The next game controversy? Metro: Last Light

[Syt]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/05/16/power-cuts-and-responsibility-making-metro-last-light/

We've yet to WiT Metro: Last Light on RPS, thanks to the review code not working, but its recent release has prompted ex-THQ boss Jason Rubin to write an astonishing article on the development of the game. Over at GamesIndustry.biz, Rubin has written an incendiary post on the daily struggles that Kiev-based dev team 4A Games faced, calling their game "a stunning achievement", and asking for more recognition of their abilities. If accurate, he paints a team building a game with a tiny budget, in a country where implied corruption necessitates smuggling higher-end equipment past customs officials, for a company he describes as "irrational". I'm British, so my monocle is currently on the floor.


Rubin joined THQ as company president in May of 2012, so he was there for the final eight months of the game's development. He claims he wrote the post because: "A combination of a complex and secretive industry, a press that lags the movie and music press in calling attention to the stories behind the games, a dysfunctional and ever-changing sequence of producers causing confusion, the inevitable anonymity that comes from being an Eastern European developer, and a new, last minute publisher that doesn't see the upside in doing your team's publicity, will conspire to keep an incredible story hidden."

So what were those challenges? According to Rubin the working conditions of the team were "appalling", with the team working on folding chairs, and when he tried to change that the expensive chairs he'd hoped to provide were too big for the offices. He also said the game's development studio would easily fit inside EA LA's gym, while the budget for the game was, "a mere 10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors."

Tough times, but Rubin also claims that the country's infrastructure compounded the problems: frequent blackouts would disturb the developers and shut off heating in the sub-zero winters; gangsters threw a producer out of his flat with a day's notice; and "when 4A needed another dev kit, or high-end PC, or whatever, someone from 4A had to fly to the States and sneak it back to the Ukraine in a backpack lest it be "seized" at the border by "thieving customs officials."

It's an incredible post, particularly when it gets down to THQ's role in all this: "If 4A had been given a more competitive budget, in a saner environment, hadn't wasted a year-plus chasing the irrational requirement of THQ's original producers to fit multiplayer and co-op into the same deadline and budget(!), hadn't had to deal with the transition to a new publisher in the crucial few months before final, what could 4A have created?"

He also has a prod at the game's new publishers Deep Silver, claiming they should be outing the story he's telling. It's a strange point to make, given they picked up a nearly complete game and he didn't do any of this in the eight months that he was in charge. He was in charge of a sinking ship, but if it was a story he believed in and had offered access to the press, there's no way it would have been turned down. Access to an Eastern-European developer in a country as corrupt as the one he paints isn't something that's easily got.

Even so, the full article is definitely worth a look at.

We're told Deep Silver are preparing a statement. And they've already kicked off on Twitter.

Original article by Jason Rubin: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-15-jason-rubin-metro-last-light-is-the-triumph-of-an-underdog

[11B4V]

Wow

[The Brain]

OK so the game is much worse than it could have been. Gotcha, won't buy it.

[Syt]

Destructoid gave it 7/10:
http://www.destructoid.com/review-metro-last-light-253546.phtml

Despite looking and sounding beautiful, a few grievous bugs threaten to tarnish otherwise polished package. At various points, Artyom will be accompanied by an ally who is required to open certain doors and lead the way. At one point, I had to restart an entire chapter because a checkpoint saved after one of these allies decided to stop moving. He was needed to lead me to a door and trigger an event, but he wouldn't do so no matter how many times I reloaded the checkpoint. Fortunately, individual chapters aren't especially long, but it was still quite inconvenient.

My PC copy was also subject to a number of crashes, including one in the very final battle of the game. Overall, I crashed to the desktop three times during the course of the eight-hour adventure -- not an unplayable number of times, but enough to merit a stern mention.

Metro: Last Light is a disappointment in several respects. That simply has to be said. Its design painstakingly addresses criticisms of Metro 2033 to such an overzealous degree that it actually undoes many of the things 2033 was praised for. The fact you have to pre-order or pay to access a game closer to the original's heart is also damn near inexcusable, and again I emphasize that I will not review a mode that has been tacked on in such a fashion.

However -- and it's a big however -- Last Light is also a fine game on its own, and if we're to judge it without the shadow of 2033 looming overhead, we can say it's a game packed with structurally sound combat, a rewardingly fluid narrative, and an atmosphere that runs the gamut from intriguing to chilling.

As a default experience, Metro: Last Light is a good game that forgets why Metro 2033 was a great one.

[Neil]

And because it's the gaming press, 7/10 is the same as 1/10.

[garbon]

Reading the full review, I don't think I'm a fan of that reviewer.

[Syt]

Angry Joe gives 9/10, but he can be a bit Timmayesque in his enthusiasm for games he likes.

[garbon]

And because it's the gaming press, 7/10 is the same as 1/10.

Most of his dislikes seem to be that he doesn't like how the newest one seems divergent from what he thought was core elements in the 1st one.

[grumbler]

Most of his dislikes seem to be that he doesn't like how the newest one seems divergent from what he thought was core elements in the 1st one.

Gotta agree.  the review is crap, because he is comparing an apple to an orange and saying the apple is the wrong color.

[Syt]

The reviews at RPS and Angry Joe are pretty positive, some flaws notwithstanding.

[Razgovory]

I never played through the first one.  I got to a certain spot and couldn't beat it.  Also it didn't run well on my old PC.

[Josquius]

Shoving multiplayer into every game:

[Caliga]

Shoving multiplayer into every game:

I think it's a fad that will go away, similar to the late 90s where there were all those FMV games (Phantasmagoria, Gabriel Knight II) and everyone was like "OMG all games will be like this now!" and within a few years, none were.

[sbr]

I don't think so.  MP is an easy and somewhat legit way to require online DRM and kill the second hand market (in consoles).

I think that is the reason they put mp in everything, not the actual mp gameplay.

[Caliga]

Interesting point, I hadn't thought about the DRM angle.

Though TBH I'm not opposed to multiplayer.  I would have done it in ME3 but since I got the game late as well as all the DLC, I didn't need to do it to get the best endings.