Review: Metrocide Early Access

Being a contract killer is tough.

In Metrocide, a top down, Cyberpunk stealth game from Flat Earth Games, you see just how tough it really is. After choosing your character at the start (a simple male/female choice), you are treated to a brief introduction comic, revealing that you need to buy new papers in order to get out of town. The only way to buy these papers is through the completion of hits.

Your contact will offer you a range of contracts, each detailing who your target would be, if they are armed, if they’re paranoid (meaning they’ll notice if you’re following) and even if they’re in town for a limited time. The more dangerous the mission, the more money you’ll receive upon execution.

It’s quite that simple, of course. Once you’ve found the person you’re meant to kill, you’ll have to make sure there are no witnesses, cameras or police patrols nearby. If you do manage to find a secluded spot and get a clean kill, you will want to dispose of the body in an open sewer. Doing this ensures that you get the full bounty (and a bonus if done without witnesses) and keeps police presence at a minimum. If you leave the body in the open, it will be discovered and a crime scene will open, usually resulting in an increased police presence in the area. Witnesses will sometimes point out the wrong suspect too, which can cause mass confusion and lead to people shooting one another – you can sometimes use to your advantage.

Once you’ve completed enough contracts, you will then be able to buy the papers you need to get out of town and unlock the next area. If you’re killed at any point either during a contract or even while fleeing the city, you will have to restart the level from scratch.

And make no mistake, you will die.

Curiously though, it rarely feels cheap or frustrating when you do perish. Each death is a learning experience – were you sloppy, missing that bystander? This can happen, sometimes due to their sprites blending into the scenery, others due to you focusing too much on your target instead of your surroundings.

Or perhaps you just pulled your gun too soon and a vigilante decided to blow your face off with a shotgun blast.

Your starting pistol is a slow shooter, requiring a brief charge before firing, so you have to be careful in the early stages. Once you unlock other weapons (the shotgun is a particular favourite, but it leaves a mess) you will feel more confident in taking on the more difficult contracts, giving Metrocide a great risk/reward factor.

Wandering around the city (and the two other areas available, once unlocked) is wonderfully atmospheric. With visuals akin to those of the original Grand Theft Auto, only with the camera pulled much further out to give you a better sense of where you are. Character sprites are simple but effective, their animation similarly so, as they pause for a cigarette you’ll see tiny pixels of smoke emanating from their faces, or they may open a paper and read for a moment. Rain falls and thunder rumbles, vehicles pass overhead and all of these things result in something special that wouldn’t be out of place alongside the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution in the Cyberpunk genre.

Being a part of Steam’s Early Access scheme, Metrocide doesn’t offer the complete package just yet. There are only three areas in the game so far and its options menu is made up of just two things: enabling/disabling tutorials and altering the control scheme. The second one is recommended for a better playing experience, as it allows players to move in all directions with the WASD keys and aim independently with the mouse (similar to twin-stick shooters on consoles) rather than using W to move towards the mouse cursor, bringing to mind the tank controls of the early Resident Evil games.

Its problems aren’t solely restricted to the missing features of an Early Access title, however. It can be very tough to get into at the start, even with the tutorials enabled, and it doesn’t always explain new mechanics – nor does it give you the full control scheme to view, meaning that some new abilities (purchased from vending machines throughout the city) will require you to play around with the keys in order to find how to use them.

The random nature of the game can also throw a spanner in the works. Tailing a target and waiting for that opportune moment can take far too long sometimes as bystanders seem to crowd the streets suddenly, or your prey never wanders anywhere near a quiet spot. This can be frustrating, especially during timed contracts, and it often leaves you with no choice but to kill in the open and accept the consequences – it can feel quite cheap in an otherwise dynamic experience.

Overall, Flat Earth Games has done a fantastic job with Metrocide. It has a decent amount of content already and benefits from being replayable again and again, in order to get that higher score or that perfect kill. Its visuals are striking without being flashy, its sound is meaty (the shotgun blast is an ear-shredder, when wearing headphones) and the gameplay is satisfying even during those frustrating moments.

Even unfinished, Metrocide is still a better hitman game than Agent 47’s last outing.