All things considering, this game is pretty damn good in terms of its storytelling and crafting this central atmosphere that feels distinctly lived-in. There's just something to when you're walking about settlements and people are conversing that gives it a really immersive feel to it - and especially the way this game plays with surreal dream sequences and lighting, and just how there's such a mounting claustrophobia to the whole thing. Feels pretty cinematic and there's a grim tone that's created with the presence of monsters and the political world of the tunnels composes of two extreme camps of Stalinists and Nazis, and the character Artyom goes through so much relentless danger. Never read the novel this is based on, but apparently the character barely fights in the novel whilst this game is just absolutely relentless wall-to-wall action and tonnes of shooting.
The gameplay itself is pretty solid, centring itself as this first person shooter game where ammo is incredibly scarce - so it's often way more advised to use stealth tactics and strategy to get through the game. Brazen running and gunning is bound to get you killed, and there's sparse RPG mechanics in terms of merchants who use 'military grade ammo' as currency, which you can either exchange for items or 'dirty ammo' or you can fire it away with your machine gun. Stuff like that is really neat, and is probably the strongest element with how it integrates the story with its gameplay mechanics, and there's just something really visceral about when you finally manage to pick off enemies in this game. God, ammo scarcity in this game is so extreme on the harder difficulties that when characters died I was less thinking about how sad or tragic it was and more thinking "Oh boy, more ammo I can loot." before raiding them usually of a couple of shotgun shells or bullets.
Bunch of nitpicks that I can probably have with this game. There's a few segments in this game which are incredibly frustrating that come right out of the blue, and I think the biggest flaw is just how it seems to throw so many inexplicable curveballs your way without explanation. Legitimately had to consult a walkthrough for certain segments, and some bits in this game were just incredibly frustrating to the point I turned the game off for a while (notably the bit with a kid on your back and a segment where you traverse a corridor filled with giant amoebas, was absolutely fuming at how frustrating those bits were). Although the things you do are often hinted at, and sometimes there can be a satisfaction with being able to piece everything together. Aside from that, the game is really solid and a surprisingly inventive piece of work, is a refreshing
P.S. God, the bit with the amoebas. First, it's a escort mission where your partner can die very easily and also you can die very easily, and you have to make sure neither of those happen. Second, it's a massive ammo sink with the amount of enemies you have to kill (on top of ammo itself already being scarce, but in all fairness it does provide quite a lot of ammo beforehand). Third, it's much easier if you take down the spawn points of the amoebas but then this was something that was hard to register because you'd assume you wouldn't be able to take them out. Fourth, the amount of amoebas and the way they're handled means that it essentially fried up my graphics card whilst the rest of the game was running quite smoothly. Fifth, this was like a small segment of the game and the difficulty of it took up so much time, literally it's just a corridor that would take a few minutes at best. Finally, it's also staggeringly easy to just run across the corridor and reach the elevator that way, but then the game doesn't want you to do that, it wants you to deal with it as highlighting before.
The gameplay itself is pretty solid, centring itself as this first person shooter game where ammo is incredibly scarce - so it's often way more advised to use stealth tactics and strategy to get through the game. Brazen running and gunning is bound to get you killed, and there's sparse RPG mechanics in terms of merchants who use 'military grade ammo' as currency, which you can either exchange for items or 'dirty ammo' or you can fire it away with your machine gun. Stuff like that is really neat, and is probably the strongest element with how it integrates the story with its gameplay mechanics, and there's just something really visceral about when you finally manage to pick off enemies in this game. God, ammo scarcity in this game is so extreme on the harder difficulties that when characters died I was less thinking about how sad or tragic it was and more thinking "Oh boy, more ammo I can loot." before raiding them usually of a couple of shotgun shells or bullets.
Bunch of nitpicks that I can probably have with this game. There's a few segments in this game which are incredibly frustrating that come right out of the blue, and I think the biggest flaw is just how it seems to throw so many inexplicable curveballs your way without explanation. Legitimately had to consult a walkthrough for certain segments, and some bits in this game were just incredibly frustrating to the point I turned the game off for a while (notably the bit with a kid on your back and a segment where you traverse a corridor filled with giant amoebas, was absolutely fuming at how frustrating those bits were). Although the things you do are often hinted at, and sometimes there can be a satisfaction with being able to piece everything together. Aside from that, the game is really solid and a surprisingly inventive piece of work, is a refreshing
P.S. God, the bit with the amoebas. First, it's a escort mission where your partner can die very easily and also you can die very easily, and you have to make sure neither of those happen. Second, it's a massive ammo sink with the amount of enemies you have to kill (on top of ammo itself already being scarce, but in all fairness it does provide quite a lot of ammo beforehand). Third, it's much easier if you take down the spawn points of the amoebas but then this was something that was hard to register because you'd assume you wouldn't be able to take them out. Fourth, the amount of amoebas and the way they're handled means that it essentially fried up my graphics card whilst the rest of the game was running quite smoothly. Fifth, this was like a small segment of the game and the difficulty of it took up so much time, literally it's just a corridor that would take a few minutes at best. Finally, it's also staggeringly easy to just run across the corridor and reach the elevator that way, but then the game doesn't want you to do that, it wants you to deal with it as highlighting before.