With Metro Awakening, Vertigo Games delivers a gripping post-apocalyptic shooter that tells a successful prequel story over twelve chapters. No prior knowledge of the Metro books or games is required, making it easy to jump in.
The interaction with the world and the gadgets works really well. The handling of the weapons is convincing. Most of the fights are exciting, and the soundtrack is well arranged. Plus: There are plenty of scary moments thanks to the great play of light and shadow and the mutant enemies you’ll confront.
Graphically, the Quest version performs quite well, without reaching the quality of Batman: Arhkam Shadow. For a visual comparison between the Quest 3 and PSVR 2 versions, take a look at the linked article.
However, I hesitate to give the game a full recommendation. The level design and the locations are not varied enough for me, especially in the later parts.
Other points of criticism include the sometimes predictable actions of the enemies, the unfair distribution of save points, and the fact that there are far too few creative puzzles. However, if you can overlook these flaws, you will be entertained for seven to nine hours at a good level.
As a veteran of the series I think the level design complaint are arguing against a core aspect of the series (only rebuked by Exodus).
And as someone experienced a/ shooting in VR I think the ammo on the max difficulty needs a tweak. Much like other entries you shoot more against mutants. But ammo is so rare that you’ll often end up meleeing lurkers to death which doesn’t feel great.
Overall probably half way done great entry for the series long term fans should appreciate it.
