YOM: 2010
Genre: Action (Shooter) / 3D / 1st Person
Developer: 4A Games
Publisher: THQ
System requirements for maximum rendering quality recommended by the gameGPU website:
The minimum
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 2,66 GHz or Athlon II x2 240
RAM: 2 GB
Video card: DirectX®11 compatible video adapter with 512 MB RAM Radeon HD 4850 or GeForce GTX 260
DirectX: DirectX®11
Winchester: 7 GB free space
Effective
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: 2 Core Duo 3,0 GHz or Phenom II x2 545
Memory: 3 GB
Video card: DirectX®11 compatible video adapter with 512 MB RAM Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 280
DirectX: DirectX®11
Winchester: 7 GB free space
Optimal
Operating system: Vista®, Windows 7
Processor: Core 2 Quad 3.0 GHz or Phenom II x4 945
RAM: 4 GB
Video card: DirectX®11 compatible video adapter with 1024 MBRAM Radeon HD 5830 orGeForce GTX 285
DirectX: DirectX®11
Winchester: 7 GB free space
Official description of the game
In 2013, the world was destroyed by a global catastrophe, wiping out the Earth’s population and turning its surface into a poisoned wasteland. A handful of survivors found refuge in the depths of the Moscow metro, and human civilization once again plunged into the Dark Ages. Now the year is 2033. An entire generation of people was born and raised underground, watching their besieged Metro-Cities fight for survival with each other and with the nightmarish mutants that await outside. Atmospheric first-person shooter, based on the best-selling book by Dmitry Glukhovsky. Set in the ruined subway of post-apocalyptic Moscow, Metro 2033 is a harrowing tale of extreme survival where the fate of humanity lies in your hands. You are Artem, an ordinary Muscovite, born before the world apocalypse, but raised underground. Never before had he left the confines of his already dear Metro station, but fate decided in its own way. Now he is forced to fulfill the mission of his entire life: to get into the center of the Moscow Metro and warn the remnants of human society about the impending danger, or die on the way and doom the survivors to certain death.
Features:
o Metro 2033 is a breathtaking, atmospheric first-person shooter wrapped in cutting-edge graphics. Feel yourself in a destroyed post-nuclear Moscow!
o Witness the daily horror experienced by a society living underground in constant fear.
o Take courage and become explorers of the network of underground tunnels spread throughout the city. There in the dark, it is you who are the prey of mutants, and not vice versa. Become the hunter or the hunted.
o Explore a city devastated by radiation. Only a gas mask and a trusty rifle will save you from the infected world and mutated creatures waiting for you outside.
o Get your psyche in order and get ready to face all the horrors of the post-nuclear world of the Metro 2033 universe.
Review: Playability
Our fellow countrymen, if they want, can move mountains and release quite competitive solutions. A striking example of domestic game development is STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. At the time of its release, it was a completely fresh and technologically advanced product. But time passes and its subsequent sequels have lost their innovativeness and turned into second-rate projects. Our game industry needed a breath of fresh water that could give it a second wind and place it on the pedestal of world fame.
Of course, Metro 2033 became a second wind for our compatriots. Unlike the moldy STALKER, literally everything in it breathes freshness and manufacturability. Game developers have long understood that complete freedom of action cannot fully convey the developers’ intent, and a linear plot is necessary to fully reveal their desires. A striking example of success is the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series of games from the Infinity Ward studio, where the completely linear gameplay and excellent dynamic plot appealed to many gamers. After analyzing the success trends of Infinity Ward, 4A Games employees adopted the style of the Modern Warfare games, changing and diversifying it.
So the game is linear, and as common sense tells us, this is good, because we’re tired of wandering around and looking for something without knowing what. The plot of Metro 2033 is taken from the book of the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky, which we unfortunately have not read yet, but we will definitely do so in the near future. But even without holding this wonderful book in our hands, we can visually get acquainted with his universe: underground settlements founded on the site of former metro stations, dark tunnels infested with horrors and the surface of Moscow disfigured after the atomic explosion. There are plenty of monsters both in the dungeons and on the surface, but besides them you need to be wary of one more terrible individual – a person…
Throughout the game you will not be bored – you will always be in the center of various turbulent events. The gameplay is not very annoying and, if desired, the game can be completed in one breath. The game pays a lot of attention to various little things that can have a key impact on you, so you shouldn’t ignore everything… The most important feature of Metro 2033 is realism. You will not find such a recreated reality of the game world in any game at the moment: the life, behavior and actions of people are incredibly real – such “living” game settlements have never been seen in any game before. The game has collected the best features of the hit games of our time, becoming a masterpiece of our time. STALKER can only nervously smoke on the sidelines.
We invite you to evaluate part of the Metro 2033 video, shot at maximum graphics quality settings, where you can see for yourself the quality of this product:
This year has become a real cornucopia for avid gamers, presenting us with an incredible number of gaming hits. Worthwhile games are released with such frequency that you don’t even have time to finish one, and the next one is already out… Let’s hope that game developers will continue to adhere to this trend and present us only worthwhile projects!
Review: Game Graphics
More recently, we received a demo version of Just Cause 2, which was able to shake the dust-covered Crysis on the throne of the graphics pedestal. All eminent Internet resources predicted Metro 2033 to play the role of a certain Crysis killer who would be head and shoulders above its competitor. From a graphical point of view, the game is incomparable, no doubt about it: super detail, keen attention to every detail, ultra-technological innovations. In this regard, Crysis is undoubtedly a knockout. But no matter how you look at it, it has the most beautiful landscapes and larger locations on its side, so the issue of beauty remains moot. But in terms of technology, Metro has surpassed its predecessor, and this is unambiguous.
The game includes support for all modern graphics APIs, switchable directly in the graphical menu: DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11. So, Windows XP owners will not be left out this time. There are no advanced graphics settings in the game. There are four quality categories to choose from: low, medium, high and ultra.
But even at low quality the picture is simply an unparalleled level that in itself leaves most modern games behind. The quality at low and medium settings, as well as at high and ultra settings, is almost the same. There is a big gap in picture quality only when moving from medium to high. So know that if the game slows down at ultra settings, when you switch to high settings you will not lose all the beauty of the graphics, but only a small part of it (mainly the quality of detail, which is simply cosmic when the settings are set to ultra).
Now we get to the quality of the implementation of such a painful topic as DirectX 11. When it is activated, the number of frames drops by almost half. But it’s very difficult to find differences with DirectX 10 the first time…
And only with a deep analysis do differences begin to emerge (slightly more advanced detailing of the environment, a larger number of particles constantly floating in the air and a more realistic structure of surface damage). The DOF effect is present and the depth of field is noticeably visible, but the performance drop when it is activated is unjustified.
The physics in Metro 2033 are simply amazing. Here there is no destructibility of everything and everything as in other sophisticated projects: only what can be destroyed in real life can be destroyed: hanging bricks and decrepit boards, fragile objects and loose plaster in the wall, etc. The game, in theory, uses such a newfangled function as NVIDIA Physics, but its very designation in the game has a completely different character – advanced physics. Activation of this important graphical component, oddly enough, is not in the graphical settings menu, but in the game one. Instead of video cards, the central processor handles physics processing. So, when using the second Nvidia GPU as a physics accelerator, its load was zero. So what are the chances ATI и Nvidia in this regard they are equal.
Another unpleasant surprise for Nvidia card owners is a constant error every time you launch the game, requiring you to install the latest graphics driver. As we know, the latest version 196.75 had problems that disabled video cards and it was withdrawn. So all owners of GeForce cards need to be patient and wait for new drivers.
In terms of technology, the metro has surpassed all its competitors, and now let’s see how it stacks up against them in terms of system requirements.
Review: Resource-intensive game
The developers went a little too far, saying that for maximum graphics quality settings a Core I 7 and 8 gigabytes of RAM will be needed. To play Metro 2033 comfortably, you will need a Core 2 Duo 3,0 GHz or Phenom II x2 545 processor and 3 gigabytes of RAM.
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Hardware configuration |
|
| Processor |
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@ 4.25 GHz L2 cache 12 MB, |
| Motherboard | MSI P45 Platinum 7512 (LGA 775) P45/ICH10R |
| Memory | 4 GB OCZ DDR2-1150 @ 11160, 5-5-5, 2,2 V |
| Video Cards |
GeForce 8400 GS 512 MB |
| HDD | 2 RAID0 Western Digital Caivar WD2500GL 250 GB, 7200 rpm, SATA 3 Gbit/s |
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System software and drivers |
|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Platform Driver | Intel INF Chipset Update Utility 9.1.0.1012 |
| Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 196.21 ATI Catalyst 10.2 |
All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using Fraps. in the most resource-intensive place in the game.
Since the requirements for video cards this time turned out to be truly enormous, all video adapters were tested at all graphics quality settings at resolutions of 1280×1024 and 1920×1080 in DX10 and DX11 modes. But even at low settings, as we emphasized earlier, the picture quality is quite acceptable. So making this decision was quite appropriate for us. Tests were carried out in AAA anti-aliasing mode. Physics included.
Testing at low quality settings 1280×1024 DirectX 10
Testing at low quality settings 1920×1080 DirectX 10
At low quality settings, all video cards below the $100 limit turn out to be practically unplayable. Video cards starting from the Radeon HD 3850 or GeForce 9600 GT level are more or less suitable for this. There is no significant dominance at low quality settings between ATI and Nvidia – all video cards are lined up in terms of performance according to their price niches.
Testing at medium quality settings 1280×1024 DirectX 10
Testing at medium quality settings 1920×1080 DirectX 10
Switching to medium settings does not result in a significant loss in performance. It only amounts to a couple of percent, although for many players it can already turn out to be fatal…
Testing at high quality settings 1280×1024 DirectX 10
Testing at high quality settings 1920×1080 DirectX 10
When we switch to high settings, the most interesting things await us. Nvidia video cards catastrophically lose performance, completely capitulating to ATI cards. All this seems strange, because the game was developed under the auspices of The Way It’s Meant To Be Played, but the fact is obvious – AMD cards are far ahead. And if for Radeon video cards the HD 4770 level is quite enough, then for Nvidia an accelerator of the GTX 260 level will be needed. The difference in the price category is simply colossal.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1280×1024 DirectX 10
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 DirectX 10
When you switch to maximum graphics quality settings, even ATI cards begin to fail, but they still remain head and shoulders above their competitors. And here the bare minimum needs to be considered cards of the Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 280 level, and then only on small separate screens.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1280×1024 DirectX 11
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080 DirectX 11
DirectX 11 finished off the ATI Radeon HD 58XX series cards that were not going to give up. And if at a resolution of 1280×1024 their brakes are still tolerable, then with full HD you begin to feel not quite good… The DOF effect takes up more resources and without its activation the performance is close to the DirectX 10 mode. The beta version of the ATI Catalyst 10.3 driver increases FPS compared to with 10.2 it didn’t work. Perhaps the new Nvidia Fermi cards, based on the new architecture, will be able to cope with unprecedented technology, but until they are released, these are just rosy assumptions.
Conclusion: Metro 2033 turned out to be a very good product, both from the gaming side and from the graphical side. Without a twinge of conscience, we will say that this is the most technologically advanced product in the entire history of the gaming industry. The only downside is that for most gamers a graphics upgrade will be inevitable.
