I Am Legend - "Come out, Neville!"

I Am Legend really surprised me.

I actually thought it was a zombie novel involving a guy going around with a shotgun shooting said zombies in the head. This assumption might have something to do with the fact that there is a movie version starring Will Smith. But what it turned out to be was a masterfully written piece of high science fiction with a really strong psychological element. It tells the story of Robert Neville, the very last human being on Earth following a vampiric epidemic. He seals his house with garlic, which is besieged by mocking vampires that try to goad him outside so that they can eat him. Then, when the sun comes out, he goes outside and kills as many as he can find.

It's very short, clocking in at 170 pages, but it's incredibly engaging. Neville is perhaps the loneliest man ever conceived, living in a hellish world without anyone to speak to and nothing to do but brood upon the death of his wife and futilely research the causes of the plague. It's an incredibly layered and sad story that I would recommend to more or less anyone.

Plot discussion after the jump...


So when I was about fifty pages into the book, I messaged Andres on MSN and said that I would just kill myself if I were in Neville's situation. It's pretty telling that he didn't object at all, but instead just asked how I would do it (I would use fire to deny my blood to the vampires, while he would just hurl himself off a building).

I'm not a big fan of the idea of suicide, but the situation Neville is in just more than any one person could be expected to bear. Matheson has him kill his own wife, resort to alcoholism and go on frenzied vampire killing rampages. At one point, Neville tries to befriend a stray dog (the only living thing he can find), slowly offering it food and cultivating a friendship only to have it die in his arms. The intense loneliness is just too much to bear and it really made me wonder about what kind of mental state the author was in when he wrote this. It was so immersive that I even found even myself feeling terribly alone and isolated, with a lurking feeling of despair ever at the edges.

Yet somehow, Neville lives on in these conditions, in a sort of state of emotional detachment and numbness. And you never really get to understand why that is, beyond his sort of Darwinian need for self-preservation. He's not religious at all and he doesn't seem to have any serious hopes of ever finding a cure to the plague or even of finding any other survivors. He just sort of exists and Matheson does a fantastic job of showing the horrible weight on the man's shoulders.

A fair portion of the book is dedicated to Matheson's scientific investigation into the vampiric plague and this is where the book shows its age. The plague is a bacterial parasite, which is spread through spores carried in the wind and which feeds on human blood while turning its victims into bulletproof undead monstrocities that are allergic to garlic. I... I don't think bacteria, no matter how supercharged by a nuclear war, can really do all that. But oh well, I guess that was as good a way to make 'scientific' vampires as any back in the 1950s, so I don't fault Matheson for it. The way he presents these facts certainly shows that he put a lot of thought into them.

The big twist of the book is that some of the vampires get their minds back and set about rebuilding society and that all the Vampires Neville has been slaughtering have actually been 'people' in the new society. This I didn't really like... Neville's realization that he had become a predator or 'legend' to these Vampires that he was killing by daylight struck me as a bit fainthearted... a surrender to the plague, if you will.

But then I got thinking that perhaps all he was looking for throughout the novel was an excuse to die. He didn't want to just off himself and give in to despair, but he had no will to live and would readily embrace the first semi-dignified death he could find. Being executed as a murderer in a society of vampires was the first opportunity that came his way and he jumped at it.

An incredibly nuanced portrayal of human psychology, most certainly... the means really do matter just as much as the ends, don't they? But, needless to say, it's also an incredibly sad one.
There's more ...

The Shadow of the Wind - "Madrid you wondrous city..."

I don't think many people that read this blog would be very interested in the Shadow of the Wind.

It's a historical fiction drama set in Franco Spain circa about 1945 by an author of the name of Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The plot is a kid is trying to research the biography of his favourite author, Julian Carax, who disappeared some years previous. It's a very sentimental sort of novel with intense romances, a layer of melodrama and a lot of subtle commentary on fascism and life in a police state. It also could be considered to be something of a mystery novel, what with the happenings that seem to surround Carax.

It's not dull. It's the kind of book that certainly keeps the pages turning... it's got likeable characters and the writing is smooth and occasionally powerful. But it pushes no limits and the plot is terribly predictable. If you're into this sort of non-speculative fiction, then by all means pick this up, but if you aren't don't bother.

That concludes the recommendation bit. I'm going to spend the rest of this post talking about the plot and what makes it so predictable and why Mr. Zafon's craft is of an inferior quality. Click on if you're interested in that.

So the Philadelphia Enquirer says on the inside cover that this book has 'a mystery that the author teases with mastery'. So let's take a look at this mastery, shall we?

As mentioned, Daniel (the teenaged protagonist) wants to find the biography of his favourite author Julian Carax. He discovers a book called 'the Shadow of the Wind' by Carax in a hidden library and finds out that Carax was apparently murdered in a Mysterious Fashion. Moreover, he also finds out that there's a scarred man with a lighter who wants to find and burn every single copy of Carax's work so as to erase them from existence once and for all. This man approaches him in a sinister manner, names himself after the devil from one of Carax's books and demands to have Daniel's copy of the book so that he can use it as firewood.

I honestly felt a little embarassed for Mr. Zafon when I read these scenes. The entire chapter was clearly aimed at making the reader think 'ohhh who is this strange masked man?' and he's not a bad writer, so he certainly got the mysterious feel right. But see, the 'master' here decided to be pretentious while he was at it and throw in a relatively obscure literary reference.

For those not in the know: Virgil and Kafka both ordered their manuscripts burned when they came to the end of their lives. The story goes that neither were completely satisfied with their works, so they decided that, since they couldn't do any more copy editing, fire was the only solution. A bit overdramatic of course, particularly in Kafka's case as he lived in an era where he could have just ripped the things up and tossed them in a dumpster. But hey, all authors have a bit of drama queen in them.

So gee whiz, I wonder who the devilish masked man who wants to burn Julian Carax's books is! Oh wow, could it be the brother of his childhood love? His old sadistic enemy who is now an evil fascist policeman? HMMM I WONDER! I'm not sure if you need to know the literary reference to really figure it out right away, but what me reading that told me was everything I needed to know about this author. Mainly: he's the spirtual sort that thinks it's okay to sacrifice his drama in exchange for a literary tip of the hat at his favourite authors.

From there, I pretty much puzzled out his plot points two hundred pages in advance.

"Why is Julian burning his own books?"
Because of standard issue Artistic Self-Hate born from a Personal Tragedy, involving a Girl.

"Julian suddenly had to leave Barcelona and went to Paris?"
Girl.

"Julian's biological father is an unknown person. Who could it be?"
The benevolent rich banker that gives him an opportunity to go to school.

Every time the book tried to make the reader ask a question (which it does frequently) I had the answer. Zafon's simplistic psychology and silly sentimentality was in hand and so he really couldn't surprise me. Even beyond just individual plot points, the overall structure was just in plain sight.

At one point in the book, Daniel (it's told in past-tense third person narration) says "I had seven days left to live". I just rolled my eyes when I read that and actually said aloud: "Yeah right! The structure of the book has you living a parallel of Carax's life except minus the tragedy. You're going to live happily ever fucking after." And so it was.

There's more to the book than the grand mystery, of course.

There's the high romance with both Daniel pursuing a girl called Bea who he loves very much and Julian (in the past) pursuing a girl he loves very much but who is also his half-sister. The problem with it is that the girls are about as dull as a post. No depth to them and not much personality to begin with... they're just Girls that the male characters happen to like.

There the Franco Spain aspect, with a comically evil Inspector guy that wants to torture everyone. But the politics are just a backdrop and nothing really useful comes from it. It could have been set in the Soviet Union, Germany in the 1930s or Italy without much of a difference besides the names and places. I assume it's set in Spain because the author is a Spaniard. He even included a bunch of pictures of Spain at the back of the book.

There are a few didactic statements about how television is the worse thing ever and novels are better, which struck me as a bit passe.

But the main point of the story is the mystery and the mystery just completely falls apart on itself when exposed to the tiniest bit of light. Carlos Ruiz Zafon is not an unskilled author. The problem is that his priorities are completely messed up. He wants to tell a story, but he also wants to inject this vague spiritual dimension while also presenting the corrupting influence of fascism on an inheriently good Spanish society. He has good characters, but he pollutes his work with empty sentiment and literary references. If he were a good enough writer, he could have weaved all this together into one coherent strand.

But he's not. And so he didn't. There's more ...

Prince of Persia - "Evil gods, crazy women... what's the difference?"

The Prince of Persia series has gone down a bit of a rocky road over the years. Sands of Time was their best performance, by far. It had fun platforming, slick combat and a pretty good story with likeable characters. Warrior Within removed most of the second and replaced the third with a lot of game-breaking bugs that made it so that I couldn’t even finish it. Two Thrones I heard was a slight improvement, but I could never find the Wii version so I never got around to playing it.

Still, my memories of Sands of Time were positive enough to put down 30 bucks for the new Prince of Persia, which is a reset of the story with a brand new Prince in a brand new world. And honestly, if not for a few things, this would be a glowing review. But alas, Ubi once again demonstrated their capacity to ruin a perfectly good product with bugs and a few retarded ideas that should never have made it off the drawing board, not to mention the biggest shafting of the PC consumer they could think of.

So the plot of the game is that you’re a thief (‘Prince’ is his ironic nickname) who wanders into some lost city that has an evil god trapped under it. There you meet Elika…

Let me take a moment to talk about Elika’s character design. Considering Prince of Persia’s pseudo-Middle Eastern theme, I think that a Bollywood temptress is about as good a female lead as you can hope for from one of these games. Certainly beats Farah’s harem girl look or that girl in the steel thong in Warrior Within. But honestly, how much better would she look if her shirt weren’t torn in strategic locations? They really didn’t need to show off that much skin to make her sexy and exotic.

In any case, as you might have guessed, the evil god wakes up and sends his four minions to four sections of the world to corrupt the land and break him out of his jail. The Prince, always a sucker for a pretty face, agrees to help Elika heal the land and stop the evil god guy. Most of the game consists of running across walls and ceilings, jumping over pits, flying and swinging off pillars until you reach the fertile ground, where you will kill a pathetically easy boss and then restore the land.

The first thing you notice while going through this is that the game is stunningly beautiful.

Like really, it is.

Jumping around a world like this is fun for the most part, if only because it let's you take in the wonderful scenery. There's combat too, but it's not really focused upon and there are only like a grand total of six different types of bad guys to fight in the game anyhow (and five of them are almost exactly the same).


The game's storyline is told via dialogue. Any time in the game you can also hit L to talk to Elika, sometimes about the story but often about nothing. In most reviews I’ve read of this game, the reviewer will either hate Elika and like the Prince or hate the Prince and like Elika. I though consider myself pretty neutral to both. The Prince is a lame Lawrence of Arabia type that comes across as being way too American, but still comes up with fairly clever and funny quips now and again. Elika on the other hand is bland and passionless most of the time, though when she does try to crack a joke at the Prince she can often be almost charming.

The net effect is that I don’t have a problem with either of them, but I could still care less about both. But I guess that's better than open hostility. And again, the pretty scenery really makes up for a lot of their flaws.

But anyway, those are the basics, so let's get to the sins of the game.

Sin #1: Bugs

I was expecting this game to crash a lot after Warrior Within, so I was actually surprised to see that it ran at a 100% consistent framerate with no crashes or bullshit. But alas, stability isn’t everything.

At any time in the game you can press a button to get Elika to send a little ball of light out to guide you along your way. It’s an open and complicated world, so this was pretty helpful for getting around. Unless, of course, the light were to do something crazy like take you around in a giant circle and waste five minutes of your time.

Which it did.

Very often.

Honestly, isn’t that the kind of thing that gets caught in testing Ubi? Making sure the glowing light doesn’t go in a big circle? That doesn’t sound so hard to me.

Sin #2: This guy

His name is the Warrior and he’s the boss of one of the areas. Each boss in the game has to be fought a total of five times (four stages per area + a final boss area). Normally, the way you beat a boss is by hitting him with your sword or throwing him around using your power klaw. But with this guy, Ubi decided to mix things up and make it so that he can’t be hurt but you have to use ‘the environment’ to get him. What that means is you have to stand around the edge of a cliff until he comes at you and then you have to knock him back into it.

But then after you knock him back, you have to do a quick time event where you overpower him by pressing the attack button over and over. If you fail, you have to start the whole thing process over again.

Fuck you Ubisoft.

I eventually got through this by getting to the quicktime event, pausing the game, going into the controls section and changing my attack button from my controller to ‘F’ (the F stands for ‘Fuck you’). I can hit F much faster than I can hit a button on my PSX controller, so while the frustration didn’t stop, I at least got through it. But the fact that it was there at all is unforgivable.

Sin #3: Combat in general

As I said, most of the game is platforming and I respect that. But quite frankly, with the exception of Mr. Fucking Stupid above, every boss could be killed in the following way: Circle, X, Triangle, X, Circle, Square. That one combo completely decimates everything it touches. Every boss (except Fuckface) and every enemy takes it in the same way. It made it so that combat was just a mildly irritating event that was thrown in between jumping sequences.

Something as simple as making each boss require a slightly different strategy would have helped stop the monotony a bit.

Sin #4: Leap of faith gameplay

This isn't actually so bad, but I consider it sloppy. Often when doing a jump, you'll come to a point where you don't know what the hell is next... you'll run down a wall and come to the end of it and the choice will be between just falling and jumping and hoping that there's something on the other side. Which is usually okay, as there most often IS something on the other side, but it makes it feel as though you're just running through the game's paces. It's not really timing or strategy on your part... you just press jump when the game wants you to.

Not that bad, but a flaw for sure.

Sin #5: The Ending

I liked where the game's story left off actually, but there's a three hour DLC pack that's coming out that continues the story. And, since it's not coming to PC, I will never get to see or play it.

Yeah, um... fuck you Ubisoft?

Honestly, I bought the game as an expression of pure goodwill towards this company. Sure they have a spotty history, but Sands of Time is great and Beyond Good and Evil was fantastic. The fact that this pack exists at all is part of a fucking bad trend in console gaming where companies try to nickle and dime their consumers by not finishing their fucking game and then releasing the rest of it afterward as a download pack. But randomly fucking over PC gamers (since when is the fucking PC harder to patch than a fucking console game) is just unacceptable.

So in conclusion, Ubisoft should go fucking die in a ditch. There's more ...