Metro: Last Light is a game that was supposed to be in stores this month, but THQ’s financial woes and ultimate brutal dismemberment means it went to Deep Silver to be distributed, and was bumped to May.
From what we played, it’s worth the wait.
The gameplay on the PAX East floor was based around one level, where you had to bump off a bunch of targets in a dimly lit underground armored train yard.
And it was tough. That was really the thing; the idea, of course, is to get through using as few bullets as possible because bullets are, quite literally, money. The game actually gives you several different methods to bump off your opponents quietly in the level we played. A silenced pistol and sneaking up behind your targets with a knife, for example.
The tricky part is, of course, getting your enemies isolated enough in the dark that you can pick them off. The game makes stealth a reasonable path, but you have to earn it: Catch enemy attention and you can very easily get pinned down unless you’re quick on the trigger.
Graphically, the game is gorgeous: The demo is running on the Xbox 360, and it strikes the difficult balance of keeping the game well-lit while making stealth at least somewhat believable.
May can’t come soon enough, with games like this on the docket.