Tech Review: Metro Exodus

PS4 (Deep Silver)
The 5:30 commute will never be the same again, as you descend into the bowels of the Moscow underground train system to take up residence with mutant dogs and haunted marines. Metro games, made in the Ukraine and based on novels by a Russian author, are unique in the first-person-shooter canon (mainly because they’re not made in Los Angeles). Into this bleak dystopia you travel, a survivor of nuclear war hoping to find signs of life above the surface. In the absence of the brilliant-yet-unfinished Half-Life series, which left us hanging in 2004, Metro Exodus is the next best bet. Players prowl corridors, air ducts, and devastated streets, using stealth or firepower to take down man and beast. Big set-piece battles leave you winded as you gulp radiation from a smashed gas mask.
There’s a decent story somewhere in here about human factions fighting for a ruined world, but the character interaction and dialogue is so rushed the drama becomes a frantic mush.

7/10