AusGamers recently went hands-on with Metro 2033, an all-new post-apocalyptic shooter from new dev studio, 4A Games (made up of some ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. devs), based in the Ukraine.

Opting for a more story-driven experience rather than the free-roaming we've come to expect from the genre (and based on a book of the same name, no less), Metro 2033 draws you into its world through compelling characters, excellent scripting and voice-acting, and engaging gameplay. It's at the same time both exhilarating and unnerving.

You can check out an AusGamers early exclusive in our hands-on preview as well as this new, never-before-seen trailer and a host of all-new screens. Enjoy!

http://www.ausgamers.com/gameres/4846/images/230/01.jpg http://www.ausgamers.com/gameres/4846/images/230/05.jpg http://www.ausgamers.com/gameres/4846/images/230/06.jpg

Plz don't be buggy, plz don't be buggy, plz!

"compelling characters, excellent scripting and voice-acting"
er...did you hear the voice acting in the trailer? That's some of the WORST voice acting in any video game ever made. Obviously you can tell stragiht away the voice over is by someone on their dev team rather than an actual paid actor. It's pretty common with games from that part of the world to have horrendously bad voice acting, and I simply can't understand how ausgamers can say the voice acting is exellent from what we have seen....i mean look at that game that came out last year Darkest of Days.....a great game ruined by horrible voice acting.

ausgamers can say that, because ausgamers has played it

The facial animation is abysmal as well. Worse than Mass Effect, which for reasons unknown to me, seems to get a lot of praise for its s***ty facial animation.

yeah, I'll agree with the facial animation aspect, but the game really is as good as I say. I was hooked after 5 minutes with it

Yeah, I'm not disputing your comments on the gameplay quality, as I'm clearly not in a position to comment on it. :)

I don't think they are allowed to say bad things about games in previews.

we're allowed to say whatever we want

How many previews do you see where games get trashed?
And that's not solely directed at ausgamers, for as long as i have read previews they have rarely ever put down games, even when its pretty obvious the game will be s***, hell there are times when you see a glowing preview one week, and the next the actual review totally s***s on it.

Previews can be optomistic because occasionally a developer pulls the game out of mediocrity in the later development stages. Benefit of the doubt, etc?

How many previews do you see where games get trashed?

Probably very few, as the highly anticipated games - the ones that are typically shown in previews - are typically polished well for a media preview. Hell, look at a game like Alan Wake, where it's been in development hell for years so obviously something is wrong internally but the previews look awesome.

In addition, I'd reckon developers and publishers of really s*** games hold their cards held close to their chest in the hopes that as many people will buy as soon as possible before it's discovered that their newly released game is dongs.

Stalker broke my heart - man there's no way I can't trust those guys to make an awesome game. Still, here's hoping they surprise me eh...

Stalker is one of my fav all time FPS games... masterpiece.

Looking forward to this, but would have been better to see a preview of the PC version, not the crap xbox copy.

This is from the STALKER developers? Not much hope for this then. STALKER was a piece of s***.

it's from a few ex members who broke away - not the whole team

Stalker was fun for awhile but got really boring quite fast and combat to me was akward as guns never got high enough accuracy. At least that is how I remember it. Hoping that this plays better.

stalker was amazing, if you didn't enjoy it, you didn't play it properly.

Stalker was a great game, there's even one bunch of lads who made a mod for it to fix the bugs not ironed out in 1.005 and add other good s*** into the game. Read here:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009