After the fresh breath of air that Plants vs. Zombies gave, whats next?
Oh. Great. Back to the depressing stuff.
Metro 2033 was written by Dmitry Glukhovsky, a reporter in Moscow, and his book was published in 2005. It's incredibly popular, with international publishing rights in 20 countries.
It was so popular, that a game by the same name was released in March. And you need to play it. Now. Right now. That game is the only game I can't think of how to improve it.
Anyway, I'll point out the differences out in my Metro 2033 game review.
Covers aren't very important in books, but lets focus on it anyway. The cover I have is the paperback version, and I do like the cracked words and the font. And that's about it. Why's the title in the Death Stars exhaust port? And why is it bleeding? Have the zerg infested it? Now that's something I want to see, the Empire versus protoss!
What really matters in books is the back of it, where the synopsis is. Sentences in quotation marks are directly from the back of the book.
"The Year is 2033. The World has been reduced to rubble. A few thousand live on, not knowing if they are the only survivors on the planet." It all started when Sarah Palin was elected for 2012...
"They live in the Moscow Metro, the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no rooms for dreams, plans, or hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct, the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price." Which is 79.99.
"VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line and still remains secure. But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the future of the metro, and maybe the whole of humanity." Unfortunately, Artyom had recently been eating a sloppy joe.
This is a pretty good synopsis. It sets up the world, accurately sums up the plot, and it gets you interested in the story, something most fail to do.
Anyway, into the book itself. As stated by the synposios, it takes place after world war three, which pretty much destroyed the entire planet. It is never answered if anyone else survived, although it is implied that Moscow is the last pocket of humanity, or at least the last one in Russia.
Early on it is established that life in the metro is one step from extinction. The book opens with Arytom during guard duty, and there you find about the dark ones. The dark ones are mutants that are attacking Arytoms homestation, VDNKh. The dark ones are one of the creepier villains I've seen. Well, first off, their an oily black, completely white eyes, faces that seem to be more of a mockery of one rather then an actual face, and, oh yeah, they destroy peoples minds.
Artyom meets Hunter, who was sent there to combat the dark ones. Hunter gives Artyom a important mission before he leaves to defeat the dark ones: If he isn't back by tomorrow, go to Polios and tell Melnik. It is never said, but it is heavily implied that Hunter and Melnik belong to some sort of paramilitary organization that protects the Metro.
Of course, Hunter doesn't return. So Artyom goes off on a perilous journey across the entire Metro.
I might as well as state this now: This is how you make a good "From point A to point B" storyline. Don't make going from point A to B completely pointless, or make you leave point B to go to point C immediately afterwards, just put alot of shit in the protagonist way. And I do mean shit, because Artyom travels on the surface, which is slightly safer then living on mars, gets captured by Nazis, and even becomes a slave at one point.
There's alot of detail put into this world. Each station act has its own rulers, traditions, and markets. You even get a little history behind the Metro, like the war between the Hanse(merchants) and the Red Line(communists). Through Artyoms travels, you get alot of stories told between people, like the tale of a station where everybody just disappeared, where a group of soldiers in a tank managed to create a small community in the middle of nowhere on the surface, and the satanic cult that enslaves people to dig a hole into hell itself.
That being said, there is NOTHING happy in the entire book. if you randomly read a paragraph, chances are you'll put it down and go drink yourself to death. Seriously, Artyom gains a companion, then instantly loses him when the station he's at is attacked, and he gains another one, and then there both captured by Nazis, who then dies, and Arytom nearly does as well. And the ending, dear god, the ending. It ends exactly how you think it ends, Arytom defeats the dark ones, but...but...My god, last minute information is a bitch.
Metro 2033 is well written book, with a deep and inventive world, but it's so depressing that I can't really recommended it, but if you think you can stand it, go for it.
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