You know it's going to be good when there's an arachnophobia warning

me: Hmm, let's try the "Immersion" control mode

me, one second later: nope

They really captured that Metro vibe

Oh nice, this is exactly what I needed for Half-Life: Alyx - I missed so many instinctive shots because the place the gun aims is way above (apparently 13°?) where your hand is actually aligned

Hah, of course it does

Right, so that's the room I need to go into…

Ah, a good day's work

welp

I'm really digging Metro Awakening - so far, it's a really faithful extension of the Metro universe into VR.

They've perfectly captured the mood in the different areas: the peaceful melancholy of the stations, the creepy vibe of the tunnels, the increasingly desperate tension of the radioactive areas.

Using the different guns and tools feels great, and doing things like wiping the condensation off your gas mask is very natural. Having to put your gun away and dig out other equipment to do things like burn cobwebs, charge your headlamp, and power up electrical devices adds both variety and tension to the gameplay.

I'm curious to see how the stealth mechanic works out.

Argh, I'm getting that HL: Alyx feeling of spending way too much time digging through literal garbage

Wow, it took me so many tries to pass this segment. Maybe it's my ancient vive pre, but the enemies were barely visible before they were killing me, even after I maxed the brightness.

Mmm, I'm not sure how I feel about the stealth yet. I had a bunch of do-overs and alerts during the first stealth segment. I completely missed the part of the stealth "tutorial" where it explained about silent takedowns - I stumbled into the first stealth segment standing up with my headlamp on, so it may have marked all the tutorials completed as I got shot 🤷

I found out about them afterward browsing fora like "I must be missing something", but lots of people also complained about not being able to pull them off consistently, so I'm not sure how much it will help. Between that and eventually having to crouch and hide in the railcar just to get past, it was a frustrating session tonight. 😐

🤘

challenge: find the chain in this image

omg are they going to do the guy in a chair gag

💥 called it

A binary puzzle! I'm genuinely delighted

Ok, this session went better. I was able to silent takedown a few guys (protip: it's easier when holding a gun), and I still ended up alerting them a few times, but I survived - and I can live with it when it's my fault and an isolated incident, not just like every stealth situation.

It's kind of hilarious that if you leave the room the guys are patrolling after alerting them, they just keep running around the room and shouting endlessly. I guess it's not worse than other games' "Huh, must have been the wind *stepping over the corpse of a crewmate*" 🤷

so uhh… whatcha doin'?

now entering Jesus Station

😬

Another difficult session, but maybe because I accidentally all of chapter 4 in one "sitting" (standing?)

I breezed through the obligatory Bad Guys Took All Your Stuff segment, and the next segment was Sneaking Past Bad Guys. The first part or parts went all right, and I feel like I've figured out the stealth takedown now - but the last part has One Competent Soldier who was the bane of my existence. He has a helmet and body armor, so no instant takedowns, and he was annoyingly always there when I wanted to take down another stooge, or spotted that they weren't on patrol or whatever, and after a bunch of retries, I ended up Just Killing Everyone.

An appropriate name

Had the chance to play a few segments today. The supernatural themes are intensifying. I missed a chance to stealth some guys because I thought I was going to help them until they started shooting me.

I've started finding darts that can be stored in the ammo pouch - is there a blowgun weapon coming up?

A few more segments, finishing off chapter 5.

A clear structural pattern seems to be emerging for each chapter: exposition, monsters, dudes, twist. I wonder if they were originally considering releasing this serially.

not the ideal view upon waking up

Just a cozy little nook in between the Radioactive Tunnels and the Spider Labyrinth

Wow, it's getting dark now. More and more sequences that mess with my perception of reality, etc. Speaking of dark, I do not appreciate the areas where they reduced the effectiveness of my headlamp, although I suppose that having temporarily removed the need to recharge it there partially ameliorates that. Now I understand the arachnophobia warning - I used all my ammo in the Spider Labyrinth, and only managed to pick up just enough to survive the following encounter.

In a rare turn of events, I am looking forward to a dude section - dudes always have ammunition to harvest.

nice kitty

cozy

Must be a hell of a battle coming up 😰

My kids left the vr stuff out this evening, so I picked up Metro Awakening for a little bit after they went to bed (wow, has it really been almost a year since I last played it 🤯)

there's nothing quite like the typical experience of "oh god how do all the controls work again" immediately compounded by "OH GOD THERE ARE SPIDERS ON ME"

I have completely lost the knack of bonking dudes on the head (which was always kind of janky anyway), but fortunately I have plenty of crossbow bolts (which can also be reclaimed) 🤷

I had thought I must be nearing the end of the story, but I'm apparently in chapter 11 and it just keeps unfolding (although I just finished a monster section and a dudes section, so I must be about due for some exposition)