Day 7 - Metro 2033 and Cities in Motion

Metro 2033

This game is set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow, where nuclear war has rendered the surface uninhabitable and full of mutants. The survivors live down the in metros, using the tunnels to travel from town to town. Gameplay is your standard fare shooter, with a bit of horror mixed in.

The game is quite nice looking, but unfortunately the majority of it takes place in drab-looking locations, such as metro stations and metro tunnels. You'll occasionally go outdoors, where you're forced to wear a mask with a limited supply of filters. Speaking of limited, this game always makes me feel like I'm running out of things. Filters are hard to come by, and don't last very long, and Ammo is scarce, especially when you're fighting mutants. You can loot human corpses for a small amount of ammo, but it never feels like enough.

Metro 2033 uses a unique form of currency: bullets. Not the same bullets you use, mind you, but rather pre-war bullets, which apparently are nicer and therefore worth several hand-crafted ones. In the majority of the town hubs you can also trade these bullets in for weapons, ammo, health kits, etc. I spent quite a bit on ammo, and couldn't afford any of the interesting-looking weapons. Health kits aren't really a necessity, as your character does regenerate, albeit at a slower rate than similar shooters.

The game is cool enough, but it's not really my style. It never really feels epic or grand, and I'm not a fan of shooters with ammo limitations. The setting is interesting, but eventually you realize it's just an excuse to make more linear corridors. I played 68 minutes today, as well as some in the past getting me through the first two chapters. I think that's probably enough.

Cities in Motion

I'm a huge fan of the transportation simulation genre. Transport Tycoon DX being a fond memory in my youth, and I still play OpenTTD today. Cities in Motion continues the genre by providing a more in-depth simulation of public transportation. You're tasked with building and maintaining the public transportation of a city, which you can accomplish using a mixture of bus, tram, metro and other less used methods.

This game is hard. You can't go out and build anything and expect to make a profit. Routes must be built intelligently and carefully, especially at the beginning. I opted to play Munich in Sandbox mode, as I didn't want the campaign dictating how I design my infrastructure. After doing a bit of research, I opted to design a simple tram loop in downtown, keeping my tram stops off the street as much as possible to avoid traffic. I quickly added a second tram loop to that, then built a metro line going right through everything. By the end of all this I was making a profit of around $2,000 per month while paying off my loans. Not too bad.

Traffic is a bit of an issue on my third tram line, and some of my more central stations are too popular for the vehicles servicing them, but I'm not sure how to tackle those problems just yet. My next plans will probably to build bus lines on the outskirts leading to the tram and metro stations, then when my loan(s) are paid off I'll borrow some more and build more metro lines / stations. I'm feeling pretty good about what I accomplished so far, and I'm really interested in going back and growing it further. I'm not feeling rich, or successful yet, but at least what I'm doing is leading to progress.

Notes

There's been a lot of mediocre games this past week, but definitely lots of fun ones as well. If it takes me a bit longer to play the next titles on my list, it's only because I want to go back to some of the awesome games I've played this week.

Total time played above my goal: 7.12 hours

Album: Steam Challenge - Day 007