Fallout 3 vs. Metro 2033

4A Games’ Metro 2033 really isn’t much of an RPG (it’s billed as a shooter with a few role-playing elements for good measure), but that hasn’t stopped IGN from putting together a two-page “Fallout 3 vs. Metro 2033” editorial.  I guess we can expect to see one of these comparison articles every time a post-nuclear, first-person title comes along:

To better grasp the horrors within, it’s instructive to compare Metro 2033 to Fallout 3. In both, the remnants of civilization are besieged by mutants, bandits, and the invisible sickness of radiation poisoning. Yet while they are superficially similar, at their core the games are nothing alike. Fallout is riddled with in-jokes. Metro is as serious as cancer.

Take money, for instance. In Fallout, people use bottlecaps as currency; these pre-war artifacts are scarce simply because they aren’t being made any more. In Metro, people use 5.45mm caliber bullets. In an early mission, a young scallywag offers to guide you to your next waypoint in exchange for one of these irreplaceable little slugs. As this post-nuclear Oliver Twist leads you on a merry course through grubby corridors and filth-encrusted pig pens, the thought occurs: does he want the bullet to buy candy? Or does he just want to end it all?