Metro 2033

My daughter and I have an on-going discussion about the relative merits of books and computer games as the means for story-telling. I visited Cally yesterday and was talking about the game I was playing - Metro 2033. (Yes! I'm a middle-aged woman who plays games on her PC. Forgive me for being a sell-out but my children made me do it. When they taught me the card game "Magic - The Gathering" I found it to be enjoyable. So I let them introduce me to computer games and found that I enjoyed being immersed in the experience. I understood why they played these games. Have you ever tried them? Perhaps you should. Apart from my own enjoyment, I discovered a new avenue of conversation with my teenage son.)

As I explained to Cally that I was playing through the game again to try to see the alternate ending, her house-mate picked a book from a shelf and handed me a copy of "Metro 2033" by Dmitry Glukhovsky, the novel on which the game was based. I was stunned and grateful at the kindness in this house full of gamers, and pleased to know that books are still valued.

I've begun reading it. Twenty pages in and I am relishing the detail as the novel tells me more about the creaking, desolate tunnels of post-apocalyptic Moscow's underground railway. As I read I can see the figures from the game, huddled around fires for warmth as they guard their outposts against the mutant hordes.

I've enjoyed playing the game. Figuring out how to survive in the harrowing holocaust landscape was great fun.  But now I have to read and find out the details that wouldn't fit into the game.