The size of the Moscow metro is shear mind-boggling. If you’ve never actually looked at a map of it then you really ought to, so I’ve provided you an image.

Now that doesn’t really do it justice so here are some quick stats. There are 12 lines, 180 stations and it’s used by 6 to 9 million people a day. It covers 298.8 Kilometers or roughly 185.7 miles. So what better, pre-existing place to create a post-apocalyptic society right? Especially since it was designed as the world’s largest bomb shelter.

Metro 2033, by 4A Games and published by THQ, is based on the novel, of the same name, by Russian author Dmitriy Glukhovskiy. It’s a grim outlook with powerful mutants and Dark Ones roaming the surface and some of the tunnels. Where Nazis and Communists still clash and all is certainly not on the up and up. Mankind struggles to eek out an existence beneath the surface yet even then things are extremely difficult as pockets of radioactive materials seep in and it’s pretty much everyone for themselves.

You take on the role of Artyom, who must save what remains of the people when a new menace arrives at his home station. I really appreciated how people called each station their home. Even when I lived in Prague, when people asked where I lived, I would generally give them the metro station as opposed to the area of town. It was easier to know where I meant (except for when I lived in Žižkov which is pretty obvious).

The world is a dark, gritty and dangerous place. If one of your fellow humans isn’t trying to kill you then maybe the mutants or the environment are. The game is a fairly straightforward and standard FPS (aside from the excellent storytelling). You’ve got knives (melee and throwing), pistols (regular and silenced), automatic weapons, shotguns and grenades (both with fuses, one ’sticky’ with spikes sticking out).