So it's a sad fact that game remakes, remasters and reimagining often feel very similar to those done by Hollywood, where often the attitude is more a case of "let's attach a known name to our unrelated project to get bums in seats" rather than "lets redo a classic with the advantage of modern technology." In gaming this can often be a fairly painful area, as older games can gradually phase out of compatibility, and even if given a remake or remaster this can often miss the point completely. I recently played Halo: Anniversary edition and it was a pretty bad one, the people doing the remake clearly did not understand the brutalist design and heavy atmosphere of the original game and instead took this as an opportunity possible to strip out every patch of shadow and stick glowing lights on every available surface. I will not lie, I was quite trepidatious going into this, especially given the original Metro is now delisted from steam (But is available over on GOG). Out of curiosity, I played the original, and then this immediately afterwards to see how well they kept the feeling on of the original. On a whole, very well.
So, If you've never played the original, Metro 2033 is a pretty fantastic shooter, and is an adaptation of the Russian novel of the same name by Dmitri Glukovsky. The premise is that there was an apocalyptic nuclear war in 2013. The only survivors as far as we know were everyone who was either in the metro or able to get in between the alarm going off and the bombs falling. Twenty years have now passed, and an entire generation have now grown up in the darkness, rats living in tunnels beneath the ruins of their ancestors. It's a beautifully bleak and atmospheric setting, and the game perfectly captures the sense of claustrophobia and mournful hopelessness of the book. It takes a lot of effort to make this feel like a place where people actually live, rather than just a series of levels, I can remember being blown away how much more realistic it felt compared to fallout 3 as a teen. Compared to a lot of other shooters, especially the godawful COD dominated era when it came out it's much slower experience, with slow and methodical combat, a lot of focus on resource management, and lots of tense gunfights in darkness. It's a pretty fantastic experience all in all, and has remained one of my favourite shooters since my late teens, it very much hits the same vibes as Stalker and Bioshock for me.
So, talking about the Redux version, what is good? They've largely remade the game in a newer engine, and in most cases have kept things as close to the original as possible. The levels are mostly the same, although there are some Quality of Life improvements such as vendors which let you alter your weapons without you having to sell the original and buy the altered version, and better UI. You can now melee whilst holding a weapon, and hold your lighter and a gun at the same time. The game looks very nice, the new lighting engine whilst maybe not quite as good as the old, is still excellent, and a few levels, most notably the cursed station and the library are definite improvements over the original in terms of lighting, the latter in particular invoked a lot more of a sense of dread in me, even after having recently played the original. The new effects on the gas mask, the improved condensation, cracks and grime are excellent and very immersive. Sound on a whole is excellent, the sound for the railgun is particular is just fantastic, I very much appreciate them adding more sound effects in certain areas, such as the pigs getting killed in the cursed station, or one of the rangers getting killed by a monster offscreen. I also like the fact that they added notes into the game, which you find throughout the level and record the protagonist's thoughts. Yes it makes little sense narratively but it gives you one more reason to explore, and I love the fact they give an extra level of depth to both our silent protagonist (who was quite talkative in the book) and the world as a whole. They are often paraphrasing or directly quoting the book at times as well. They've marginally redesigned some of the levels, adding a monster ambush at one point to catch veterans by surprise, doors to break up some lines of sight, some safes with keys to find, and now every human enemy in the area doesn't immediately know your location when you get spotted so the stealth feels a little more forgiving. They also didn't feel the need to massively redesign the last few levels, which whilst they are weaker, shows a lot of respect for the original. All in all it's mostly a very faithful and good remake. I would be remiss in not offering criticism however.
Now, for the bad. The lighting doesn't feel quite as good in some areas, there's something very special about the original's use of it which I struggle to describe that just doesn't translate over to the remake. Gas is now harder to see than in the original. You can now use throwing weapons and your knife simply from a single button rather than equipping them, which whilst it makes them easier to use does feel somewhat at odds with the very slow paced and methodical nature of the combat. They removed the stealth and armoured suits, although they did give you the option to choose ranger or survival mode at the start of the game which is functionally the same thing, so it's a minor change, but I don't really see why they felt the need to make it. The point where you make a last stand outside the cursed station they have added a really annoying bell ringing sound effect which completely ruins the tension of that section. They have replaced the English voice actor for the protagonist, who gives a better performance but doesn't give the same sad feeling as the original. The child actor for Sacha is also replaced, but the replacement is no better so I really don't get why. They have also replaced the two armoured Nosalises with bugs from the sequel, which I have mixed feelings on.. it probably pushes you out of your depth more than the original, feels more intense and they certainly look better, but you do loose the sudden fear of fighting what was previously a basic enemy and now can happily shrug off your gunfire.
On a whole though, largely faithful remake of a great game. Would still advise trying the original, they should really throw it in free with this one, but well worth it.
