Review of Metro Awakening VR

Review of Metro Awakening VR Rating *****

A few of the early reviews for this title were negative. There were complaints about everything: It’s too dark, there is not enough gunplay, It’s not as good as Half-Life Alyx. I enjoyed every minute of this game. It’s a showcase of what VR immersion can accomplish.

While not every object in the game is manipulatable, who cares? If you spend all of your time looking under every box and behind every door, what’s the point? That’s not to say that exploration doesn’t pay off. You’re going to need ammunition to do battle with a number of enemy fighters, spiders, and an assortment of other creatures. A lot of the time, you’ll only find that ammunition if you take a turn down a poorly lit dead-end.

I’ve read reviews from some players who claim to have spent an hour on each of the twelve chapters. It took me forty-two hours to complete. I could have shortened that time significantly had I known a few tips, which I’ll share later.

This title has a lot of dialogue and character interaction. That interaction drives the story forward and provides some humor. Just wait until you get into a gun battle with a group of fighters screaming how you’re easy you’re going to be to kill. Or, see what happens when you try to sneak up on someone but forget to turn off your headlamp. “What was that flash?”

The game shines in its attention to detail. In one interaction, two people were talking. I waited until one person left the room. I then used a pistol with a silencer to kill the one guy. I then started to snoop around, looking for the path forward. While hiding in a darkened corner, the second guy returned to the room where his dead comrade lay on the floor. “Brother, what happened?” The second character asked. That was followed by the familiar “There is an enemy within us” chant, and the next gunfight was on. In yet another scene, I wounded a soldier. I walked up to him, and you could see him holding his wound and saying, “I can’t stop the bleeding.” How about a gunshot to the head? Will that help?

I played the game with an HP G2 Reverb VR headset and Windows Mixed Reality. When I first started the game, the player drifted. The Steam VR settings fixed that problem by allowing Steam VR to run OpenXR instead of Windows.

Here are some tips that I wish I had known before I started to play the game. Five weapons are used in the game: a pistol, an AK-type firearm, a blowpipe, a crossbow, and a shotgun. You’ll start with a pistol in your right hip. The other weapons you’ll find as you play the game. Here’s what I didn’t know. Once you encounter a new weapon, store it by placing it over your right shoulder. You access the weapon by reaching over your right shoulder, where you will find a second knapsack. For some reason, I didn’t get the memo and didn’t know I could store the shotgun or how to access these weapons. I kept picking up shotgun shells and storing them by bringing them close to my chest, but I didn’t have the shotgun. The same with the crossbow. I needed both weapons for battles in the game but didn’t know how to access them.

Tip number two: Some ammo can be used repeatedly. The steel rods used in the crossbow can be retrieved from the victim. So, too, darts from the blowpipe. Another tip is to take the magazines from the weapons of the soldiers you kill.

One last tip. In some scenarios, you will find it almost impossible to kill every soldier, creature, or spider coming after you or standing between you and the next door. You can often skip the gunfight and bolt for the door or passageway.

The last three chapters of the game were the most intense. You’ll need the skills and knowledge gained in the previous chapters to make it through.

The game is based on a novel. When you add it all up—story, graphics, sound, music, and sound effects—the result is an immersive game that will keep you occupied for many hours.