As I have less time than I had before, I have to be strategic with the games I start and intend to finish. Metal Garden provided the perfect small escape for a busy life by showcasing an awesome world with decent gameplay to go with it.

In terms of vibes, it definitely calls to Halo and Half-Life, in both its Source engine construction and its familiar yet alien world, and knows how to take decent parts of both when it comes to incentivizing exploration and dynamic gameplay. You're thrown into a giant metal dome that seems never ending, with inklings of things having gone very wrong at some point, and you have to figure it all out from there. The scenery really just goes from amazing to mind-boggling, and It's what keeps you wanting to go through every nook and cranny despite the fact that the gunplay is rudimentary and there are only three enemy types in the whole game.

In fact, despite being an FPS, most of the time is spent either doing platform puzzles or just taking in the lonely, alien scenery. It's all vibes rather than gameplay, and it took me a little under 2 hours to beat, which is exactly how long a game like this should last without overstaying its welcome.

This was more a ramble than a review, and yet I can't overstate how much I enjoyed my brief time with Metal Garden in a similar way to how I enjoyed the vibes of Industria, but because it was much tighter and compact I feel like it leaves you with more to appreciate rather than less. Sometimes, It's important to lose yourself for a little bit, then go back to the busy life we lead.

I absolutely loved this game.

It recently came out on Switch and I just finished it earlier today. Such an interesting game and I’m excited to see what else this dev does in the future.

Its not even source! They just really emulated source engine vibes really well. Because you didnt mention BLAME! in your review you shpuld probably read it.

Played it earlier this year, thought it was super neat. The mechanics felt both modern yet familiar to the old-school Source stuff, and the megastructure scale was just awesome. There's so much good world design and presentation compressed into 2.5 hours and it impressed me a lot.

😮 this is quite the fact!

I shall go read BLAME! Thanks for the rec!

Playing it felt like playing a First Person Fumito Ueda game (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus). It was a pleasant time.

The vibes remind me of Lifeless Planet

Funny enough, I played through Lifeless Planet just a few months before playing Metal Garden. Similar vibes for sure, but I would say the latter is the superior game :)

Solid review for a game I've never heard of but would probably enjoy, thanks!

I actually just played this game last week, it's very nice! Did first playthrough on Normal without any modifiers (I actually don't remember if they're even available for first playthrough), 2nd playthrough on Hard with random enemies & random items. The random stuff was probably a mistake, as it randomized everything with every checkpoint load. Including the autodoc stations - they would literally appear or disappear whenever you reload a checkpoint. And in the beginning of the game I kept finding ammo for guns I didn't have yet, especially the sniper rifle as it's a while before you get that one.

In terms of vibes, it definitely calls to Halo and Half-Life, in both its Source engine construction

It's actually using UE5.

Thanks !

Absolutely loved this game, it said what it wanted to in a concise little package, and the cognitive dissonance of the bleak yet hopeful ending was fantastic