14 DAY TRIAL // 
I've always liked dystopias, noir crime stories and cyberpunk, so Metrocide seemed like a natural fit for me. In a nutshell, the game is a top-down stealth shooter with a strong retro vibe and simple but challenging gameplay mechanics.
You play the role of a detective turned contract killer named T. J. Trench and have to fight your way out of a brutal city by undertaking assassination missions and trying not to get killed along the way. Getting killed is unfortunately pretty easy, as almost everyone carries a weapon, vigilantism seems to be the religion of choice, and everyone is being spied on by Big Brother.
Developer Flat Earth Games cites Syndicate and Grand Theft Auto as sources of inspiration, and at a cursory glance, it's a mash-up of the former's mood and the latter's gameplay mechanics. But let's see what conclusion more time with the game will lead us to.
Gameplay
I dived head-first into Metrocide, flipped a coin to see what gender to pick, tried to shoot the first gang member I saw, and died. The experience repeated itself several times, and it was pretty clear to me that I revile permadeath. It's the reason I didn't become a contract killer in real life.
However, fantasy worlds always give you a second chance to start over, however grueling that experience might be, and I was determined to make it big.
Contract killing is the game's main thing, and so you find your contact, select a job from a list of possible targets with various twists such as the ones that are armed, just visiting or paranoid, and off you go.
“You job is to try and kill your target without getting caught by the police and without alerting any nearby security cameras or wandering civilians. You control your character with the standard WASD for movement and mouse for aiming.”
The city is under heavy surveillance and there are many police drones patrolling. There is definitely a strong early Grand Theft Auto vibe, as you stalk gang members and your targets and pop up from dark alleys, shoot them, loot them and hide their bodies, and then make a run for it before the cops show up.
There's even a meter showing how hot of a target you are, and the more overtly you kill your marks, the more cops are going to show up and start patrolling, making the streets feel more and more narrow with every hit.
The gameplay is overall very repetitive, the contracts are similar, but the simulated citizens do have some distinct features, such as stopping for a smoke, reading a paper or going inside a building, to make things seem a little more realistic.
The more contracts you fulfill, the more money you get, and you can spend your hard-earned cash at vending machines to buy new weapons, with more stuff getting gradually unlocked as you progress through the missions.
The weapons give you an extra thing to work for as well as more options when it comes to dealing with targets. Your first pistol isn't particularly good, as it has a long wind-up time. The shotgun is very loud but it can take out two targets at a time, which comes in handy when things start getting crowded, and the silenced pistol is, of course, a weapon of choice when stealth is of the essence.
If the cops seem to be getting too hot on your tail, you can always spend some money and have a hacker lower your wanted level, just like you did back in GTA.
However, the game is far from being what GTA was back in the day, and unfortunately, far from being what the title is even now. It's much more limited in scope and feels a lot less interactive.
Whereas GTA was many times all about sowing the seed of chaos and then riding the wave until the police managed to shoot you down, seeing how far you can push things, Metrocide offers you far fewer opportunities to have fun.
Most of the game is spent trailing non-playable characters and waiting for an opportunity to make a clean kill. As you can randomly die from vigilantes (who still keep their aim through walls) shooting you after you take someone out in the open, you pretty much have to wait until your victim is all alone.
That can be a very tedious and unrewarding task, and when you add the fact that the best way to go about murders is to dispose of the bodies in the sewer, and each manhole has a one-body capacity, you'll soon become very frustrated.
The easiest way to earn money is to shoot people from side alleys in semi-crowded areas and then make a run for it. You can also loot the victims if you have enough time. This is also the safest way to do it, as you won't get gunned down by someone seeing you carry a body around.
Only that this can quickly translate into an increased police presence, which tends to make things much more difficult, as you have to wait for the drones to clear the area of a prior murder before being able to safely traverse it again.
So, you basically get a choice between waiting a lot between missions or waiting a lot to find a favorable moment to make a kill, complete with the added hindrance of disposing of the body and risking a passer-by turn a corner and shoot you on sight.
If they don't shoot you on sight, they'll go to the police and give them your description, which means that you can kiss your chance to be invited to the ball goodbye.
When you further factor in random missions in the same area of the city and accessible manholes getting filled up, that translates into even more waiting.
The unlock system that restricts access to purchasable goodies without telling you what you need to do in order to get them further mars the experience.
Sure, there are some interesting mechanics, such as paranoid targets pulling a gun on you, and shooting first causing vigilantes to gun them down, in a way that makes your target the bad guy that gets reported to the police, but overall I found the gameplay lacking.
Visuals and sound
Also lacking is the game world, as the developer took a very low-fi approach to pixel art, rendering many items too vague or missing details.
There are some cute effects from time to time, such as vehicles flying overhead, but the general feel is that there is something missing, that a lot of the detail and flavor that a cyberpunk world should have is missing.
The whole cyberpunk bit also seems a bit shoehorned in, as apart from surveillance and police drones, there is little to that end, even in the overall city architecture. Sure, it looks clouded and grim, but that's pretty much it, it lacks the genuine depth to make it a satisfying visual experience.
Also, there are no cars, although the streets are clearly designed to accommodate ground vehicles, which is also a bit weird.
The sound design is a bit of mixed bag, but overall, the sounds of the city, like music getting louder as you approach a certain apartment building or the buzzing noises of overhead transportation and cleaning bots, contribute to the feeling of a futuristic city.
The Good
- It fills a niche
- Solid atmosphere
- Interesting concept
The Bad
- Very difficult
- Frustrating at times
- Limited scope
- A lot of waiting
Conclusion
There is none of that sandbox factor that made Grand Theft Auto so replayable all those years ago, and once you're done with the campaign, you're pretty much done with the game altogether, which is a shame.
Playing it is an exercise in both fun and frustration, as it has numerous flaws that can impact your experience, from the randomness of contracts and non-playable character behavior to all the time you have to spend waiting.
The atmosphere is great, but there is just not enough there to keep you immersed. It seems like the kind of divisive game that you either hate or love, with little middle ground. It's like an open-world Hotline Miami.
