Metal Eden

Metal Eden is worth recommending to those who love challenging, fast-paced, sci-fi action similar to games like Doom — that is, if the price tag matches its length. Otherwise, this might be one of those "wait-for-sale" games, but it's nonetheless one that is worth a play once it becomes worth the money.

Metal Eden is a good game plagued by development problems. It can be a valid alternative to DOOM Eternal.

Metal Eden is a video game about synthetic humans and robots, and in an almost meta-narrative sense, it feels cold and soulless. The pursuit of rhythmic and engaging gameplay is evident, yet another attempt to emulate the Doom formula. The experience feels repetitive and linear, less layered or challenging than it could have been. Moreover, the game even underuses its signature mechanic, the absorption of cores, which becomes quite repetitive over time. It's not a bad game, let's be clear: those who enjoy FPS challenges with "push-forward" gameplay have at least eight missions to test themselves with various weapons and a narrator with a lot to say. Ultimately, it's a shame: it could have been much more daring...

Metal Eden is a fun introduction for a boomer-shooter novice, but its stop-start nature, from the giddy highs of breakneck action to neck-breaking narrative brick walls, burned me out.

The combination of the visual design and the story setup make Metal Eden an enticing experience before even booting it up. And while it tries to blend that sci-fi world with fast-paced combat centered around parkour and hot-swapping weapons, the pieces don't fit together tight enough to be enjoyable for a long enough percentage of its short runtime. When the credits roll it feels unfinished, and at times throughout it feels misguided. When you've got significant upgrades, inside of the later levels, it approaches a satisfying shooter experience, it's just a shame that it isn't at least a few levels longer, which would make the package feel more complete. A few issues can be softened with some polish, by tweaking values and cooldowns or fixing the way you sometimes jarringly mantle a ledge to the side that you can't see when you jump, but the largest ones would require an adjustment to the design philosophy overall.