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.