Buy Metrocide

Game started out nice but turned out to be yet another buggy cash grab that has been abandoned.

Don't buy.

Metrocide is a game about contract killing, and to do this you get a contract from your contact then try to kill the target while avoiding security cameras, police drones, body guards and civilians.

Roaming the streets are gang members and there is a bit of early GTA vibe there, you can kill gang members in back alleys and take their wallets from the ground which is neat and satisfyingly opportunistic.

Metrocide has a male and female character to select from when you begin which is nice, although given the nature of the game it is probably just represented by a couple extra pixels added for hair length.

Controls are WASD for movement, RMB to draw/conceal weapon, (hold) LMB to charge and shoot starting weapon, E to interact and Mouse to aim.

The city is well designed with manholes to hide bodies in placed frequently.

The game is said to have a cyberpunk setting which is demonstrated albeit quite obscurely within the confines of the archaic presentation style.

The contracts are fairly similar but the features that are there fit the game well. Namely the common smoking habit targets have, you can put a bullet in them while they are a sitting target stopping to have a cig which is always cool. Targets also read newspapers and enter buildings, which add an air of realism to the characters.

There is an 'incognito' cash bonus for killing and disposing of the body unseen which is a nice touch. This is always satisfying.

You can use cash to buy new weapons. Weapons have different characteristics; the shotgun for example is short range, has no warm-up time, is noisy and can kill two targets at once. The silent pistol is obviously totally different. You can switch between weapons with tab so your hard work getting one weapon isn't wasted when you buy another. Weapons are bought from vending machines and become available for purchase as you progress.

There are some nice thematic mechanics in the game like throwing bodies into the sea and paying a hacker to hack the police database lowering your notoriety.

A little bit of comedy is present in there, I think I killed someone and got 26 cash and a ‘photo of a new born’ from their wallet.

There is no save function, which can be annoying because a large amount of money (therefore kills) is needed to move on to the next area. For context 2,000 cash is the target in the first zone and contracts pay either 150 cash or 175 cash per kill (plus the wallet they leave on the ground which is about 25 cash). Contracts are time consuming because you have to follow them around until they are out of view of civilians and security cameras or until you have a good hidden vantage point in an alley way. I can forgive the permadeath because it adds to the sense of accomplishment you feel for getting far and keeps things tense.

I encountered some bugs but at time of writing the game is in Early Access. Particularly annoying among these is sometimes having no option to respawn and the game not responding to pressing escape upon death, forcing you to close and restart the game. I also became stuck in an intended un-enterable fenced off area nearby a space vehicle at one point.

Verdict
Metrocide is a brilliant concept presented in an antiquated yet charming style with little depth but fantastically fun and challenging core gameplay.
Is the game fun? Yeah, it is. It stands as one of my personal favourite indie games.

The streets are brutal and lives seem disposable in a bleak metropolis of the future, and the only ticket out of this town is a high commodity with an even higher price. Armed at first with only a slow blaster only slightly more useful than a toaster and your wits, you'll seek out each contracted kill amongst the likes of paranoid vigilantes, loose cannon gangsters, and the buzzing drones of a totalitarian police state from above.

Metrocide is a gritty top-down trip into the dystopic streets of an open cyberpunk world of stylish minimal visuals with pulp noir flair, the city around you living and breathing with its own unique population. All of the residents of this drab environment have their own personality, their owns faults, and their own routines they carry out and you never know which of these unsuspecting people will be your next paid hit.

Contractors can be found throughout the open map each offering different hits on personalities of the city in exchange for cash, with armed and timed targets earning you more money. Money earned can then either be saved for your ticket into the next area or used on arsenal and tools that will make or break your attempted assassinations. Weapons come in a variety of shotguns, SMGs, and pistols with tools ranging from lures to distract pedestrians, jammers to disrupt police drones, and explosives to remotely cause havoc.

The action of Metrocide is steady paced and calculated, requiring a keen eye and a bit of patience. You'll watch your target carefully, following stealthily and strike at only the most opportune moments, and when you take your shot you have to take it quick. The frantic action and split-second tactical decision making here is often compared to Hotline Miami, but I feel this is done in a much more deliberately drawn out and subtle manner of stalking your prey from the undetected shadows of city alleys.

Death comes swiftly and without warning, and once you're gone you're gone for good being forced to restart as a broke hitman yet again. Jumpy vigilantes and gangsters won't hesitate to blow you away at the first sign of aggression and civilians will be quick to report you to deadly authorities who'll quickly have you on the run. This is not an easy game whatsoever, the eyes of the city constantly have the upper hand on you and through a rigorous routine of learning the streets as well as the arsenal available to you will you survive long enough to earn your blood money.

After what feels like hours of repeated deaths and failed hits on my well prepared targets I've finally survived a run long enough to scrounge up the cash to get myself a ticket out of the Downtown area. Before even meeting my first quota and leaving this first area I had earned 10 achievements, all of them related to myself dying in some horrific and unique way.

It's an extremely tough and failure ridden road getting there with loads of patience required, but in the end an incredibly satisfying feeling and an experience you'll take new skills away from for your future endeavors on the mean streets of MetroCity. Metrocide is top-down stealth action at its hardest and finest.

Style, setting, retro art, a vicious yet compelling gameplay objective... Just looking at a screenshot of Metrocide is akin to hearing a namedrop of Grand Theft Auto 2, Syndicate Wars, Teleglitch and Gunpoint all at the same time.

Unfortunately, the game isn't fun.

It happens, from time to time, that a game is visually appealing and solidly coded, but that *design* is missing almost entirely. Metrocide's gameplay loop/s simply aren't entertaining. There's no combat, as such, as the fight ends upon the first shot, or its outcome is defined by it. There's no skill-based gameplay, only trial and error fact-based learning on what a given tool or weapon does and therefore when or whether to use it. There's no interesting chaos spiral or meaningful AI interaction, only a binary 'Are the police drones shooting you on sight? y/n' state.

All the game asks of you is to repeat a mundane task. Successful completion of said task relies upon only two things; the patience to follow your target very slowly until they are no longer in the view of another civilian, and the luck to not have a drone fly overhead at the wrong moment or a civilian turn the corner while you dump the body.

It lacks GTA's chaos, Syndicate Wars complexity, Teleglitch's entertaining combat, or Gunpoint's quality of writing.

It's remarkable how little Metrocide feels like a *game*... Perhaps more like a gamejam prototype that should have been shelved or radically redesigned when the absence of 'fun' was noticed. What the game lacks most significantly is any sense of chaotic consequence/rich AI feedback, or any sense of true power in your character.

Metrocide isn't simply a bit boring - it's as though there never was any fun to be had, even at the very beginning.

It looked so promising =<

It's exactly what it says on the tin and not a bit more. A stealth assassination game with permadeath and a wholly unnecessary unlock system to try to catch onto the roguelike trend.

There's not enough here though. It feels like a minigame, something you play to pass the time rather than genuinely exciting or tense. It's only hard if you don't have the patience to wait forever for each target to stumble into the clear and if you try to play it dangerously there's no fun at all because you just get gunned down instantly.

It reminds me of Noir Syndrome in all the worst ways only at least in Noir Syndrome the kludgy mechanics at least gave you a goal to work toward of solving the case. Here, everything is about getting more cash and buying any fun toys sets you back six or so boring contracts worth of cash.