Editorials
[Review] ‘Metro Exodus’ Takes You On a Thrilling Road Trip Without Really Going Anywhere New
Should you get aboard the Metro hype train? Read why we thought you may hesitate to buy a ticket in our Metro Exodus review.
Carefully I approach the shore, makeshift oars breaking apart a thin crust of ice bobbing atop these irradiated waters. I’m careful to avoid the ripples as I go – a telltale sign of something lurking beneath the surface, waiting to turn my rickety boat into a splintery supper. On foot now, I approach the small shanty town ahead, a church bell tolling from across this blighted wasteland. I can hear two men talking; wiping the dirt, rain, and blood from my gas mark, I ready my pneumatic rifle. I’ve got a clutch of freshly-crafted steel balls, more than enough to quietly take off the pair of watchmen. The gun’s jammed, however, and I take a knee for a few seconds to fix it, having forgotten to do so when ambushed by a pack of hound-like mutants back near the railway, swapping out the useless weapon for my personally modified shotgun. It may only hold two shells but if it wasn’t for those two shots having found their mark, I’d be dead right now.
Then I realize something – these two men, they’re unarmed: looking out over the lake, two long fishing poles hungrily hovering above its murky waters. This land belongs to a cult, its zealous, technophobic followers having almost killed me during our last encounter. Still, these two look friendly enough. Holstering my rifle, I approach…
Metro Exodus has plenty of these moments and while not completely unscripted they add a layer to the game’s story and atmosphere that wasn’t there before. Both Metro 2033 and its sequel, Last Light, were incredibly linear shooters that had you scouring a subterranean network of tunnels in their grim depiction of a nuclear apocalypse. Occasionally, you’d brave the surface, gas mark in hand, exploring wider areas overrun by mutants but there was that same feeling of being led from one beat to the next instead of being able to fully soak in this world, inspired by the best-selling novels of Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky.
In the past, Metro has been mistakenly labeled as a spiritual successor to the severely underrated Stalker series. I say this because part of what made those games so unique wasn’t their hazardous wastelands and occasional quirkiness, it was the sense that you had some actual freedom in approaching your objectives instead of hurtling down a single path, taking the odd breather when the story felt like indulging itself.
Metro Exodus definitely leans closer to its Stalker roots this time around though it’s still, for the most part, a linear experience. This isn’t Fallout – you won’t be setting off, charting a course for a chosen landmark, then experiencing a series of emergent stories in between. Sadly, Exodus isn’t equipped to feel like a fully open-world game, instead finding a middle ground that should appease series fans and those wanting something more than a mere cookie-cutter sequel.
Whether or not you’ve played previous entries or read Glukhovsky’s books isn’t hugely important. There are references to certain characters and events that may go over your head but, for the most part, Exodus is newcomer-friendly. Once again you play as silent protagonist Artyom who, since the events of Last Light, has tried to settle down. However, convinced that he and his fellow metro-dwelling survivors aren’t alone in the world, he continues to take risky excursions above the surface, endangering himself while eating into the settlement’s dwindling resources.
We won’t spoil what happens but if you’ve seen any pre-release media for Metro Exodus then you know about the Aurora – the train that carries Artyom and a ragtag band of survivors beyond Moscow, giving Exodus a distinct road trip feel flavor, unlike its more confined predecessors. It’s tempting to make the joke that Metro has become an on-rails shooter though you won’t be spending too much time on the tracks. Exodus settles into a rhythm of taking you from one large hub area to the next where you will complete story missions and a string of side tasks.
Compared to previous games, it’s more open by design, though the minute-to-minute gameplay hasn’t really evolved. There’s something about the shooting and the way Artyom awkwardly shambles around that feels clumsy and archaic, Metro sits somewhere between the snappy responsiveness of games like Call of Duty and the deliberate heft of Killzone, though never finding a comfortable sweet spot.
It’s more than serviceable, however, and there’ll be plenty of satisfying moments when cranking far off headshots or just managing to fend off a mutant swarm. You can avoid most confrontations altogether, of course, though Metro’s flimsy stealth mechanics remain largely unchanged since previous games.
Those survival elements the series has featured in the past come to the fore, however. With the option to freely explore Metro’s wasteland, Exodus gives you an expanded toolset to do so while having a more robust crafting system. Where previous installments had you exchanging currency for ammunition, weapons, and equipment, everything here is either found in abandoned caches or crafted by hand.
Extra tools such as ziplines, binoculars, and workbenches all come in handy while adding texture to the game world. If there’s one thing Exodus does extremely well, it’s making you feel truly immersed as a survivor looking for hope in its alluringly oppressive world. With two games under the belt, expect to see some similar design tropes when it comes to Metro’s characters, enemies, and environments, though developer 4A Games also pushes for some diversity, too.
Despite a predominant sludge of browns and greys topped with a dusting of snow, Exodus can be quite the looker. Not all of its locales are brimming with a picturesque sense of character, though the game benefits from some fantastically detailed character work and lighting effects.
If you loved both 2033 and Last Light then you’ve likely boarded the hype train already and won’t be disappointed. Many will appreciate the continuation of Artyom’s story and 4A’s shift towards a freer, more immersive experience though Metro is still a couple of pegs below that top tier of first-person shooters. It feels rough around the edges and is let down by occasional bugs, sloppy AI, and a flimsy stealth system. That said, innovations elsewhere make some of these shortfalls easier to overlook.
Metro Exodus review code for PS4 provided by the publisher.
Metro Exodus is out February 15 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC via the Epic Games Store.
The penultimate season of Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) aired its first three episodes on October 31, so it’s understandable that at least one of those three stories is set on Halloween.
Sandwiched between “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (Russell Mulcahy, Ron Finley) and “Whirlpool” (Mick Garris, A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler) is the most severe episode of the bunch. Maybe the entire series? William Malone and Dick Beebe’s “Only Skin Deep” traded the show’s typical sense of fun for startling amounts of bleakness and kink.
“Only Skin Deep” is, apart from the Crypt Keeper’s intro and outro, noticeably unfunny. There are no considerable attempts at making the viewer laugh. Come to think of it, if those bookends had been replaced, and there was more of a sci-fi element in the story, HBO could have easily squeezed this tale into that successor anthology, Perversions of Science (1997). In Crypt, though, “Only Skin Deep” is much too grim for an audience that had become accustomed to campiness and levity.
What makes “Only Skin Deep” feel dark, among other things, is its protagonist. Showing up to a Halloween party where he’s not welcome, and where his former girlfriend (Diane DiLasco) is attending, Carl Schlag (Peter Onorati) first comes across as your standard bitter ex. You soon realize it’s much worse than that, once Carl threatens Linda (“You know, silly me, thinking I gave you what you deserved. If I’d have done that, I’d have killed you”). Now, I haven’t forgotten that Tales from the Crypt was teeming with vile men who did women harm. Yet Carl’s brand of misogynistic menace hits differently—it borders on being too realistic for this kind of series.
Mike Vosburg’s EC-style comic cover for “Only Skin Deep”, as seen in the Tales from the Crypt episode.
Despite donning a party mask for much of the episode, Carl can’t ever mask his true nature. The invitation did say “come as you are”, after all. That inability to change and be better, however, is why Carl ends up in such a karmic predicament. His outburst of anger at the party attracts the attention of one loner partygoer named Molly (Sherrie Rose, who was also in Season Four’s “On a Deadman’s Chest”). Her bone-white, featureless “mask” and body-bag costume don’t initially register as too strange, especially on a night like this. But at a party chock-full of colorful, cartoonish, and lighthearted ensembles, it does look out of place.
Darkness attracts darkness as Carl ditches the party and accompanies the mysterious Molly to her place. Which, by the way, should have been an immediate red flag. But perhaps she’s so hot, he doesn’t seem to mind the serial killer aesthetic. Resembling a warehouse that has been converted into living spaces, but never then decorated to remove the cold, industrial look, Molly’s home (or lair) is as gloomy as this whole episode feels. It’s like the set of a grungy music video, albeit a tad cleaner. The environments in a typical Crypt episode tend to be small, overfilled, and broken-in. Warm, regardless of any weird goings-on. All that empty space in Molly’s hovel, on the other hand, elicits a creepy feeling that Carl was unwise to ignore.
Tales from the Crypt featured more sex than it didn’t, but hands down, “Only Skin Deep” boasts the steamiest scene in the show’s history. Pushing it over the line, in addition to Onorati showing bare buns and the camera never turning down one of his pelvic thrusts, is the twisted dirty talk. Carl stays in the moment, whereas Molly unleashes charged lines like “the hurt, the anger, give it to me” and “take it out on my flesh like you want to”. It’s all quite kinky, as well as tied into the story’s theme of pain.
How else “Only Skin Deep” differs from other episodes is its twists. Or rather, its lack thereof. Nothing comes as a great surprise here, particularly because the deuteragonist’s ulterior motives are so obvious. By no means is Molly a wolf in sheep’s clothing; her face is a fright mask, she practically reeks of death, and she lives in what can best be described as a serial killer’s hideout. That last-act revelation of Molly’s mask really being her face is also nothing shocking. Cleverness is certainly not this episode’s strength.
A page from “…Only Skin Deep!”, as seen in EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt.
While “Only Skin Deep” isn’t the most universally loved episode of Tales from the Crypt, it’s an interesting preview of William Malone’s future as a director. Most notably, he went on to helm House on Haunted Hill (1999) and FeardotCom (2002), the former of which was co-written by Dick Beebe, this episode’s writer. Dark Castle Entertainment, that genre house founded by Crypt producers Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gilbert Adler, was instrumental in bringing out Malone’s gruesome, over-the-top vision in House on Haunted Hill. However, FeardotCom and Malone’s Masters of Horror episode, “Fair-Haired Child”, are the most stylistically compatible with “Only Skin Deep”.
As one might guess, this episode is nothing like its source material. The “…Only Skin Deep!” found in the pages of EC Comics is set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and save for its last couple of pages, is pretty sweet in nature. There, a man named Herbert is enamored with a woman he met five years prior to the present-day story. Every year, he has come down to Mardi Gras to see Suzanne, who’s always dressed as a hag-faced witch. Well, this time, Herbert plans on popping the question and marrying someone who is, for the most part, a total stranger. Suzanne accepts his proposal, but with one condition: they stay in costume until they’re officially hitched. You can probably see where this is going…
Once they are married, Suzanne remains incognito, even when she and Herbert have consummated their vows. A semi-predictive nightmare then rattles Herbert; he dreamt that Suzanne’s real face was as wizened as her mask. Finally, in his haste to find out the truth, Herbert winds up killing his new wife. Faceless and well on her way to bleeding out, the dying Suzanne manages to say she never wore a mask.
For more traditional EC-style ghastliness, your best bet is reading the comic. It’s wickedly sad. For something less conventional, as far as Tales from the Crypt goes, the role-reversing adaptation is worth watching. It’s not the best this show had to offer, although Malone’s visual style, plus the sexual abandon, does set the episode apart. If nothing else, “Only Skin Deep” leaves an impression that, even years later, shows no signs of fading.
Season Six of Tales from the Crypt can be streamed on Shudder, starting on June 5.
Tales from Tales from the Crypt celebrates the show’s Shudder premiere by singling out one episode from each season. So don’t even think about changing that dial, boys and ghouls. More spot-“frights” are to come.
Carl discovers Molly’s collection of human ‘masks’ in the Tales from the Crypt episode, “Only Skin Deep”.
You must be logged in to post a comment.