Recent reviews by Sanakan

(As of 12 October 2021)


Titanfall 2 has an incredible singleplayer campaign - it's short, sweet, and to the point with action, pacing, and the character building + bond between you and your titan. All of the levels are quite good, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the best two levels are the now-famous Effect & Cause, along with Into the Abyss. The campaign alone is worth the asking price of the game if it goes on sale.


Unfortunately, Titanfall 2 STILL has major issues when it comes to multiplayer. A few months ago, the multiplayer was unplayable due to game-breaking DDOS attacks. The second you jumped out of the dropship in a multiplayer match, the server would crash and you'd be booted.

While the above problem has been resolved, it seems as though the servers are either highly unstable, or the DDOS attacks are continuing on a smaller scale. In the last 12 hours of play I have been disconnected while waiting in the multiplayer lobby or when searching for a match at least 50 times. Finding a game and playing is still possible, but the randomness of disconnects when trying to find a game are frustrating.

With the unpredictability of even being able to sit in the multiplayer lobby, much less to find an actual match, I have to give this game a thumbs-down.

Pluses:
+ Rich story with great characters.
+ Highest difficulty mode doesn't make enemies bullet sponges, it makes damage they and you take more realistic.
+ Great atmosphere, music, sound effects.
+ Friendly AI can actually kill things.
+ Choices you make/discoveries you find can lead to different endings.
+ Good selection of weapons offered along the storyline - which you don't have to give up if you don't want to.
+ Game is just the right length - not too short to be disappointing, not too long to be boring. The story took me about 10 hours to complete on my first run-through.

Things I can't really judge:
+/- Graphics are a bit dated (Metro 2033 Redux fixes this), animations aren't too great.

Negatives:
- Poor game performance without file modifying, fortunately some online guides can help you get more than 20fps.
- "Good" ending is nearly impossible to get without a guide explaining what you have to do.
- Two real pain-in-the-ass chapter. You'll know them when you get there.

Metro 2033 is an absolute gem of single-player FPS games, which doesn't get enough recommendations for the quality of the game it is. The story is fantastic - it's simple enough to understand without consulting online lore explanations, but at the same time mysterious enough to allow some thought from the player to be played into what's going on and why.

In my opinion, the most defining feature of this game is the hardest difficulty mode: "Ranger Hardcore". If you like a challenge, this difficulty will give you one. All HUD is removed, damage taken and inflicted is more realistic (you and enemies take 2-3 hits at most to die), ammo is very sparse - forcing you to use stealth tactics and ammo-conserving methods of engaging groups of enemies.

The atmosphere of the game is very good, particularly in the metro. It's enclosed, dark, cramped, and does not leave a lot of room for maneuvering or tactics. The overworld is bleak, with more dangerous mutated creatures and an extra killer - poisonous air. You'll be forced to conserve gas mask filters, and you'll have to avoid taking hits or your gas mask will become damaged and you will expend those precious filters at an alarming rate.

The game does have two endings, however without a guide only the true explorers and good-deed-doers will get the "good" ending. There's no built-in tracker for when you get a 'point' that can lead you to the "good" ending - only a cue of light and a sound effect. Even with the "good" ending unlocked, you get a choice and can still end with the "bad" ending.

Alright, my only serious gripe for this game. There are two portions of this game which are really annoying to get past, and being on the hardest difficulty will not help this frustration. One of these portions involves creatures that will respawn if you don't move. The second portion involves creatures that will 1-hit kill you on the hardest difficulty, and not to mention they can kill your partner too (which will force you to restart). On both of these missions, especially the later - I did have to lower the difficulty because it was too frustrating and failing the same thing for 1.5 hours was getting old.

Overall - Metro 2033 is a fantastic game, and I would highly reccomend picking up the Redux version of it, for the updated graphics. On sale this game can go for as low as $5 which will feel like a complete steal when you start playing and realize how great the game and the story are.

Note: I have owned this game since June 2016 on Steam.

Recently (in 2020), Steam appears to have run out of keys that permit access of World at War's multiplayer & co-op aspects. Legacy owners, myself included, can still access and play multiplayer and co-op in World at War, BUT NEW OWNERS CAN NOT gain access to these features.

As a result of this, I CAN NOT, in good consciousness, recommend this game for the asking price of $19.99. The campaign and solo zombies are pretty good, but they're not worth $19.99, the price that was asked for the game WHEN IT HAD MULTIPLAYER.

4.3k hours.

The grind is abhorrent, the earnings are abysmal. Even with a premium account, rewards for research points to unlock vehicles and silver lions to actually buy them are rewarded at a rate far too low.

Gaijin has added more vehicles to its tech trees. Gaijin has not made the grind easier: they've actively changed the economy to make it MORE tedious to research and purchase vehicles. They have modified the earnings to make it increasingly difficult to progress and gain profit with vehicles.

This game is a textbook example of "Pay to Progress," and I'm tired of it after 10 years of playing it.