This game has been sitting in my Steam account and GOG account for I'm not sure how long. Late last week I stumbled over a recent review of the game using the Arx Libertatis mod for it that improves casting as well as eliminating bugs and improving stability. The creator still regularly update the mod regularly, and you can find newer builds that haven't made it to the main website here.
I've put around 9 hours into it over the weekend, and a lot of it screams 2002 open world RPG, but it also feels a lot more fluid and fleshed out than I would expect a 2002 game to feel. It definitely doesn't hold your hand at all, but at the same time it's super satisfying to find quest based checkpoints and clues that move forward the main or side stories. The world looks great, and the ambient noise is really good as well. The work they did on footstep noises alone floors me (no pun intended), walking across a stone floor and taking a single side step onto a metal surface will elicit the appropriate sound. I found myself walking back and forth over areas just to hear the sounds my feet made, and I think that's the first time I can say that ever.
The acting seems purposely bad in some spots, but appropriate in others, there's a lot of goofiness to some of the races in the game that you would expect, and how they refer to each other and your situation based on the political climate at any given time is conveyed in a way I rarely see in other big budget open world RPG titles from Bethesda or even CDP.
I'm definitely hooked at this point, and I'm glad I found a game to whittle away in my backlog until Metro Exodus hits next month.
I've put around 9 hours into it over the weekend, and a lot of it screams 2002 open world RPG, but it also feels a lot more fluid and fleshed out than I would expect a 2002 game to feel. It definitely doesn't hold your hand at all, but at the same time it's super satisfying to find quest based checkpoints and clues that move forward the main or side stories. The world looks great, and the ambient noise is really good as well. The work they did on footstep noises alone floors me (no pun intended), walking across a stone floor and taking a single side step onto a metal surface will elicit the appropriate sound. I found myself walking back and forth over areas just to hear the sounds my feet made, and I think that's the first time I can say that ever.
The acting seems purposely bad in some spots, but appropriate in others, there's a lot of goofiness to some of the races in the game that you would expect, and how they refer to each other and your situation based on the political climate at any given time is conveyed in a way I rarely see in other big budget open world RPG titles from Bethesda or even CDP.
I'm definitely hooked at this point, and I'm glad I found a game to whittle away in my backlog until Metro Exodus hits next month.
