Metrocide (PC) Review

Flat Earth Games produces a top-down, cyberpunk shooter on the PC that’s got some promise… and a few issues.

Metrocide starts slow and lacks story, but rebounds with challenging and interesting gameplay. The developers, Flat Earth Games, describe the game as a relentless top-down single-player arcade stealth-shooter. You play T.J. Trench, a killer-for-hire, who wants to get out of the game and Metro City. Unfortunately you need to kill to make money to get out of there. Assassinations aren’t easy when the streets are filled with vigilantes, gang members, and cops either.

With a set up like that it would seem a great game plot is insured, but none of this enriching backstory was present in the game.  Thankfully, gameplay improves to compensate for this absence. The high scaled difficulty leads to a slow start, but once I spent some time with the mechanics, the game became engaging rather than laborious. Basically, Metrocide’s challenging gameplay helps alleviate the game’s shortcomings.

Metrocide is a top-down shooter similar to original Grand Theft Auto that requires skill and patience. The style elicits nostalgia while creating a grainy, broken cyperpunk city. The pixelation occasionally made it difficult to distinguish people and objects, but overall, the style is good and consistent. The only issue is the random design impediments that are hard to differentiate from the level design. It’s a mere annoyance, but can really be an issue if you need to flee a crime scene. The story comics are also very nicely designed to match the game. While more detailed, they are pixelated and still framed. Flat Earth Games did a great job creating a unified world  aesthetic.

As I mentioned, gameplay requires patience and skill, and stealth is essential to this game. There are cameras and people everywhere; both of which will report you to the police for any misstep. If you do get reported, the cops will shoot you down like a dog in the street. These lessons are learned very quickly as the consequences are deadly, but the real goal of completing contracts takes time and practice and is very slow.

A lot of time within the game is spent casing the target to find the best opportunity. This part is very tedious and, I won’t cage it, boring. Nonetheless, stealth kills are the best because they earn you extra money and keep you off the police radar. There also seems to be an in-game reward system for achieving kills.

Tools and targets unlock during gameplay; however, there weren’t any real notifications for these changes. They seemed to just suddenly appear without explanation. I can’t really complain because it was after this that the game picked up for me. It created some variety to Metrocide and definitely improved it. Players can use money earned from contracts to purchase tools and weapons to make assassinations more fun and easier to accomplish. It takes time to reach that amount of money, but it is worth it.

The biggest misstep of the game is the disconnection between story and gameplay. The story is virtually separate from the game and fails to elicit an emotional connection to the game or the characters therein. It is highly disappointing because the premise of the game is intriguing. There is that comic that intros the game and the various segments; however, it is only played once and there is no other reference to the story.

In-depth story is not always necessary for a game to be great, but Metrocide seems to place a lot of emphasis on who T.J. Trench is and why he wants to leave. It is the whole motivation for why you performing these contract kills, yet it isn’t even mentioned by the people you receive the contracts from once. There were opportunities to enrich the story and connect the player more to the game and Flat Earth Games failed to do it. While this doesn’t ruin the game, it does make it fall short.

Final Thoughts

Metrocide’s gameplay evolves from tedious to engaging, saving it from its shortcomings. The game does start slow, but does become a fun game to play, as the weapons, variety of targets and methods invigorate it the longer you spend with it. The most glaring issue is the lack of integration of the story into the game. With everything said and done, fans of top-down shooters will enjoy the gameplay here.

Metrocide doesn’t bank on story, but if played with restraint and patience, this is an enjoyable game.

Follow me on twitter for more gaming info and news: @lmrome3