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The Fallout gaming universe needs no recommendations. The first two games of the famous series became the icons of the post-apocalyptic genre and the third game, although dramatically different from its predecessors, enjoyed a warm welcome from the gaming audience as well. Fallout 3 is often criticized by hardcore fans for digressing from the canon and having a too short main plot line, but anyway. Following the success of this series, many developers tried to strike gold from the post-apocalyptic mine, but it turned out that the survival on the ruins of civilization after a global catastrophe could only be fun if there was some special feature in the gaming universe. The difference between Fallout and the numerous attempts at mimicking it was that Fallout showed a strangely addictive, even though gloomy, world with unique culture and aesthetics. Most of the clones just couldn’t offer that.

Not all of such attempts failed, though. One of the more successful ones is the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series which builds upon the disastrous Chernobyl story, the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic novel, and the famous Stalker movie by Andrei Tarkovsky. Despite a very long time it had taken to develop (started in 2001, the first game was completed in 2007 only), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. gained enough recognition among gamers worldwide. Its example seems to prove that a post-apocalyptic game has to build upon a solid cultural background to be a success. This made the trick for Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Will it work for the 3D shooter Metro 2033 we are going to review today?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...etro-2033.html

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