that he was alive when it was created and he maintained it up until the point that he couldn't any longer. It is unlike the John Wayne account in that it serves both as memorial and a place that his archives of all of the work that he did over his long career. It also serves as a gateway to his website where his work still exists and where other people still write articles and review movies for.

Like the John Wayne and Roger Ebert accounts Stan Lee the Marvel Comics mastermind and figurehead also had a twitter account that he ran until his death in late 2018. His twitter account is filled with photos from Stan Lee's life and his involvement with the comics industry. It also serves like Ebert's as a gateway to his website where people still write articles which are all essentially just puff pieces that promote current Marvel media. This is essentially what Stan Lee's twitter has become even promoting the upcoming Captain Marvel film but this was not always the case and only after his death has the promotion of current media become a main focus. I find this to be a bit unethical but not unexpected, what I do have a problem with though is that to me some time when I look at the twitter it appears like Stan Lee is not actually dead. My main piece of evidence is the constant articles constantly talking about all of the things that Stan Lee liked to do and the fact that the pinned tweet is about the outpouring of support that he received when he got sick. Maybe this is me jumping to conclusions but I would not put it past people to at some point in the future to try and keep the idea that Stan Lee is actually dead out of people's minds. That being said that common theme from all of these twitter accounts is that people can still in someways appear to be active online and their name can be used for positives like Ebert's and questionably like Lee's and Wayne's.

The outpouring of love for Stan online has been extraordinary. As a thank you, we have a video of Stan to share in the below link, along with our promise to continue celebrating Stan’s work & memory on his social media accounts for fans to enjoy. https://t.co/kdkGlmCCEI pic.twitter.com/XHTdEYWGqu

— stan lee (@TheRealStanLee) December 12, 2018

6# - Critiquing a Media Critic

Ever since his show the The Jimquistion went completely and totally independent in 2016, Jim Sterling has become one of the most infamous critics of the video game industry. An image that from the show's inception when it was located on Destructoid Jim has courted with his semi-serious catchphrase "thank god for me", his authoritarian style propaganda posters, and his outfit that makes him look like some turn of the century industrialist who just has a factory filled with child-labor. Jim wants people wants the infamy he wants a portion of the audience to like what he does, but he also understands the value of hatred. He understands that if you are not pissing someone off then you need to change up what you were doing. 

Jim Sterling

Jim will tell you anything and everything on any issue that fancies him at that current time which could be anything from Brexit to the legal status of lootboxes in games. He puts forward what he thinks and if you accept that or at least see where he is coming from then everything is fine. If you do disagree with him and try to contact him about it and tensions rise as they often tend, do not expect him to try and make concessions just so you will feel better about yourself. Jim says things that he has actually thought about and believes in and will not be so easily swayed from his opinion. People tend to think of that as being stubborn and it might be but who listens to someone who flips on every position that they have ever held just because the last person that they talked to disagreed with them. 

Jim knows that being this opinionated will bring you positives like people have a basic level of respect for you and it will cause people to have seething hatred for you. People actually have long rants and discussions on several websites claiming that Jim Sterling has single handily caused for something that they like to be review negatively. Jim will sometimes just all of a sudden come up in some of these conversations where people are bashing people who cover the games industry, that shows you the power of the mans persona. It was so powerful that it even had an effect on a video game developer, Digital Homicide who after Jim made a video about the scam they were essentially running they tried to sue him for $10 million. Digital Homicide hoped that they would if not win then humiliate him in court but, their own incompetence stopped that and the case was thrown out. This only caused Jim's star to rise making a martyr for the importance of press freedom in the games industry. Sterling has always attracted controversy but he would never entirely say that is what he wanted, but his entire persona is meant to court it and I think that Jim Sterling actually loves it. 

5# - Movie Review

The term character study is often applied to films that focus on the inner workings of the central character and have a plot that is more or less the vehicle to explore them. The term is so often used when describing films like this that many people have come to think that character study is a genre onto itself, however this is not the case. Genres are used to put films into simple and understandable categories like comedy or thriller, they tell you the general feeling that is intended. Character studies on the other hand could be a drama like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver or they could be a comedy like Scorsese's The King of Comedy. Those films are both character studies of two men Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin, both are played by Robert De Niro, neither are funny, although both are still great. The character study goes beyond the boundaries of genre because they are attempting to deal with the motivations, thoughts, and feelings of their protagonists.

Dealing with the inner workings of the lead character is exactly what the film Destroyer directed by Karyn Kusama is successful in doing. The film follows the life of LAPD detective Erin Bell played by Nicole Kidman, a woman scarred by years of hate and regret over the events that happened fifteen years ago. When she as a young officer and a FBI agent played by Sebastian Stan went undercover to infiltrate and arrest a gang of bank robbers led by the manipulative Silas. Erin's time undercover did not go according to plan and the events of that time led to her estranged relationship from her family and her disregard for everything especially herself. Nicole Kidman's performance was one of the film's biggest marketing strategies saying that you could see Kidman as you have never seen her before. I was initially drawn in by that myself out of curiosity just to see if she could become this character and she does it so well that it makes me hate the fact that the marketing team is selling the movie on her appearance and not on her performance. That being said it did make me make want to come see Kusama's film, so Kidman being there probably helped the movie get made. 

As a director Kusama intentionally for this film tried to show parts of Los Angeles that are not often shown in films like a church in a Hispanic area that has legal services for illegal immigrants in the back or the outskirts of the city where there is one building with nothing else around it. Kusama lingers on the violence, sickness, and misery that world has brought to these characters. This backs up how existential the film is, no higher power watches over the world the film presents. Silas the head of the gang even says that you can be whatever you want cause there is no one watching and Erin herself knows this and says that people are not held accountable. The only person that can hold anyone to account for the things that have done is themselves and the rest of society. The existential feeling that inhabits the world creates a blurred morality and that is helped by the flashbacks from the past to the present. A haze covers the film it dosent want you to know what actually happened and the characters do not want to find out for fear of themselves. 

4# - Technology Review

Rodent in question

It's around midnight when I come to a overpass where trains use to run into to the nearby freight depot along one of the historically and geographically important rivers the Volga. On either side of this place houses remain that look like they were built sometime before the second world war and have either been lucky enough or stubborn enough to have survived the third. Its inhabitants have not changed that drastically since its construction, they are still the same territorial, cautious, vicious, pack hunters that existed before the fall of the bombs some twenty years ago. The largest difference other than that they are an entirely different species than that of the humans is that they had the intelligence and common sense not to try and understand their place in the grand scheme of things. These decedents of what I guess were the local rodent population dont ask how exactly it is that they came to be a prominent, but still low on the food chain species. The rodents or lurkers if you will lead a simple existence they eat, they breed, and they die if they are incredibly lucky peacefully one day. That day isn't today however as I who has been waiting by the overpass some distance from the collection of holes that make up their nest need to cross beneath it. I pull from my backpack a makeshift rifle, and place a small metal cylinder that contains ball bearings on the side of the rifle so they will feed correctly. As I move forward toward the cluster of holes I see a sentry, the one rodent that is supposed stand upon its hind legs and guard the nest for tonight. There is no way that I can pass it without being notice so, I make my weapon ready to fire. I pump air into my rifle more and more until the pressure gauge can be pushed no more, the place the sights at its head and pull the trigger. I weave my way through the nest and come beneath the underpass, I sp in around to check if anyone or thing is tailing me there isn't. I back in, beneath the underpass turn and stop something is in my way. Something that is hard to see through the night vision goggles with no light to amplify, so I get closer and closer until. Till I if was able could fully extend my arm and touch it, its has skin that looks to be a leathery texture. It's looks thin but strong and appears as if it was stretched would be of some length. I look up and down this thing until at the of the ceiling that is created by the overpass I see large talons clinging to the ceiling.

This haunting post-nuclear atmosphere, where you and the world around you are just as afraid of each other is what Metro Exodus is set on and so far from what I have played is delivering. Metro Exodus is the third game in the Metro video games series set in a world where in a 2013 the third world war happened and quickly ended in an exchange of nuclear weapons that forever changed the world. That really didn't change people as some of them survived in Moscow's underground metro system and in those twenty or so years since that the people of the old world banded together to create societies in the stations that they found themselves in they came to have children, trade, and survive in these conditions. Not all of the old world died when the bombs fell however many turned to the Communism that had ended in the twentieth century, which is not unrealistic as it is still the second most popular political party in Russia currently. Neo-Nazism is also a prominent faction within the Metro universe, which include the calls for human purity and purging the mutant races who have been affected by nuclear fallout. The political atmosphere, the technology that they have created, how the currency that they use to trade with is military-grade ammo their entire world is well thought out and believable. That is because unlike most video games the Metro series is based on the Metro science fiction novel series by Dmitry Glukhovsky and unlike other games based on written material the author is directly involved with the project. He actively contributes and consults on the story, characters, world with the developers the Ukrainian based 4A games to make it the best adaptation possible.

Metro series author Dmitry Glukhovsky

So, this seems to be the case as Metro Exodus is if we are just talking about gameplay, the absolute best in terms of gameplay.  Shooting, sneaking, distracting, looting all feel smoother and more responsive than ever before. This game is not some kind of power fantasy where you are a one man army who can take on any challenge that comes this way. You should always take a good position before firing and try to catch someone unaware before fighting. Fighting dirty is living to fight another day. Stealth is a great tactic, it should be done in my opinion the majority of the time as resources are scarce and once again if they dont know you are there you have a better chance of living. You have many tools at your disposal and they all feel and sound incredible but, just because something feels good dosent mean that should do it.

Morality plays a large part in the Metro game series as it does in novels, which is another unusual thing about this game series seeing as it is a first-person shooter. In many fps games as i mentioned before they are all about the power fantasy, so generally you are not talking to your enemies and if you do you then proceed to shoot them not to long after that. In Metro games I actually do feel like firing my beautiful, highly detailed, amazing sounding weapon is more often than not the last thing that I should be doing before trying other options. When the shooting starts it dosent mean that it will last until everyone is dead, as most of the people in this world are not that devoted to dying. Bandits and thieves just want to get ahead so if a few of them get killed they might surrender and be at your mercy. The same goes for members of a religious cult who yes if they see you will shoot on sight, but if some of them die for most all that religious fever goes away. Lets say some random group of people were unkind to you at some point and may have even sold you out to some trying to kill you. Those people were worried about the rest of group, those close to them, children, the elderly you really cant blame them and should put retribution out of your mind. That being not everyone is that nice and some people will not surrender how many chances you give them, but this is not an excuse to be some crazy killer.

along the Volga

Many character return from the first and second games, the primary being are protagonist Arytom who for some reason is still as silent protagonist which is and was something that was very common of games for many years. Only he really isn't a silent protagonist as he does talk in narrated journal entries discussing the events and world of the game in loading screens. Arytom being a silent protagonist is noting new to the series as it was in the first and the second game, but it just for more awkward in this game than all of the rest. Conversations feel more one sided than they did in the past games as people are occasionally talking past you and it sometimes feels like Arytom should at least say something in this conversation. I wish that they would have his voice actor, his character speak not a lot because even in the novel he is reserved, but he needs to say something. The world speaks but its viewer is silent.

The largest change that makes this game unusual this time in its own series is that this game is an exodus, leaving the Moscow metro and the world as we have come to know it. We get to see that there are actually people that did survive the war, however like those in the metro have fallen into old human trappings. Like the anti-technological church that is set up along the Volga river and still even after all this time modeled after eastern orthodoxy. This cult believes the one true way to ascend to heaven is to be eaten by a giant catfish, which does exist and will try to eat you if you get near it. This catfish is assumed to have been mutated, since it was a bottom feeder and the nuclear irradiated sediment settled at the bottom. The Volga is however a familiar feeling place and is associated with Russia because of the second world war but the second location that you go through your travels is to the deserts of surrounding the Caspian Sea. This is a location that I feel at least we in the west are not really used to seeing when we think of Russia, however when you arrive in game it is a drastically different to any of locations that we have ever seen a Metro game. It is insanely hot so the characters strip of the majority of the clothing that they have been wearing and go in what is essential.

In the Caspian

The space and distance that was a change of pace that we saw in the Volga is even larger in the area near the Caspian. The people who live near the Caspian have descended into what appears to a be a form of serfdom or slavery with a large land owner having control of population and the serfs living in fear of punishment. The serfs as malformed and unintelligent as some of them are try and band together to distribute the remaining food in something similar to a commune that were used by these same kind of people in Russia's history.





Overall I would say that like the other games in the Metro series I am not only taken in by the gameplay which has gotten even better, but the world it self and how people react. That is what makes want to come back to the Metro series even on its third game, to see how this world has changed and  how it really hasn't.