Metro: Last Light approaches perfection

A post-nuclear, apocalyptic world. Humanity has sought refuge underground. Mutant creatures roam the land, human factions quarrel, and our race faces extinction from all angles.

It’s a tale that has been told across the decades of gaming. So much so that despite the unique Moscow metro setting, you might think Metro: Last Light is a rehashing of an old story, a mĂ©lange of Fallout and Borderlands. But once you’re in, having breathed in the pulsating life of the survivors living in piecemeal degradation of the claustrophobic tunnels, what greets you is an intensely crafted first-person experience, richly layered with story and setting to make it the finest story-driven first person shooter (FPS) experience of the year.

There are plenty of pretty first-person games, but none give the immersive setting of Metro. Flies land on the camera in the bathroom; walls are stained with delicious randomness; your gas mask becomes muddied and requires wiping. Character models, lighting effects and textures are all brilliantly executed. Right down to the lifesaving filters you’ll need to find to resist the poisoned air when roaming topside, or the use of ammo as currency to buy and augment weapons down below, this is a world crafted to unsurpassed detail.

All this detail yields the game’s greatest triumph: atmosphere. With its tightly knit squalor of the metro below, where humans scrape out an existence, to the exquisitely defined decimation of the world above, it’s surprising just how exposed you feel as you move from area to area. There’s little breathing room and there are countless times when you realize that this is just how a post-nuclear world would look and feel. Where games like Battlefield, Uncharted, and Crisis have incredibly vast settings, Metro’s comparatively narrow vision may seem simpler, but this allows you to feel the realism of the setting and to engross yourself in the next element that Metro does so well: the story.

The main storyline is relatively simple: Artyom (you) needs to stop the Red Line faction from annihilating your own group, the Rangers. This political narrative acts as a mirror to our own human nature as we see that, even in the midst of impending annihilation, our species will still degrade into savage struggles for power. Like any great post-apocalyptic story, it's the human element that turns out to be every bit as dangerous as the mutated creatures. Sure there are monsters above and below – the dangers feels authentic and gripping – but the real monsters are the humans. Yet there are those who will stay true to morality and it’s here you find the moral spectrum between the various characters.

Woven into the main story and its Orwell-like comment on the nature of those in power, is one that is far closer to Artyom’s moral pulse. The Dark Ones – glossy black, psychic creatures theoretically destroyed in the last game – seem to have one last light: a child-creature. Artyom realizes he shares a link to its existence and feels it may hold the key to humankind’s survival. Thus he goes on a one-man quest throughout the game to save it from mankind’s new, fear-fuelled war to rid the world of these supposed enemies to humanity.

If that wasn’t enough, personal loyalties and betrayals pull you into the story so you never know what to expect. It’s a shockingly moving story, gripping in its execution and horrific in its realistic implications.

Despite the complex plot and closed-in setting, the gameplay too is wonderfully engaging. Go in guns a blazing or stick to the stealthy – for the most part, it’s your choice. However, unlike most stealth and action shooters that begin to feel redundant after a while, Metro’s flawless pacing allows for moments of much-needed stealth, and others where you unleash your arsenal against the enemies around you.

Whichever style you choose, there is no shortage of tension in the game. With no radar and no map, you’re left hunting the darkness for elusive paths to follow. The pristinely rendered creatures and the natural characters carry a tone that borders on the horror genre, aided immensely by the dark corridors of the game’s backdrop and the savageness of the human nature imbued in the storyline.

In the final hours of the game, the stakes cut deeper and the choices you make have real impact. Will you become the very darkness of human nature you’ve fought to resist all the while, or will you become humanity’s last light?

The flawless fusing of story, setting, and suspense makes Metro: Last Light a compelling, immersive journey you won’t want to miss.