Format: Windows 10
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: 4A Games
Publisher: Deep Silver

This reviewer has had many watershed moments: seeing "Road Rash" on 3DO, or the whale in "Sonic Adventure" to name but a couple. With the decline of "Moore's Law", these moments are now rare-- but this latest "Metro", running on an RTX 2080 at 1440p with HDR, ray tracing and DLSS is one of them. Right from the off, there is the shovelling man on the train, or the boat rowing into the church basement-- and it's like seeing "Mario 64" or HDTV gaming for the first time, all over again. Positively stunning.

The "Metro" games have always had a mix of low-key atmospheric music mixed with traditional Russian themes, and it's the same here, and it still works well enough. The game's English voice acting is rough to put it mildly, so an immediate switch to the release's native Russian is almost mandatory. The game's gunfire is a highlight, with each weapon releasing a convincing "pop" or blast.

Previous "Metro" titles exclusively used enclosed linear areas. This time around the game design alternates just such stages with larger, pseudo open-world levels, which are small and tight enough to not just feel like filler, but big enough to lend a satisfying sense of exploration to the formula. Periodic recharging of the player's light and pumping of the wonderfully enjoyable pneumatic weapon give a nice rhythm to the gameplay. The "easy" difficulty gives automatic health regen, making the game more "shooter", and less "survival horror".

While hardly a "Tolstoy" or "Dostoevsky", Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels are fun page turners, and the corresponding games fill a similar niche in their respective medium. But this latest entry has a substantially bigger budget feel to it: the art direction is world class, and the bleeding edge engine is a glimpse into the "PlayStation 5" years ahead. Aside from that, the game's unique cross of "Half-Life" and "Resident Evil", with a dash of "Fallout", makes for a generally enjoyable adventure, even as some dialog-heavy hand-holdy sequences do drag on a bit.