Obscure books: The Savage Stars by Richard Reinsmith

Welcome to a new series on this blog in which I’ll be periodically looking at obscure examples of SF and, basically, pulling them apart for your amusement. First up we have a book that’s very close to my heart for sentimental reasons, The Savage Stars by Richard Reinsmith. Never heard of it? Don’t worry; no one has.

The book was published by Stoneshire Books in 1983 – the same year I was born. To be honest, I haven’t been able to find out much about Stoneshire Books but Reinsmith appears to have been a semi-prolific writer back in the day. In the early 80’s, he churned out a load of pulp books under various pseudonyms only to disappear from the scene just as quickly as he arrived.

I was 12 years old when I first stumbled upon this book in my school’s library. I was going through something of an SF phase at the time and I would systematically read my way through any book which had the word ‘space’ in the title, just because I loved the subject so much. To be honest, a lot of what I read was complete dreck but I remember how, even among that sea of terrible books, this one stood out.

I mean, just look at it!

They say you should never judge a book by its cover but in this case, you really should

The front cover depicts a topless, muscled barbarian taking on a green alien monster in a fight to the death. “That looks amazing!” my 12-year-old self instantly said. “Why, it’s like Kirk vs. Gorn all over again, only better because this one has a scantily clad woman with 80’s hair on it!” (Admittedly, I was very easily impressed back then, especially by scantily clad women with 80’s hair).

This is what I expected the book to be about…

The back blurb also looked intriguing:

I’ve got to admit, I kind of like blurbs that are straight to the point like this. No random quotes from authors you’ve never heard of. No grand-sounding words like “in the tradition of [insert author name here]”. Just a simple description of the plot and big purple letters.

Too bad, then, that the actual story has next to nothing to do with this blurb.

Oh don’t get me wrong — these events do happen in the book, but they all take place in the book’s back story, hundreds of years before the story opens. Of aliens and spaceships, this book has none. Of war and survival, it has very little.

So what is this book about, then? Glad you asked.

It’s about sex.

…And this was what it was actually like.

Lots and lots of sex.

Our story opens with our hero Eric, a big, burly product of the 80’s who appears to be made up of nothing more than muscle and manly testosterone. At the start of the book, we find him staring up at the tower where all the women are kept captive as he reminisces about his recent visit to the beautiful Alicia…

For the price of 10 tiger skins, the Guiders had allowed [Eric] one weekend with Alicia. It had seemed months ago, yet every detail was startlingly clear in his mind. She had sung to him. She had fed him until he felt sated. Then, in the darkness of the night when he was half asleep, she had pressed against him, and he had learned the ultimate joys a woman can give. She was beautiful. She was perfect. She was ecstasy. (page 6)

She was a prostitute.

It turns out that in this world, women are surprisingly rare commodities. So rare, in fact, that the few women who do exist as all kept well away from the men. The men are then able to buy themselves time with a women in exchange for doing good deeds for the community such as hunting meat, gathering herbs and making tools. It kind of makes sense.

What doesn’t make sense, however, is how Eric reacts to seeing Alicia for the first time. Considering that Alicia is literally the first woman Eric has ever laid eyes on, you might be expecting him to be a bit like a five-year-old during a game of “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine”.

Just like this

You’d expect there to be a lot of giggling and questions such as “why don’t you have a penis?” “what happened to all your muscles?” and “what the hell are boobies?” I mean, let’s face it, Mr 80’s Testosterone here grew up in a society composed only of burly, muscular men killing tigers for a living. Are we honestly expected to believe that hunting is the only thing he got up to in his spare time?

Well anyway, regardless of Eric’s sexual history, this single weekend spent with Alicia (AKA the first woman he has ever met) was apparently enough for him to fall maddeningly in lust with her. So much so, in fact, that he now plans to storm the tower and kidnap her so she will be exclusively his forever!

It’s a plan so audacious that the punishment for it is death. He confides his plan to his mentor, the Tree Father, expecting the wise old man to talk him out of it. Apparently the Tree Father is a bit of a horn dog, however, because he’s completely up for the idea.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” Eric asked.
The Tree Father laughed. “No. […] To want to steal a woman is a natural ambition. Many young men have come to me and confessed similar desires. […] My body is too old for strong desires for women.” He raised a wrinkled hand. “Although I must admit I would enjoy the constant company of one. It would be a thing of the mind. I like to see their long hair and soft skin. I enjoy their gentle ways and senseless chatter.”
“Then I shall steal one for you too,” Eric joked. (page 8)

Yep: long hair and senseless chatter. Those are exactly the words I would use to describe a woman.

Anyway, as you can probably already tell, the characters in this book are not exactly what you would call ‘likable’. I guess it kind of makes sense that they would talk so degradingly about women, especially when you consider that women are so rare in this society that all the men have been brought up thinking of them as little more than prizes to be won.

But does our hero really need to be such a reprehensible jerk about it?

“I have chosen a place in the forest called the Valley of the Tigers. None of your people go there because they are afraid. I have room in a tree there. She won’t be able to escape. She will also be afraid of the tigers.” (page 9)

Good to see you’ve covered all the bases there, Eric. For a minute I was worried you were only thinking with your dick.

Now, just in case you’re wondering, “Wait a second: what if this woman doesn’t want to be kidnapped and taken to a tiger-infested part of the jungle to have sex with a barbarian?”, fear not! Reinsmith has you covered:

It would be Alicia’s choice. Come with him willingly and hang on to him. Otherwise, he would tie her wrists and take her forcefully. (page 38)

What a great role-model for a 12-year-old to stumble upon in a school library! That’s your tax money at work there, people. Hope you’re happy about it.

In between each chapter we get small snippets of the back story that was already spoiled in the blurb. In short, the crew of the USS Corsair crash landed on a mysterious planet filled with lots of deadly animals and plants. The crew at the time consisted of 300 male soldiers and just 3 women, so the captain quickly hides the women away in a tower, presumably so they won’t all get molested every five minutes. However, it isn’t long before the Captain is whoring these poor women out to the soldiers in exchange for good work and it isn’t much longer before it’s become an established part of their society.

When you stop and think about it for a minute, this means that everyone on this planet is descended from three women. I’ve got to admit: no wonder everyone’s so messed up.

These days, there is one city on the whole planet, which is called Homebase. This city only has room for the cleverest and most technically minded men as well as all the women. Everyone else lives in the jungle outside.

Important point to remember: Reinsmith =/= Tolkein

So, OK it’s no Middle Earth, but as far as world building goes, I can kind of accept it. The status quo here is believable, albeit horrible, and the implications of a male-heavy society are actually pretty well thought through in this early part of the book.

To be honest, if Reinsmith had chosen to show us more of the plight of these women, there might have been a good book here. For example, maybe (and I know this might be shocking to hear but bear with me) maybe Alicia doesn’t like being a prostitute. Maybe when Eric kidnaps her, she finally decides she’s had enough. Maybe she uses this opportunity to show Eric how women are actually more than just walking vaginas. She could impress him with her resourcefulness and strength and, hey, maybe he could eventually fall in love with her for real. Through Alicia, Eric would have his eyes opened about how poorly women are treated in this world. This would then serve as Eric’s motivation for mounting a full-scale rebellion against their society. The book would actually have some sort of meaning to it then. A message. A character arc for our hero.

Instead we get this:

[Eric] pushed past [Alicia] and closed the door.
“Will you hand onto me or will I have to tie your wrists?” he blurted.
Her eyes widened in alarm. She was trembling. Her lips moved soundlessly awhile and then formed the word, “What?”
“Will you…” Eric caught himself, blushed when he realized how idiotic the question had sounded. […] “I want you to come with me,” he said hastily.
[…]
During her indecision, he came to her and placed his arms around her. Gently, very gently, he lowered his head and pressed his lips against hers in the kissing motion she had taught him. […]
When the kiss ended at last, she said weakly, “I’ll go with you.” (page 54)

Well of course the woman falls instantly and totally in love with the hero! Why wouldn’t she? He has muscles!

Who wouldn’t fall in love with this?

Anyway with that, Eric and Alicia are on the run and the book now turns into an action-packed dash away from Homebase with metal dogs on their tail and vicious animals all around them.

Unfortunately, the people in charge of Homebase appear to be a bunch of inbred retards (which I guess makes sense since that’s exactly what they are). As expected, they send a load of metal dogs after Eric to kill him. When Eric manages to kill these dogs, the people at Homebase seem to just throw their hands up in the air and scream, “Oh my God the people are rebelling against us!”

So they then send out more metal dogs to try to subdue the tree people from their non-existent rebellion. Unsurprisingly, the tree people don’t much care for being subdued for no reason so they all just turn to each other and say, “Fuck this. Let’s rebel against the system!”

At which point a full-scale rebellion ensues.

It’s like Troy all over again!

While I would applaud Reinsmith for this very Helen of Troy-inspired approach to warfare, unfortunately we never get to see much of the ensuing rebellion. In fact, we see none of it. Not one battle. Not one death. The entire rebellion against Homebase happens completely off-screen.

The reason for why is very simple: Reinsmith chose the wrong character to be the hero. Seriously. Sure, Eric’s kidnap of Alicia proved to be the catalyst for the rebellion, but Eric himself has almost nothing to do with it. He cares nothing for the rebellion, nothing for the war, nothing for the tree people who are out there killing each other because of him.

All he cares about is sex…

Part of his mind said to be gentle because he didn’t want to hurt her […], but the lustful animal in his nature wanted to be savage, brutal, pound away until she cried out in a mixture of pain and joy. (page 103)

Horrible, awkward sex…

Once more he had the feeling there was nothing better, nothing more pleasurable, than the mating of a man and woman. (page 105)

Anyway, it’s at about this point in the book that you realise that Eric, as well as being a disgusting example of a human being, is actually something of a Marty Sue. The guy can basically do no wrong as far as Reinsmith is concerned. He’s stronger than anyone else. He’s better looking than anyone else. But most importantly, despite being a complete virgin at the start of the book, he is an absolute demon in the sack.

You quickly grow frustrated with the guy. As already stated, Eric is a poor POV hero because all he ever does is react to what’s happening around him. His entire motivation and reason for existing in the story revolves around him kidnapping Alicia — which is fine — but it’s a goal he manages to achieve within the first 100 pages. After this, his character arc is pretty much over. There is nothing more for him to do in the story besides have sex, kill a few monsters and spout exposition about this glorious rebellion happening off-screen.

To be honest, I get the impression that even Reinsmith gave up on the guy, because it’s at this point that the narrative suddenly, and jarringly, jumps to some completely new viewpoint characters.

One of these characters is the President of Homebase himself, Glen Bromfield. Sounds good, right? You’ve got to ask yourself what the President will be doing during this time of upheaval and rebellion. Is he mounting a counter-attack? Is he conducting negotiations with the aggressors?

Jennifer and Dawn followed him eagerly [into the next room]. Soundlessly the girls and Glenn repeated a sensuous contact they had originated a few weeks previously, a physical relationship in which they remained nude, standing together, arms around each other, kissing, touching, caressing, sliding body against body, hands moving with greater and greater passion until the three-way union became a form of group masturbation. (page 87)

No, he’s having sex. Awkward masturbatory sex with two girls who are both 15 years old. It’s a pointless scene that goes absolutely nowhere and has no impact on the story whatsoever.

The other viewpoint character we get is Florence and in a way, her chapters are even worse. Florence is dispatched from Homebase to investigate what happened to the robot dogs who were killed by Eric. Unfortunately, she is then captured by the rebelling tree people.

No prizes for guessing what they plan to do with her.

“We’re going to play a game. It’s called ‘testing our accuracy at greater and greater distances.’ Keep your eyes open and you’ll see how the game is played.”
[…]
The Archer shot an arrow into the target an inch from her shoulder. He took some paces further away and the next arrow landed half an inch from her hip.
“I don’t quite understand this game,” Florence said.
“You will in a minute.” Searle moved further from his human target and […] the next arrow landed thunk in the meaty section of her left thigh. (page 130)

Why, they shoot arrows at her of course! And then, after this, they torture her. They brand her breasts with a red-hot poker and then use an electronic device on her which leaves her nervous system completely messed up. And then…

“What happens now?” Florence asked.
“Guess.”
“I’m placed in solitary confinement until the next session?”
He nodded negatively.
“I’ll be placed in a cell with Joan so we’ll be able to chit-chat?”
“Not today.”
“I’m going to be raped.”
Springer nodded affirmatively.

Hey, at least Reinsmith has the decency to call it what it is this time.

Unfortunately, in what I can only assume is a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome on poor Florence’s part, she actually… *shudder* likes it.

She almost cried out with pleasure when he entered her, it felt so good. He was very passionate and climaxed quickly. (page 149)

And…

The questioning had exhausted her and, although she had been careful to hide her response, she had experienced multiple orgasms during his lovemaking. (page 150)

I honestly felt sick reading this scene. From start to finish, it’s pure titilation on the part of the writer.

Talking of which, if you’re wondering what our so-called hero Eric is doing during this period of off-screen warfare and on-screen rape then you clearly haven’t been following very closely. He’s been having sex of course! After being attacked in the jungle by a couple of giant snakes, he and Alicia are rescued by a secret society of people who have been working for generations on trying to repair a spaceship to get humanity back into space again.

This group is led by a very beautiful (of course!) woman and it isn’t long before Eric is cheating on Alicia with this new girl.

Alicia promptly finds out, runs away and is then killed off one-chapter later. Killed off off-screen, I might add. I wish I was joking. Her death comes completely out of the left field and leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth all through the book’s final, anti-climactic final chapters.

At the end of the novel, the spaceship is repaired, homebase is in the hands of the tree people and Eric has a new girl to have sex with.

And then the book just ends.

The impression you’re left with is a confused jumble of plotlines and characters. Nothing is satisfactorily resolved. No one grows or develops during the story. I can’t help but feel that Reinsmith just ran out of ideas and time halfway through writing the book and just thought, “Sod it, that’ll do. No one will ever read this far anyway.”

The weird thing is, I remember really enjoying this book when I first read it. As already said, I was very easily impressed at the time and this was the first time I’d ever read so openly about sex. Now, however, I see the book for exactly what it is: a morally devoid piece of trash that ran out of plot half-way through and was forced to fill up the void with scenes of group masturbation, torture and rape.

As I said, there could have been a good book here if some actual character development had taken place. Hell, there could have been a good book here if Reinsmith had just given the main character something to do. As it is though, it’s just pure garbage.

I’ll end this review with this final observation. On the inside front cover is the book’s dedication:

To Sue, my little girl.

That’s right, Reinsmith dedicated this book to his daughter. A book full of rape, torture and the subjugation of women and it’s been dedicated to a child.

I’m sure she’s just thrilled about that fact.

Game review: Super Mario 3D World

Finally! After a year of agonizing wait. After a year of Nintendo dragging their heels with their “please understand”s and endless software droughts. After a year of 3rd parties abandoning the Wii U so fast you’d swear all those “Nintendo is Doooomed!” articles were written by them. Finally, we have the killer app that should have launched alongside the console back in 2012.

This, right here, is the reason to buy a Wii U.

During my review of New Super Mario Bros U (NSMBU), I mentioned how formulaic the Mario series had become. I said that after playing NSMBU, I often found it difficult to remember exactly what I’d just done. Very few moments stuck in my mind and the whole game felt like Nintendo in cruise control mode — playing it safe just to get quick cash.

Super Mario 3D World, on the other hand, feels like the complete opposite.

It’s fun, in the way that games used to be before they discovered the colour brown. It’s challenging in a true ‘Nintendo hard’ kind of way that will have you throwing your controller across the room in frustration and grinning from ear to ear all at the same time. Every level feels unique, throwing new ideas and game play elements at you so often, you’ll find yourself constantly replaying old levels just to experience that same initial thrill. There are so many power-ups in this game, I think I would struggle to name them all off the top of my head if I tried, yet every one feels vital and important to the gameplay.

In short, it feels like the Mario I remember from my childhood. And God, is it good to be back!

This game is so beautiful. Just looking at the screenshots makes me want to play it again

When this game was first unveiled at last year’s E3, there was a lot of disappointed grumbling from many corners of the internet. People said that Nintendo was getting lazy. They said we’d seen it all before. They said that the Mario franchise was becoming to Nintendo what the Call of Duty franchise was to Activision: a yearly update with fresh textures and a dearth of ideas that somehow still managed to reel in cash.

And, to be honest, it’s no real surprise that people reacted that way. I mean think about it, Nintendo released three Mario-themed platformers during the last 12 months: NSMBU, New Super Luigi U and Super Mario 3D World. Three! That’s three virtually identical-looking games, all launched during one of Nintendo’s most barren years ever in terms of releases. Talk about over-saturating the market!

And before you argue that they were completely different games, think again. Each utilised four-player local co-op. Each had you running to a goal post against a time limit, collecting power ups and defeating enemies along the way. Each had you traversing levels via a world map. Each followed the typical grass world, desert world, ice world, rock world, water world, cloud world, lava world, final boss routine that’s followed Mario around since the 80’s.

It’s world 1 so it’s a grass world, right? Hey, at least they let you run around freely this time.

So it’s no wonder that a lot of detractors were accusing Nintendo of just rolling out the same tired ideas again and again. “Look!” they say. “It uses exactly the same art style as 3D Land on the 3DS! Nintendo is doooomed!”

“Look!” they scream. “This ‘new idea’ of each character having a different ability is just recycled from Mario Bros 2 on the NES! Nintendo is doooomed!”

Well, to all those detractors I say this: you are wrong. Despite the way it looks on the surface, this game is a breath of fresh air.

Mount Must Dash: just one of many examples of a level that is somehow both nostalgic and innovative all at the same time

Its music is some of the best I’ve ever heard in a video game (so good, in fact, I actually downloaded it to listen on my PC). The graphics are so good it’s literally like you’re playing a Pixar movie.

The controls are seamless and fluid throughout. The multi-player is fast and competitive. The game plays like a greatest hits collection of every Mario game that’s come before it, cherry picking the best elements from the past to create a gaming experience that’s literally like no other and yet feels familiar all at the same time.

True, it’s no Galaxy or Mario 64, but in a way it’s better. It plays like a 2D Mario game transposed into three dimensions, combining the best elements of both to create a truly amazing gaming experience.

Look at all these power ups! Just like every other element in the game, some are completely new while others are old favourites in shiny HD packaging

If you’re still on the fence about buying this game — don’t be. Take the plunge! Buy a Wii U, even if it’s only for this game! Trust me: you’ll thank me later. This, right here, is my Game of the Year.

Overall – A+

A joy from beginning to end. From the moment you insert the disc, Super Mario 3D World will transport you back to a time when games were games and the goal was simply to have fun. In our modern world of drab first person shooters and repetitive sports sims, it’s nice to see that there’s still room for the fantastical adventures of a fat Italian plumber and his quest to defeat a giant lizard using nothing but the power of mushrooms. Seeing games like this actually gives me hope for the future of gaming.

Hands down, my Game of the Year.

Game Reviews: Pikmin III

About 10 years ago, I read a fascinating article in Edge magazine about how Nintendo often seems to skip generations when it comes to producing truly innovative games. The article (and unfortunately I haven’t been able to find it again) used the example of the then recently released Metroid Prime to show how the best gaming experiences often come from franchises which haven’t been seen in a long time. Metroid Prime was the first time Samus Aran had appeared on a home console since the SNES-era and it was, without a doubt, a masterpiece in gaming.

In contrast, the article then pointed to Zelda the Windwaker (or Celda as everyone was calling it at the time), a game which had clearly been rushed through production in order to meet its deadlines and wasn’t anywhere near the game-changing masterpiece that Ocarina of Time had been on the N64. Ditto Mario Sunshine: a great game by anyone’s standards but not the must-have exclusive that Mario 64 had been before it. For the first time ever, game-breaking bugs had been allowed to appear in a first party Mario game. For the first time ever, dungeons had been cut from a mainstream Zelda game in order to speed up production. Where Metroid Prime was a sublime example of game design boldly pushing in new directions, Mario and Zelda both felt like tired retreads of what had come before. It wasn’t until the next generation that Skyward Sword and Mario Galaxy came along, bringing with them true innovation once more.

These were two amazing games but did they really need to be made?

It’s certainly an interesting theory. While it’s true there are a handful of evergreen franchises in Nintendo’s catalogue such as Smash Brothers or Mario Kart that only seem to get better with each installment, it’s equally easy to find games like Luigi’s Mansion which haven’t been seen since the Gamecube era, get forgotten about and then resurface on the 3DS to much fanfair and widespread acclaim.

Take Donkey Kong as another example. Loved on the N64, almost ignored on the Gamecube (except for a stupid bongo-powered rhythm game that did absolutely nothing to enhance Nintendo’s kiddy image), and then resurrected on the Wii to great success.

And then there’s today’s topic, Pikmin: a launch title for the Nintendo Gamecube which was then virtually ignored (other than a quick sequel and a re-release) for eight whole years until resurfacing once more as a ‘launch window’ title for the WiiU.

So the question is, is this yet another example of innovation skipping a gaming generation, just like Luigi’s Mansion and Donkey Kong before it? Is Pikmin III the Wii U’s answer to Metroid Prime — a fresh look at a lesser-known IP that does more than just add a fresh coat of paint to its predecessor?

No.

Pikmin has always been something of an oddity in gaming. The brainchild of Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin is a gaming experience unlike any other. Essentially, it’s a console-based RTS game, a strategy simulation that requires you to organise and manage your resources in order to achieve certain objectives within a limited amount of time. In this case, the resources you are managing are the titular pikmin, a horde of plant-like creatures who work together under your direction to clear paths, gather fruit and kill giant monsters. They are basically slaves — let’s address that elephant in the room right now — and yes, there are moments during the game when you’re going to feel a bit bad about that fact. No matter how hair-brained your bidding might be, these stupid pikmin of yours will blindly follow you into hell itself if you told them to. Trust me: you’re going to feel like a monster long before the end credits roll.

Let’s face it: these guys are already as good as dead already

Different pikmin have different abilities. Reds are flame-proof and very strong. Yellows can be thrown far and can survive electricity. Blues can swim. Pinks can fly. Rock pikmin can break things. So far, so rock, paper, scissors. Where Pikmin finds its edge, however, is in its emphasis on multi-tasking, using what resources you have as efficiently as possible in order to achieve your objectives in the most optimal time. The game actively encourages you to replay missions, challenging you to improve your scores and find new ways to proceed through levels. You can replay entire days at any point, going back to earlier stages in the game with your new-found skills to help improve your score. It’s fun to see the different ways that you can tackle a certain task, and, if you play anything like I do, it makes for slow progression through the game, since I like to keep my pikmin alive thank you very much!

Fail to get your pikmin back to your ship by nightfall and any left out in the wild will be eaten over night. It’s heart-breaking when this happens and you’ll find yourself going out of your way to ensure that it doesn’t, even if it sometimes means abandoning a boss for another day, or leaving a priceless piece of fruit out in the open.

Some of the best puzzles in the game can only be solved by coordinating different teams. Too bad there’s no co-op mode in the game as I think it would have been great

At times, Pikmin III can be a cruel, relentless beast that forces you to play both cautiously and at high tempo, often at the same time. It’s also an undeniably fun experience. And the game is gorgeous. Despite clearly being built with the Wii in mind, the game positively drips atmosphere from every inch of its child-friendly HD exterior. The world the pikmin inhabit is microscopic in size, transforming the every day and mundane into a frightening alien landscape. Plant pots become impregnable fortresses. A tiny puddle becomes an uncrossable lake. Ladybirds become the deadliest enemies on the planet. And so on.

It’s so beautiful, I almost don’t mind that it’s killing me

The only problem is… this is nothing new. I could basically copy-paste the above description and it would serve perfectly fine for both Pikmin I and II. Other than a couple of new pikmin types and the addition of a third controllable character, we’ve seen this all before. And there lies the crux. If you like Pikmin, you’ll like this game. But if you’ve played Pikmin before, you might find yourself bored.

The WiiU’s hardware feels criminally underused too. The best control method is still the Wii remote and nunchuck, meaning that the Gamepad is almost totally ignored throughout the game. (On an unrelated side-point, I know it sounds silly but one of my favourite features in the game was the ease at which you can switch from one controller method to another. A single press of a button and suddenly you’re playing with the pro controller, or the Gamepad, or the Wii remote. It was a really simple idea and I genuinely wish more games used this method). Tell me: why not let us use the touch screen to launch pikmin like you do in Nintendoland? It’s right there!

Multi-player is fun but somewhat limited

I could go on with my list of badly needed features. Co-op multiplayer in the main quest? More maps to explore after the main quest is over? Fruit that respawns, allowing you to return to previous maps and try your hand at them again without erasing your past progress? Hell, the randomly generated dungeons in Pikmin II were annoying, but at least they were infinite! You literally never ran out of things to see and do! Add some asymmetric gaming, ala ZombiU with the Gamepad displaying something different to the main screen and you might have had something really unique here. As it is, it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity. Yes, it’s fun, but so was Pikmin I and II and this is basically the same game all over again.

It’s far too short, too. Just when you think you’ve mastered all the basics, the game comes to a crashing halt. There are multiplayer missions, of course, as well as challenge maps which charge you with doing a certain number of things within a certain length of time, but such arcade-style play has never been my sort of thing and there’s nothing else beyond it. I guess I can’t complain that a game leaves me wanting more and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the excellent job Nintendo is doing with offering new courses via DLC but even so I can’t help but feel a little short-changed out of the experience.

Look at those textures! Collecting fruit at the end of each day is weirdly one of my favourite moments. It looks bloody gorgeous

Overall – B

Reviewing Pikmin III is a strange experience, because as much as I would love to be a huge fan, I just can’t seem to muster much enthusiasm for it. Just like with NSMBU, we’ve seen it all before. The game is good at what it does (Nintendo polish yadda yadda) and what it does is unlike any other gaming franchise on the market but, really, who cares? This is not the must-have exclusive that the WiiU has been crying out for and that’s a very sad thing.

The game certainly has charm and atmosphere in abundance. It looks great and it plays great but unfortunately it’s just too short to truly warrant more than a passing recommendation. Overall, this is a much better crack at the whip than Nintendo’s other first year offerings but still… It’s not good enough.

Sad to say that innovation didn’t skip a generation this time. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the next one.

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan – part 2

Click here for part one.

One of the problems with writing any story with multiple POVs – especially one as long-running and complex as the Wheel of Time – is that you find yourself with a lot of spare characters lying around. More characters, in fact, than you actually need. What started out as a nice, simple coming-of-age Hero’s Journey-type narrative of a farm boy turned world’s only hope, is suddenly a massive 14-book mega-series with a cast of 1,000’s and a plot line so densely woven there are whole encyclopedias devoted to untangling it all.

Now the final book is here – the end of the line – and by necessity something has to be done with all of those extra characters. It’s the Last Battle, after all, the author only has 1,000 pages to play with and there’s a lot of narrative ground to cover in that time. So what do you do?

A bloodbath, that’s what: a plot consisting of 90% warfare in which bit-part characters from previous novels are name-dropped and then killed off with such frequency that you feel kind of bad for having forgotten all about them.

You poor, poor nameless nobodies…

In a way, I can’t help but feel sorry for Brandon Sanderson for taking on a job of this sheer magnitude. Right from the beginning, it was obvious that no matter how well he did in writing these books (and I have to say, he did a bloody good job for the most part), he was all but guaranteed to annoy someone out there for killing off character X or for not spending enough time looking at character Y. It’s a poisoned chalice. Do well and people will praise Robert Jordan for creating such an amazing series. Do badly and people will blame you.

Sanderson has already talked pretty extensively about how difficult the writing process for this book was for him over on his blog, so I’ll just cover the highlights here. In short, when Robert Jordan died, he left a bunch of notes for the final book in his Wheel of Time series for another author to come along and finish. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much actual writing included in these notes. Jordan had written most of the book’s prologue, along with some of the climactic final fight and a few other scenes in between but precious little else. He had made notes about where each character was going to be by the end of the final book but absolutely no concept of how to get them there. The rest was up to Sanderson.

Robert Jordan had an interesting approach to writing which meant he didn’t always write in sequence

All of this meant that Sanderson was forced to come up with his own ideas of how to get a certain character from point A to B in time for the final showdown. That’s a tall order for any writer and the fact that Sanderson didn’t make a complete mess of it altogether is testament to his skills as a writer.

Structurally, the book is sound:

Act One and we’re on the Field of Merrilor, with the forces of light gathering before the Final Battle. Tensions are high, alliances uneasy, and all sides are forced to make some difficult decisions.

Act Two and we’re off to war to fight on four separate battle fronts, each led by a different general. Each of the four battles is different in nature, varying from guerrilla-style forest fighting, to defensive forays and all-out pitched battles, so you don’t ever feel bored while reading them. This was actually my favourite part of the novel (surprising considering the middle part of a novel is usually where things start to sag), a fact that was mostly due to the excellently done sub-plot with the army’s generals, who are all suddenly starting to act very suspiciously.

Act Three and the various war fronts collapse into one, final, united stand against the darkness. At the same time, Rand battles the Dark One in a brilliantly written sequence that stands out as one of the series’ high points. I won’t spoil you with the details of it now, but I genuinely still find myself thinking about it even now, weeks after finishing the book. That’s the hallmark of good writing if ever I saw it.

Finally, the novel ends on a high, with each of the main heroes having done themselves proud. Not all of them have made it through the fighting unscathed, of course, but at least they’ve all made a good account of themselves. You’re left with a warm glow as you close the final cover nodding to yourself that everything turned out exactly the way it should have in the end. The plot lines were all resolved satisfactorily and your favourite characters all did amazing…

That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.

At least, that’s the plan anyway. Unfortunately, the reality isn’t quite so satisfying and to find out why, I need to go back to what I said earlier about Sanderson not having enough time to give every character the proper closure they need.

You see, it’s like with comic books. Let’s imagine that you’re an up-and-coming comic book writer and that you’ve decided in your latest issue you’re going to kill off a minor character. No big deal, right? I mean, we’re talking about some sort of multi-hero epic here, like the Avengers or the Justice League of America. Most people barely even remember that this guy even exists so you’re on safe ground.

You go away and you think up this really great way of killing off the character that will work brilliantly for the comic as a whole. It’s going to be built up over the course of several issues. It’ll be thematically poignant and bitter-sweet, and the character’s final scene will one of those Blaze of Glory-type moments in which he blows up a building with himself inside it taking out like 50 bad guys in the process. You know, the sort of ending that makes comic book readers suddenly sit up straight and start asking themselves, “Hey, this guy’s awesome! Why have I never noticed him before?”

So. Many. Characters!

To your delight, the comic is a success and the fans are very pleased with your work. So, a few weeks later, you decide to pull the same trick again. The only problem now, of course, is that you can’t just do exactly the same thing again, right, or else you’ll be accused of retreading old ground. You need to do something bigger than before. Better! So this time, you write it so that the character blows up an entire city block and that he takes out like 5,000 bad guys in the process. And OK, so maybe killing off the character in this way doesn’t make so much narrative sense as with the first guy but who cares? He dies a hero!

Then, a few weeks later, you decide to do it again… Do you see where I’m going with this? Each death, rather than being the satisfying event it should be, becomes a kind of one-upmanship over the one that came, until you swiftly find yourself moving out of the realm of the fantastic and into the absurd. The next thing you know, the characters are blowing up whole planets in their final dying moments, sacrificing themselves for fate of the entire universe. Any narrative point is lost in the mix, as is any sense of serious character progression. It all becomes about the spectacle.

Stupid planet! I’ll teach you for standing in my way!

Now, I mention all of this for a reason. If I could go back in time and give one piece of advice to Branden Sanderson while writing A Memory of Light, it would be this:

Not everyone can die a hero.

As I’ve already said, a lot of people die in this book. That’s just fine with me — it’s the last Battle, after all, and I’d be disappointed if it didn’t do what it says on the tin — but it’s the way that Sanderson decided to kill of his characters that I found myself taking issue.

I lost count of the number of times in this novel various characters were faced with a near impossible situation, only to somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. There they would be, exhausted, beaten and faced with horrors that most men would have fled from long ago, but somehow they stubbornly soldier on. And in that final moment, pushed past the point of breaking… they somehow find the last bit of energy they need to succeed.

We see this in the prologue when Telmanes manages to kill not one but two Fades, despite being almost paralysed with poison at the time. We see it during the final battle when Egwene suddenly discovers the opposite to balefire at the exact moment that balefire is used against her. We see it in the battle for the Black Tower when Androl is able to open a gateway (even though he shouldn’t be able to at the time) at the exact moment that balefire is used against him. We see it when Lan *spoilers* kills one of the Goddamned Forsaken and somehow survives, despite being in the middle of enemy territory at the time…

Sanderson, I’m sorry but it just gets boring after a while. I know you were working to a mandate here and I know you did a good job with most of it but seriously! Enough is enough!

You have to earn one of these

Here’s the thing — most people are not heroes. The sad truth is that most people, when faced with moments of genuine pressure like those listed above, simply fall to pieces. Mob mentality takes over. We break from the front line. We mutiny, go AWOL, bury our heads in the sand and wait for it all to finish. In short, we act like human beings and pretending otherwise just cheapens the moments of heroism on display, since it gives the impression that such feats are practically mundane for this world.

One of the reasons why I like George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire so much is because of its realistic approach to such matters. Everyone talks about how Martin gleefully kills off his characters and it’s true that he’s brave to do that, but I would argue that it’s in the moments of subtle realism that his work truly shines. Moments like when Sandor Clegane flees the battle of the Blackwater because he’s terrified of fire. Moments like when Sansa lies about what she saw Joffrey doing to the butcher’s boy because she’s afraid of ruining her betrothal. Moments like when Sam freaks out at the Battle on the Fist of the First Men and accidentally lets all the ravens fly free without any messages.

To be fair, I’d be terrified too

Moments like these are genuine and they strike a chord deep inside us. What’s more, moments like these make the true moments of genuine heroism — Jaime saving Brianne from the bear pit springs to mind — all the more great in comparison. Those moments are earned; they are dramatic, they makes sense thematically and this is what makes them satisfying.

Unfortunately, Sanderson is too busy knocking off plot points from his huge ‘to do’ list to bother much with this sort of story telling. He has a lot of characters to get through, after all, and many of them are fan favourites. He can either ignore them completely and get stick from the fans, or dedicate the proper period of time needed and have the series be two books longer. Nah, best just make them all appear to be bad asses and then quickly shuffle them out of the mix: that’s the easiest way to do it, right Brandon?

Like I said at the beginning, he was doomed before he started

And boy does the guy plough through that ‘to do’ list! From page one, Sanderson attacks this novel with a kind of relentless ferocity that’s almost frightening to see. There’s a kind of dizzying intensity to the prose that constantly threatens to spiral into chaos. Plot treads are picked up and ticked off with a breathless speed that leaves no time for second guessing. Elayne gets captured in one chapter and then spontaneously released in the next. Matt sets up a meeting between Artur Hawkwing and Tuon, only for it to happen off-screen. Faile’s father died, she’s made steward of the Two Rivers alongside her husband and we’re never shown her or Perrin’s reaction to either fact. No time! Don’t stop! Question it when you’re done!

It’s kind of exhausting to be honest, and now that I’m done with reading the book, I have to admit I’m glad that it’s over. The highlights of this book are easy to point out: the final battle between the Dark One and Rand, the stuff in the black tower at the beginning and the part with the generals being corrupted.

These moments stand out from the constant background noise of fighting and drudgery that makes up the rest of the plot. Together, they just about tip the balance in favour of this being a good book. Not a great book, exactly (Sanderson’s best effort remains The Gathering Storm, which was amazing) but a good one nonetheless. Satisfying.

I think, all things considered, we can chalk that one up as a success.

Game Review: New Super Mario Bros U

Conventional wisdom says that if something looks like a cake, tastes like a cake and was bought in a cake shop, then – congratulations, Sherlock – it’s probably a cake.

Until very recently, you could have said the same thing about Mario games. After all, the formula for a typical Mario sidescroller practically writes itself: run to the right, reach a goal in under a certain time limit, jump across platforms, collect coins and stomp on enemies to kill. Rinse and repeat.

In this regard, it is true that New Super Mario Bros. U (NSMBU), a Wii U launch title and currently 2nd best-selling game on the beleaguered system, doesn’t stray too far from expectations. Right from the opening moments, when a comically sized Bowser hand crashes down into Princess Peach’s castle, you feel you’re on familiar territory. The controls are familiar, the visuals are bright and nostalgic, and the game’s plot is just as wafer-thin as ever.

Wait, so there’s this princess and she’s been captured by a giant reptile in a flying boat with a comically oversized hand and you’re this Italian plumber who has to rescue her by dressing up as a squirrel and… sorry you’re going too fast

So far, so good.

In fact, you really don’t need to read this review. Unless you’ve never played a computer game in your life, the chances are you already know what a Mario platformer looks like and you already know whether you’re going to be interested in buying this or not. NSMBU looks exactly like you would expect a Mario game to look. It sounds like you would expect a Mario game to sound. It even plays exactly like a Mario game should play, for all the good and bad that entails.

Except… This is not a Mario game. Not really. To go back to my initial metaphor, something about the cake tastes different this time.

As any of my friends will attest, I am a huge Mario fan. Ever since I first picked up Super Mario World on the SNES at the tender age of 9, I’ve been in love with Nintendo. That game was a milestone in my gaming life. It was a game that taught me how computer games should be. It was a benchmark to which all other gaming experiences were later judged and usually found lacking. It is testament to how much of a masterclass of design that game was that it’s stood the test of time as well as it has. To this day, Super Mario World is an absolute joy to play.

Gaming perfection

So what made it so good? Simple: every level – every single level – either added a new gameplay feature or put a fresh spin on an old one. Level one (pictured above) and you’re getting used to simple jumping and using the fire flower. Level 2, and you’re introduced to the character of Yoshi. In Level 3, swimming comes into play. In Level 4 you have your first taste of a castle and an end-stage boss. Level 5 (Donut Plains 1) and you’re introduced to the cape power up and the first of the game’s branching paths. And so on, and so on all the way up to the final level and Bowser himself. The whole thing feels very organic — never rushed and never allowed to out stay its welcome. It introduces each of its core concepts one at a time, giving you plenty of time to get used to them, before then taking them away and upping the ante. In this way, every level felt unique and it remains to this day one of the few games I can just pick up and dive into at random, guaranteeing fun no matter which level I choose.

Like this one — which made me want to punch my TV

There are just so many memorable moments! Like, do you remember that one level (Tubular, pictured above) where you have to fly a P-balloon across this huge gap-filled stage dodging baseball-throwing Charging Chucks and lava plants shooting fire at you? Man, that level was tough! Or what about that level early on (Cookie Mountain) with all the moving platforms and those funky chainsaw things that kept getting in your way? Or how about the big boo boss stage, where you had to pick up bits of the floor and throw them up at it while your back was turned.

That’s Japanese insanity right there: fresh, creative and just so fun!

The Van Gogh inspired background on this stage = the most creative and memorable thing in the whole of NSMBU

Now let’s look at NSMBU. So there’s that level with the Van Gogh background. That was pretty cool. And then there was that other level where you… uh. And you were… Wait a minute, what happened in that level again? Or am I thinking about the DS version…?

You know, that’s a really weird feeling. I mean, I know I’ve played this game – my file says it’s 100% complete and I’m fairly certain my Wii U hasn’t learned how to play itself. What’s more, I know that I enjoyed myself while playing it — especially during the friendship-ruining multiplayer mode, which has always been the New Super Mario Bros. series’ stand-out feature — but now that I’m finished with the thing, I’m damned if I can recall a single moment from the whole game.

Even more damning, I have absolutely no desire to play it again either. Once all the star coins have been collected and the secret exits found, the game basically stops.

This is what I mean, when I say that NSMBU is not a true Mario game. The cake is sadly stale.

To be fair, multiplayer Mario is always awesome

For me, the hallmark of a true Mario game is the that quintessential evergreen quality I mentioned above. It’s those special, memorable flourishes of creativity — the gentle increase in difficulty and the slow drip-feeding of new features — which mean I can keep playing the same game long after the words “The End” have flashed up on screen and never get bored with it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, NSMBU is fun for what it is. We’re talking about a first-party Nintendo game here, after all, and that means it’s more solidly built than your average AAA glitch-fest. Just like with Nintendoland, the Nintendo polish is evident in every single bug-free moment of this game. It’s code is so streamlined at this point, it practically purrs at you.

It’s positively packed full of content too — far more so than any of its predecessors in the series, especially when you take into account the extensive DLC Super Luigi U that adds 80 new levels of significantly higher difficulty for you to play through and the ability to play as Luigi (who is harder to control) and Nabbit (who is invincible).

The challenge modes are awesome, too

In fact, it’s in these extras that NSMBU finally finds a place to stand out from the rest. The addition of challenges and boost mode (two game modes that set you arbitrary goals such as ‘don’t collect any coins’ or ‘finish the level as quickly as possible’ while playing through levels to ramp up the difficulty) adds a much needed element of replayability to the game. The challenges are tough but fair and there seems to be no end to them.

There are a lot of other things I could talk about here, too. Like the Miiverse integration that pops up at the end of every couple of levels inviting you to share your thoughts with the rest of the world. Or the Gamepad integration, which allows you to create temporary platforms on the stage using the touch screen. They are both really cool features but there’s a reason I haven’t mentioned them until now: they feel kind of tacked on, superfluous to the actual playing of the game. Just like with ZombiU, I feel as though the higher ups at Nintendo ordered the developers to add these features into the game to show off some of the new technology available on the console. They don’t really add much to the game by themselves.

The word ‘generic’ springs to mind

Overall

Last week, I was overly harsh on a game because it wasn’t my cup of tea. This time, I’m being harsh on this game for the exact opposite reason.

Nintendo — this is a good game but you can do better than this! To be honest, if anyone other than you had made this game, I probably would have given it an ‘A’ and called it a work of art but, you know what, you’re better than just ‘another game company’ and Mario is supposed to be about more than just following the crowd and retreading old ground.

To think that this was the game you decided to launch alongside your brand new console is just baffling to me. When people see this game, they just see the same tired old thing they’ve seen countless times before. And trust me, if there’s one message you don’t want to be giving consumer’s right now, it’s that you’re running out of ideas.

Game Reviews: ZombiU

Zombies. If there were one horror cliché that is well and truly overused right now, then this would be it. It seems as though you can’t move these days without running into hordes of the undead rampaging towards you. You see them in movies, you see them in books, and, most of all, you see them in games.

Let’s face it: Zombies sell. The Resident Evil series alone has sold over 50 million copies for Capcom to date, while its spin-off film series has clocked in over $600 million, making it the only computer game-based film series to ever make more money with each new installment.

You don’t have to feel bad about killing them: they’re already dead

On the other side of things, we have the first person shooter (FPS) genre, the go-to de facto genre for gaming companies these days. We all know the names: Battlefield, Call of Duty, Killzone, Counterstrike and Team Fortress. Again, they make money; people like them. In fact, it might be due to their complete absence on the WiiU (apart from the Call of Duty games, which are like a joke in and of themselves these days) which has led to most hardcore gamers writing off Nintendo as an utter waste of their time.

The FPS: gritty realism at its best

So, you can understand why Ubisoft greenlit a game like ZombiU. You can just imagine the higher-ups of the company sitting around in a glass boardroom somewhere in Montpellier one day sipping at their macchiatos as they look over a set of line graphs and stacks of market research put together by an unpaid intern. “Yep, that’s the best combination of genres,” they all tell each other as they eye up each other’s designer suit and wonder how much it cost. “That’s the one that will make us money.”

On paper, you have to agree the decision makes sense. ZombiU launched in 2012 alongside the WiiU and it was clear that Ubisoft were keen to make their mark on the new console by creating an exclusive game which they knew would cater towards an audience that Nintendo traditionally ignored. A new console generation meant the perfect time to try out a fresh IP and they already knew (again, from their stacks of market research) that the market for horror games was already there on Nintendo systems, since games like Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil 4 had been such huge hits on the Gamecube.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, unfortunately, quite a lot. ZombiU is not a bad game, per se, but it is one of those gaming experiences which suffers for its obvious genre pigeon-holing. For one thing, it feels rushed: the game is full of bugs and glitches, frame rate drops and various other graphical problems, all of which serve to take you out of the experience and away from the dark immersive atmosphere it’s trying to create.

The other thing is that there’s nothing new here — we’ve seen it all before. I always feel that you can tell how passionate a designer felt about a game when you play it. The best games (like Portal, for example) are games which are made by a small team of people who are clearly dedicated to a single vision. They have a great new idea they want to explore and it’s obvious when you play the final product that they were truly passionate about what they were doing and, ultimately, just having fun with it.

In comparison, ZombiU feels cynical and tired, like a game that was ordered by the higher-ups at Ubisoft to fill a gap in the market and then rushed out by a deadline with no more care and affection than when I’m asked to write a report for my job. Sure, it’s a well-made experience (just like my reports at work are always well-written), but you can just tell that it wasn’t made with love.

It doesn’t help that the game is set in London, either. It’s like every Zombie cliché rolled into one

Now, before anyone starts shouting at me, I am well aware that calling ZombiU an FPS is like calling the Legend of Zelda an RPG: kind of true but also very misleading. What this game actually is, is a first-person survival horror and in its defense, ZombiU is a pretty good example of a survival horror game done right.

You start of as a lone survivor of a Zombie apocalypse (how I long for a game where you actually get to play as the Zombie for once) who has been rescued from death by a mysterious man known only as the Prepper. The Prepper is one of those crazy survivalist types who are always preparing themselves for the end of the world and, luckily for you, he was right this time. His disembodied voice and the safehouse he has prepared for you serve as your sole points of reference throughout the game. Under his instructions, you scavenge the streets of London for supplies, avoiding the roving hordes of the undead and running errands for the Prepper as you go.

Death is always just a small mistake away, and it’s here that one of the game’s more interesting mechanics comes into play: that of permadeath. There are no lives or checkpoints in this game. If you die, you are dead for good, and you then find yourself in a new body, with a new character who must then track down his predecessor and kill his to get his loot back. It’s a mechanic that really works well to make you actually fear death. There’s no running into a situation all guns blazing here. You have to plan your approach, ration your items and move through each area with the speed of molasses.

The gamepad integration is one of the best things about this game too. Really innovative stuff from Ubisoft here

The problem is… well, I’ll be honest here, I completely suck at FPS games, or, indeed, any game shown from the first person perspective. You see, I grew up in the days of 2D side-scrollers and isometric top-downs and, for some reason, my brain has never been able to get used to the shift in perspective.

So you can understand that I die a lot when playing this game. Like, several times per mission a lot. Unfortunately, dying this often paradoxically makes the game much easier to complete. Seriously, I quickly discovered that if you’re ever assaulted by a huge Zombie horde and you have no idea what to do, the easiest way out of the situation is to simply let yourself get killed and then, when you respawn, you’ll find that (because the game really wants you to get your old gear back), when you return to the area where you died your now-zombified former self is pretty much the only zombie left standing in the area. Kill him, get your loot back and (huzzah!) all the 50+ Zombies are now dead and you wasted absolutely no supplies in getting rid of them. Game completed!

The moment I figured this out, the game instantly lost all sense of tension for me. Death became little more than a minor inconvenience and I found I was able to get through whole areas of the game using nothing more than a cricket bat and a handful of respawns. This… kind of undermines the whole ‘survival horror’ thing. Coupled with this is the fact that repeated dying also completely destroys any immersion you might have had in the game’s plot. The way the game is structured into missions means that if you die in the middle of one, you often find the Prepper later shouting at you for things your current protagonist never did. It’s kind of funny in places, actually, but again it takes you out of the game.

Just let yourself die: it’s easier in the long run

Overall — Grade D

It’s possible I’m being overly harsh on this game because of my inherent dislike of the first person perspective (and zombies) but I really wasn’t impressed with this game. It feels unfinished and uninspired: identical to every other similar game on the market while offering little that’s truly innovative.

Sorry Ubisoft, I feel bad kicking the WiiU’s only true 3rd party exclusive but, well, be honest with yourselves: you rushed this one out of the door, didn’t you? Your higher-ups might be surprised this thing didn’t sell more than it did (500,000 copies to date) but you know what? I’m not.

Game Reviews: Nintendoland

Following on from my recent article about Nintendo (which was published on Nintendolife last week), I’ve decided it might be fun to talk about some of the games I own for the Wii U and my impressions of them so far.

To make things more interesting, however, I’ve decided not to score these games in the usual 1-10 format used by most games magazines. I’ve always found this system of scoring kind of unfair, with scores always leaning towards the top-end of the register and anything below 8 instantly being looked down upon by most gamers as something that’s not worth paying any attention to.

Instead, I’m going to grade them.

Every week between now and Christmas, I will take a Wii U game which I’ve played to completion and I will give it a grade from A – F, exactly as if Nintendo were a student of mine and the game were a piece of coursework they were handing in for marking. Under this system (just like in British A-Levels), a C counts as a pass (i.e. a solid game that is fun to play but perhaps lacks creativity or is hampered in some way by poor design decisions), an F is an outright fail (i.e. an unplayable mess that was clearly made with an eye on profit margins rather than creativity) and an A is a genre-defining masterpiece that will pave the way in the gaming industry for years to come. I’m hoping that this system will allow me to be more fair with my scores and lead to less controversy down the road.

So then, without any further ado, let’s get on with the first review…

NINTENDOLAND

Back in the days of yore, all new consoles came packaged with a game. It was good business: a quick way of showing off a new system to the gaming public by offering them a must-have exclusive that looked and played like nothing else on the market. It worked for Super Mario Brothers on the NES, it worked for Tetris on the Gameboy and it worked for Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Megadrive. In more recent years, it worked for Wii Sports, a wonderful little mini-game collection for the Wii, which quickly and elegantly demonstrated the idea of motion controls to a curious gaming public.

Seven years later, we find ourselves with another example of a game designed to show-off a newly launched console: in this case, the Wii U’s Gamepad and Nintendo’s latest marketing buzzword: asymmetric gaming.

The results are… mixed to say the least.

Nintendoland is a kind of Nintendo version of Disneyland — a virtual theme park filled with 12 different attractions based around different Nintendo IP. It’s a surprisingly content-rich package for your money. Included on the disc are a wide variety of different games, including ones that people can play solo (Balloon Trip Breeze and Octopus Dance). Games designed for multi-player (Legend of Zelda, Metroid Blast and Pikmin Adventure), asymmetric games which make use of the different view afforded by the Gamepad (Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, Mario Chase and Animal Crossing Sweet Days) and games which use the pad’s touch screen (Takamaru’s Ninja Castle and Yoshi’s Fruit Cart) or its motion controls (Donkey Kong Crash Course and Captain Falcon’s Twister Race) to surprisingly good effect.

With 12 attractions available, there is something here for everyone

It’s an interesting idea and undeniably fun. Within less than an hour, most users will have tried out all the different attractions on offer and, in doing so, will have been introduced to most of the Wii U’s main selling points: the motion controls, the touch screen, the asymmetric gaming and the focus on local Multiplayer. It might not have the immediate ‘wow’ factor that Wii Sports brought with it back in 2006, but as a proof-of-concept game, it does a surprisingly thorough job of explaining what the Wii U is all about.

Naturally, not all of the 12 games on offer will be to your tastes, but there will almost certainly be something here that is (my personal favourite is Donkey Kong’s crash Course, although I think I might be in the minority). Even the weaker games in the collection (Octopus Dance I’m looking at you) are rarely boring and everywhere you look in the game there is a level of craftsmanship and polish that can only really be found with Nintendo.

Dismiss this as kiddy at your peril!

The problem is, no one cares.

When this game was first released 12 months ago, the entire gaming industry took one look at it and kind of let out a collective shrug. No one can deny that Nintendoland is a very well-made game. As always, Nintendo have brought out their A-game here, putting together a game that is so polished at times, it shines. The texture’s are bright, the graphics crisp and there is nary a bug or glitch to be seen all game. It all chugs along at a decent enough frame rate and the motion controls are some of the best I’ve ever seen from Nintendo.

It’s just that it lacks… something. Whatever it was that made Wii Sports such an instant hit is missing from this game. Whatever it was that made Tetris so addictive, forcing you to keep playing just one more game, isn’t here. The game feels hollow, somehow, empty of that Nintendo spark which made its past releases so magical.

Decent online might have fixed some of these problems (even after all these years, Nintendo is still too focussed on local multiplayer for their own good), as would a trophy system that actually rewarded repeated play and DLC which allows users to add new features to their parks, but this would just be papering over the real problems here. The sad fact is, this is a mini-game collection at its heart… And it’s one that doesn’t really give you much to do once the initial fun has worn off.

If you can honestly say that you don’t find this fun, then you have no soul

I know when a game has missed its mark when I find myself imagining what could have been while playing it. For example, how much better would the game have been if they had allowed users to customise their themeparks in some way? Or what if they had made it so that not all of the attractions were open right away but instead had to be earned? Maybe there could be a level designer in some of the games, which would let you customise some of the courses before sharing them online. Or maybe you could be allowed to manage your theme park, in a scaled-down version of Rollercoaster Tycoon, jumping through various money-managing hurdles in order to draw virtual visitors to your park which, in turn, could allow you to unlock more attractions within your game. Miiverse could have been used to allow people to vote on each other’s creations and this, in turn, could have led to you unlocking more content. By rewarding repeated play in this way, the user would feel they are making real progress in the game and this, in turn, would encourage them to keep playing. Without this, it just feels like a mini-game collection. Fun, yes. Well-made, undoubtedly. But hollow.

Overall: Grade C

Solid, polished and fun… but ultimately lacking. Nintendo’s latest proof-of-concept lacks the instant charm and fizzle of Wii Sports while adding nothing of substance to replace it. While it is undoubtedly a very competently made mini-game collection, it doesn’t really give the player any impetus to keep playing once all 12 attractions have been sampled. Disappointing.

 

Why is Nintendo so unpopular in Poland?

A couple of months ago, I posted an article about my attempts to track down a Wii U in Poland and the numerous barriers I came across while doing so. It was intended as a fun little story — a humorous anecdote to add a bit of flavour to the site.

To my surprise, Nintendolife.com, one of the biggest Nintendo websites in the world, later got hold of the story and used it as the basis for one of their articles. To my even bigger surprise, a lot of people then read my article and commented on it, saying that I hadn’t painted the whole picture (I hadn’t been intending to) or that — more worryingly — I hadn’t done the research.

Today, I’m hoping to re-address these issues.

The Wii U: a seriously underrated console

I’m going to assume at this stage that you’ve already read that first article. You already know that the shops here in Poland are empty of Nintendo products. You know that the TV is utterly devoid of adverts and that Nintendo brand recognition is borderline zero among all but the most well-informed members of the gaming community. You also know that Poland itself is a growing market in the EU with a huge number of potential customers who are currently going untapped by Nintendo and are therefore forced to choose between Sony and Microsoft to satisfy their gaming needs.

This is Poland. Population: 38 million. GDP per capita: $13,334. 99% white. 100% Christian. One of the fastest growing economies in the EU

The question we’re going to ask today is why. Here, in no particular order, are my top 5 reasons why Nintendo is so unpopular in Poland.

1. Localisation issues

Translating anything, let alone something as huge and complex as a computer game, costs money. A lot of money. Any company wanting to do business in a new market has to weigh-up the costs of said translation against any potential profits gained by distributing in this region.

On paper, at least, you can certainly see that Polish is a somewhat niche language to be translating your game into. After all, when your choice is between Polish (spoken by 40 million people worldwide only in Poland) and French (spoken by around 300 million people worldwide in about 30 different countries) of course you’re going to prioritise the latter. It’s business and it’s logical, no matter how much it might annoy you.

Pokemon X & Y was launched in seven languages simultaneously: a huge undertaking for Nintendo

Except… someone seems to have forgotten to give Sony and Microsoft the memo…

See that little Polish flag on the bottom left of the box? Yeah, Polish people see it too

Here are two facts to mull over for a moment:

Fact #1: Nintendo products are never translated into Polish.

Fact #2: Major releases on Sony and Microsoft’s systems are almost always translated into Polish (and yes, that includes games from EA, a company which is often lambasted for how lazy it is when porting software).

Now, let’s be honest here. When it comes to choosing between playing a game in your mother tongue or playing it in a foreign language, I’m pretty sure that 99% of us would opt for the ease of playing in their mother tongue to scrabbling around with a dictionary trying to figure out what they’re supposed to be doing. Games are meant to be fun, after all, and there are few things in life less fun than not have a clue what’s going on.

This is particularly important when you factor in games which are released on multiple platforms. After all, for a game like Pokémon, people might be willing to overlook the translation issues simply because Pokémon is only available on Nintendo systems. However, things become a little muddier when you turn your attention to multi-platform games…

Like Assassin’s Creed III, for example. Available on all major platforms in English, but if you want the Polish language version, it has to be on the PS360

The Nintendo version instantly becomes the inferior one, simply because it’s the only one that isn’t in your mother tongue.

2. Cultural issues

This one is a little harder to explain and it requires a brief history lesson.

You see, Poland spent the vast majority of the 20th century firmly under Russia’s Iron Curtain. It only opened up to free trade with the rest of the world in 1991 and even then, the Polish economy was a wreck. Production was down, unemployment was a problem for the first time in its history, nothing was available in the shops, the currency was hit by rampant hyperinflation and there was martial law. The country was a mess!

A typical shop in Poland during the time of martial law. Notice the complete absence of Nintendo products on the shelves (or, indeed, any products whatsoever…)

It wasn’t until about the early 2000’s that the average Polish citizen could really afford a luxury commodity like a games console and, by the time this happened, Nintendo’s glory days were well and truly over. Sony was the cool kid in town and Polish gamers everywhere flocked to the Playstation brand.

That’s not to say that Nintendo products were unknown. Thanks to knock-off clone consoles like the Pegasus, the Polish public had a pretty good idea of characters like Mario and games like Tetris, but let’s not fool ourselves: these products were not Nintendo and there was little quality involved in their production.

The Pegasus: boldly spreading the love for Nintendo IP where even Nintendo didn’t dare to go

But then something strange happened: in 2004, Poland joined the EU and pretty much overnight the country started to become rich. Not very rich, you understand, but rich enough that for the first time in over a century, Polish people had money in their pockets to burn.

And boy, did they burn it!

Designer clothes? Ridiculously attractive women? Horrible animal print leggings? Must be Poland

Now, I can’t give you any citations here, since this is purely my own observation of life in this country, but I have the impression that a lot of people in Poland are currently engaged in what can only be described as ‘a desperate race to catch up with the rest of the world’.

Everywhere you look, you see Polish people draping themselves in designer labels and driving the latest BMWs. They spend an absolute fortune (far more as a percentage of their income, in fact, than people in the UK do) on making sure they own the latest sound systems, widescreen TVs or iPhones. The really weird thing is that most people don’t seem to do this because they particularly like or need to own such things, but rather they feel they must own them.  These items are expensive and thus, by owning them, they are declaring to the world that they are an important person who has made it big.

It’s like a form of cultural one-upmanship and it’s just one of those cultural quirks I’ve had to get used to while living here.

How does this effect Nintendo? Well, unfortunately, Nintendo’s business strategy for the last few years has been almost the exact opposite of what most Polish people are looking for. Nintendo tend to release deliberately underpowered consoles at a very low price point. In the UK and the US — where spiralling debt means that budgeting is a big concern for most people — this is a policy that has, for the most part, worked.

In Poland, however, where people have more money than ever before and almost no debt to go along with it, the average gamer will simply look at this:

Battlefield 4: not available on a Nintendo home console

And then this:

Metroid Blast from Nintendo Land: the closest thing to a first party FPS on the Wii U

And they will instantly opt to buy the former simply because it’s looks better and must, therefore, be better.

It’s a cultural thing and, sadly, it leads directly to another issue:

3. Lack of sentiment

I’m not going to lie: Nintendo means a lot to me. The SNES was my first console as a kid and Nintendo characters such as Mario and Link have been with me all throughout my life, decorating cakes at my birthdays and printed on T-shirts I wore to school.

Nintendo, in short, is my childhood and there are few things I love more than indulging in that nostalgia, revisiting the games I grew up with and remembering the good old times from my past. Whenever a new Mario or Zelda game comes out, it’s like seeing an old friend. Sure, so that friend might have changed a little over the years. He’s changed his clothes and put on a bit of weight. He’s no longer the coolest kid on the block like he used to be, but so what? He’s my friend and seeing him never fails to  make me smile.

New Super Mario Bros U: Critics hate this game because they’ve seen it all before. I love this game for exactly the same reason.

As explained above, Polish people didn’t grow up with Nintendo like I did, and so they have no such sentimentality. These days, whenever they see a new Mario or Pokemon game, they see only a game aimed at children. An expensive game aimed at children too, especially when compared with the likes of Angry Birds. Who in their right mind, they ask, would want to buy such a thing?

And while we’re on the subject of price…

4. Higher prices

Nintendo currently has no official distributer in Poland. Until about a year ago, they distributed their games through an Austrian company called Stadlbauer but this is no longer the case due to that company’s utter failure to make a profit while doing so.

As a result of this, Nintendo games come with a hefty price tag attached to them these days. Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot from Eurogamer.pl showing the prices of Rayman Legends on all major platforms. As you can see, the Wii U version is 31% more expensive than the PS360 versions and a shocking three times more expensive than the PC version.

Translating into UK currency, that’s £12 for the PC version, £32 for the PS360 versions and £42 for the Wii U

Knowing this, why in God’s name would anyone chose to buy the Wii U version? Before you say it, I am well aware that the Wii U version is the so-called ‘definitive’ one, but good luck finding anyone in Poland who knows it. As already said, there is no advertising for Nintendo in this country — none — meaning that most consumers have only the final price to go on when making their decision. Yes, Polish people like to own the newest and best things, but that doesn’t mean they are suckers.

5. Lack of market penetration

At this stage, the writing is sadly on the wall for Nintendo regarding them ever making an impact in the Polish market. It’s like a vicious circle: they can’t penetrate the market because they haven’t already penetrated it. As shown in the examples above, the hearts and minds of the Polish consumer simply haven’t been won over by Nintendo’s IP or their business strategy and, as such, it will be all the more hard for Nintendo to capture it in the future.

A typical Polish video game advert. Hey, guys, you do realise Batman’s coming out on Wii U too, right…?

As Mikael Bourget of Polish developer QubicGames said in a recent interview with Nintendolife.com:

From our personal experiences we can say that it is difficult to buy Nintendo hardware and software from big retailers. The availability is indeed very limited. However for true Nintendo fans it is perfectly possible to get the console and the games from Internet and from smaller games dedicated shops. Of course this isn’t helping to bring Nintendo to people not so familiar with the brand. And this makes a vicious circle as the consequences become the cause and vice versa. The market for Nintendo was always small in Poland.

‘Small’ is an understatement. At the time of writing, fewer than 400 Wii U’s have been sold in Poland. There is no Club Nintendo for Poland, you don’t receive Nintendo points for buying games in Poland and you can’t so much as register your Wii U as being in this country. As far as Nintendo is concerned, Poland might as well not exist.

Visit Nintendo’s site for Poland and you will see the following message:

Nintendo of Europe will restructure its operations in Poland with immediate effect. We wish to assure our consumers in Poland that we are taking all necessary steps to ensure that they will continue to have access to our usual consumer support services and meanwhile we will be urgently exploring new ways of bringing our products and experiences to the Polish market. A further announcement about this will follow in due course.

These words should be taken with a bucket of salt, however, since the website has been saying exactly this for the last six months now. ‘With immediate effect’ apparently means something very different in Japanese.

All of the above factors combine together to create a perfect storm of conditions which seem almost tailor-made to ensure that Nintendo fails in this country. You might argue (correctly) that Nintendo is focussing its attention right now on targeting markets in which it has a bigger chance of success (such as Korea). However, it doesn’t take a shrewd market analyst to tell you that simply abandoning a market to your competitors only means that your competitors will have more freedom within that market to capitulate on your absence.

And really, is that the Nintendo way: to give up? When the great Hiroshi Yamauchi first decided that Nintendo would stop producing cards and start producing consoles instead — in the middle of the biggest electronics crash America has ever seen, no less — was this a small idea or a safe business decision?

Yamauchi-san (RIP) dreamt big and it was precisely by dreaming big that Nintendo became the household name it is today. It is only by tackling the cultural and business issues laid out in the article above that Nintendo can ever hope of capturing this market, or any other emerging market for that matter. The world is much bigger than America and Japan these days and Europe is much bigger than the UK. I just wish Nintendo realised that fact.

RIP you wonderful man. Nintendo has never been the same since you left

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan — part 1

Now that I’m finally done with my read through of popular books I haven’t read yet, it’s time to turn my attention to something I actually want to read for a change.

A Memory of Light is the final entry in the ridiculously popular Wheel of Time saga by the late, great Robert Jordan. It’s a series that has sold over 50 million copies to date, spanning 14 main novels (and one spin-off prequel I’ve already talked about), over the course of a staggering 12,000 pages of text and a truly daunting 4,500,000 words. Four and a half million words.

Take that, trees!

What do I know about this book going in?

This is a book I’ve been meaning to read ever since it first came out in January. Not because I particularly like the series, you understand, but more out of a sad sense of obligation that after sinking so many hours into such a behemoth of a story, I owe it to myself to finally get some sort of conclusion out of it.

Here’s a fun little anecdote for you. Back when I was a dewy-eyed 18-year-old, I worked at my local Waterstone’s bookshop. It was pretty tedious work for the most part. I mean, working with customers is always fun, but the sheer volume of books I had to cram away on the overloaded bookshelves every day, not to mention the near endless lists of unsold volumes we had to hunt down and return to the publishers for pulping, was excruciating.

Sigh… Those were the days.

Luckily, there was one perk to working in a bookshop that I never got tired of: free books. Every now and again, a shipment would come in that was a little too damaged to be sold in the store. Maybe some water had got into it and spoiled some of the pages, or maybe the box had been dropped during transit. Whatever the reason, the books were deemed unsellable and so they were quietly given away to anyone who wanted them.

And I wanted them. A lot.

I cannot overstate how cool this was. I remember going into the back office every week after the new shipments had come in, eager to see what fresh new bounty was available to us lucky Waterstone-ians. One day, as luck would have it, I came in to find that books 6 and 7 of the Wheel of Time were available. “Cool,” I thought. I’d never heard of the Wheel of Time before, but I’d read a couple of fantasy novels and thought they were pretty fun, so I picked these books up without a second thought.

Anyway, one week later, I went in again and what did I behold but books 1 and 2 of the same series, also free of charge! Happy as a lamb on shearing day, I picked up both volumes and then immediately went out onto the shop floor and purchased books 3, 4 and 5 (with my 20% staff discount no less). At the end of the day, I considered myself extremely well-off for the deal. Seven books for less than the price of 3? Bargain!

So pretty…

To my utter jubilation, it turned out that the first 3 books in this series were great. Better than great — I’d go as far as to say that they were genre defining. Fast paced, interesting, with a truly great magic system (one of the best I’ve ever read, in fact) and some extremely detailed (if sometimes geographically questionable) world building. They were the books that single-handedly made me a fan of fantasy in the first place. They were the books that made me the writer I am today. I gobbled them up in quick succession and then turned to books 4-6, which also turned out to be solid and enjoyable reads.

At this point, I was definitely a fan.

Then I read book 7…

This face = my exact reaction

At this point, I really should have stopped reading the series. I mean, as anyone who’s read book 7 will tell you, it’s like the literary equivalent of water boarding and the series never recovered from it. But then I figured “well, one book out of 7 isn’t so bad. Everyone is entitled to one mis-step. Maybe book 8 will be better!”

Unfortunately, book 8 wasn’t any better. Nor was book 9 for that matter. Then book 10 came along and that was so bad I actually fell asleep more than once while reading it (no, seriously, I really did. And that’s not the worst of it, either. The worst part is that whenever this happened, my brain — caught between trying to keep itself awake while simultaneously longing to sleep — would insist to me that I was, in fact, still reading the book even though I actually wasn’t. In this way, I would often ‘read’ several sentences that weren’t actually there and all the while my dream mind would be filling in the blanks for me. Then, suddenly, the logical part of my mind would bolt upright and say, “Hang on a darned second, this doesn’t make any sense!” and I would jerk awake only to find that I was half a page behind where I thought I should be and that nothing I’d just imagined had actually occurred. True story).

Anyway, by this point I really wanted to stop reading but — well — by now I’d already finished most of the series and book 11 was a surprising return to form (things actually happened in it!) so I stuck with it all the same.

And then the author died.

RIP Robert Jordan

I’m sorry, I really don’t mean to sound so flippant here but my honest-to-God reaction upon hearing about Robert Jordan’s death was to roll my eyes and say, “for fuck’s sake…” I know, I know, I’m a horrible person and I feel horrible admitting it to you now, but I’d bet my entire Wheel of Time collection that I’m not the only person to react that way. After all, when you’ve invested such a huge chunk of your life into reading something, you kind of expect some sort of pay off at the end

Now, alas, it seemed I was never going to get it…

Fortunately, I was wrong! It turned out that Robert Jordan had left lots of notes behind in the event of his death so that another author could step in and complete the series for him. For book 12 (which eventually turned into 12 – 14), Jordan’s widow called in Brandon Sanderson to complete the series and my God was that the right choice to make.

Mission accomplished!

Now, Sanderson is something of a legend in the world of fantasy writers. Not because he’s a particularly good writer (he’s OK but his prose is often a bit too workmanlike for my tastes) but simply because the guy Writes. So. Damned. Fast!

It’s a level of productivity that’s quite frankly terrifying. In the time it’s taken me to write the Arkship Ulysses (my debut novel which you can read an extract of here) Brandon Sanderson has not only completed the Memory of Light trilogy, but he’s written nine other novels of his own, including two doorstops that are even bigger than his Wheel of Time works and 4 novellas.

Dear God…

He’s one of those writers that I lump into the same category as Cory Doctorow as being somehow outside the human race. They’re in a league above — Homo Novus, if you will — who will no doubt supplant us mere mortals before the decade is out and rule over us all as some sort of geeky overlords. But it’s OK, we tell ourselves, because the world will be a better place for it and hey, at least we’ll have some nice books to read.

So anyway, more than a decade after I picked up those free books in the back office of a Waterstones and patted myself on the back for my good business acumen, the end is finally in sight.

How do I feel about that fact? Honestly: exhausted.

So, what am I expecting from this book?

Fighting. Lots and lots of fighting. There are a lot of story arks in this series that are in need of finishing and — the last time I checked — there was a pretty big villain stomping about unchecked too and he certainly won’t go down without some good old-fashioned fisticuffs.

Like these!

I’m also expecting a lot of angst, since it seems you can’t have good drama without that these days.

Much like the Da Vinci Code, I’m expecting the book to have a plot that you can set your watch to, i.e. every chapter will end with a cliff-hanger and there will be a major plot thread or two being tied up pretty much every other chapter. I’m expecting a brief sojourn at the beginning of the book in order to set up exposition for the sake of those who might (heaven forbid) be starting the series with this book and then we’ll be going full-steam ahead into the main meat of the novel — hacking away at those dangling plot threads like they’re some sort of Wyndham-ian nightmare intent on blinding us all.

I’m expecting it to be a big book but I’m also expecting it to be a fun book, a quick read and ultimately a satisfying one. I’m also expecting it to be a book that (finally) bucks the series’ trend by killing off a few of its main characters. If one of those characters is Elayne, I will die a happy man.

God, I hate this character

So then, let’s get reading. This book isn’t going to read itself!

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown — Part 2

Dan Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code is the very definition of a page turner. Seriously, it could be studied at university (actually, it already is).

For one thing, it has very short chapters, meaning it’s all-too-easy to fall into the habit of saying “just one more chapter”. For another, almost every chapter ends on a cliff-hanger, so you always want to find out what’s going to happen next. Couple these with the fact that the viewpoint constantly shifts between chapters, meaning that you have to read on in order to get the resolution to said cliff-hanger, and it’s very easy to see how I was able to finish this book in just two days.

And it’s true: I wasn’t bored during any part of those two days. I was invested in the story; I wanted to know what was going to happen next. However, now that I’m finished with the book, I have to admit I don’t feel very satisfied. It’s kind of like when you eat McDonald’s meal: it fills you up for a short time but it somehow leaves you feeling hungry afterwards. It feels like empty calories.

I could probably sum up this entire review with this one picture alone. A McDonald’s Big Mac meal: just like the Da Vinci Code, it’s popular, fast and pretty tasty… but man do you feel bad after finishing it.

As long-time readers of this blog will know, my absolute favourite genre of fiction is fantasy. I love it for three reasons. One because I love complex world-building and all the intricate back stories and politics that go with it. Two because I love seeing the logical extrapolation of completely impossible (and often ridiculous) concepts played out as though they were real things (read this post for more on this). And three because I love compelling characters. Give me all three of these things and I will love you like George R R Martin. Give me none of them and you have the Da Vinci Code.

Alright, so maybe that’s a little unfair but let’s look at those above points one by one. Firstly, the Da Vinci Code is set in Modern day France, so bang goes our world building right there. And whether or not the extrapolation of its central premise is logical or not is an elephant in the room we’ll be getting to in a bit. That leaves us only with the characters and, sad to say, this book doesn’t really have any of those.

Ignore these people. They are not even remotey real.

Don’t get me wrong: it has people — lots and lots of people — but they feel less like characters than archetypal jobs with names bolted onto them who function in the place of characters for the sake of plot expediency.

In other words: cliché.

So, for example, we have the policeman who is ruthless to the point of ignoring all reason. We have a bank manager who is cowardly and interested only in his business. We have a British guy who is eccentrically aristocratic and *spoilers* turns out to be the bad guy */spoilers*. Even Robert Langdon, our unwilling hero, is little more than a typical academic. Plot convenience and the endlessly ticking clock of the book’s story removes all sense of depth from these people, stripping away everything except their core function. It doesn’t make for a satisfying read.

The Louvre in Paris where much of the book’s plot is set

And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about the book’s plot. A well-respected museum curator is murdered in the Louvre one night by an unknown assailant. Strangely, he spends his last moments of life creating an elaborate series of symbolic clues on the ground around his body. No one knows what they mean, but one of these clues seems to implicate Robert Langdon — a well-respected American symbologist — as the murderer. Langdon is pulled in for questioning, but the policeman is interrupted in his arrest by the arrival of Sophie Neveu, a respected cryptologist who also happens to be the murdered curator’s granddaughter. Realising that her grandfather’s grizzly death actually spells out a series of clues she is meant to follow, Sophie helps Langdon escape from custody and enlists his help in working out what her murdered grandfather was trying to tell her. Thus they find themselves on the run from the police, desperate to solve the riddle Sophie’s grandfather left behind and clear Langdon’s name before the police catch up with them. What they discover leads them to uncover the secret organisation, the Priory of Scion, and a secret they’ve kept hidden from the rest of the world since the founding of the Catholic Church.

Sounds pretty exciting, right? Well… it’s not.

The Fellowship of the Rings: not exactly the poster-boy for clever plotting

I remember when I first went to the cinema to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie, the Fellowship of the Ring. It was, undeniably, a great visual spectacle: well-produced, fluid and exciting. But the plotting… My God. You could summarise that first film thusly:

1. The heroes are attacked by something.
2. They run away.
3. Exposition happens.

4. They are attacked by something else.
5. They run away.
6. Exposition.

Rinse and repeat until end credits. It was so formulaic it bordered on the ludicrous and I was bored long before the end of the film.

This book felt pretty much the same.

Tell me this: why exactly are the characters in such a rush? Seriously, let’s stand back and think about this for a minute. Does it really matter that Robert Langdon has been implicated in this murder? All that would happen if the events played out logically is that he would be taken into police custody, questioned for a while and then finally released without charge due to the overwhelming lack of evidence linking him to the crime. He would then have all the time in the world to return to the mysteries left by the murdered curator and try to piece them together with Sophie’s help. Instead, by running, he implicates himself and sets the whole plot crashing down around his head.

It’s stupid.

Now, I realise that high-octane thrills are what we’re aiming for here and that such plots always need a ticking clock to go with all their car chases and gun fights, but let’s be honest here: it’s not the car chases that most people read this novel for, it’s the mystery about the curator’s death and the secrets he died to protect.

So slow the plot down! Unravel the mystery more organically. Remove the Scooby Doo-like reveal of the pantomime villain at the end. All of these things would have led to a much better, more cohesive, and most importantly satisfying story. I mean, I’m not asking for much here, just to be asked to do a little thinking while reading this so-called “mystery” you’ve given me.

Admittedly, some parts of the mystery plot were more creatively dealt with than others.

So, after all that, you might be forgiven for thinking that I didn’t like this book very much but like I said, it’s not bad. But when you weigh up what this book could have been against what it actually is… Well, it’s disappointing.

Just like the Fellowship of the Ring. Or a McDonald’s hamburger.

The Da Vinci painting at the heart of this so-called ‘Code’

Alright, so it’s finally time to talk about the elephant in the room. The central mystery of the book. I warned you we’d have to do this.

First of all, let me just say that — speaking as a church-going Christian — anyone who takes offence at the central premise presenting in this book seriously needs to rethink their theology. It’s like the Life of Brian all over again — a complete fuss over nothing.

Far from being the pit of anti-Christian sentiment I was expecting, the Da Vinci Code is surprisingly pro-Christian. Right from the beginning, Brown goes out of his way to defend the Catholic church and Christianity in general. Don’t believe me? Here’s a quote:

Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today’s troubled world.

He repeatedly points out how faith is a matter of feeling, not fact, and how it is more out of a need for historical completeness than debunking beliefs that we need to find out the truth behind these hidden mysteries.

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated and the winner writes the history books — books which glorify their own cause and dispage the conquered foe. The sangreal documents simply tell the other side of the Christ story. in the end, which side of the story you believe becomes a matter of faith and personal exploration but at least the information has survived.

I like that way of thinking. I agree with it even. And yes, although it is true that some of the bad guys in this story are Christian, by no means does Dan Brown suggest that all Christians are evil. There’s even a scene in which the Catholic church deliberately distances itself from the whole debacle. To save face, certainly, but also on ethical grounds.

So let me just reiterate that I found nothing theologically wrong with any part of this book’s central ideas, nor the idea of trying to uncover a potential secret that has remained hidden for many years, even if that secret *spoilers* sheds doubt on the issue of Jesus’s divinity */spoilers*.

No, the problem here lies in its execution. Let’s be clear here: this is a work of fiction we’re dealing with here. It says so right on the cover.

It can, however, be difficult to realise that fact while reading this book. After all, as already said, the book uses real world locations, real businesses, real works of art and even real people. Its descriptions of all of these things are pretty much spot on, as are some of the historical anecdotes Langdon provides the reader with.

Coupled with this, however, are complete fabrications. For example, that the Malleus Malificarum was sanctioned by the Catholic Church (it was actually banned), or that more than 80 gospels were discovered among the dead sea scrolls which predate the four gospels we all know (also untrue).

The problem is that there is no clear distinction here between what is fact and what is fiction. It’s not like in a fantasy novel, where you know that everything you’re reading is a product of the author’s imagination, or in historical fiction, where you know that most things are at least based on historical fact. This novel sits in an uncomfortable grey area between both points and it makes for some tricky reading.

Unfortunately, the average reader simply doesn’t have the time or inclination to try to separate the facts from the fiction (and nor should they — this is, after all, a piece of escapist entertainment), so they either take this book’s claims at face value or they reject them totally out of hand.

It is these polar opposite, knee-jerk reactions which have led, I believe, to much of the controversy surrounding this book and it is something that Brown could so easily have avoided if he had approached the subject matter with a little more subtlety and slightly less explosions.

So then, my experience with the Da Vinci Code was a somewhat mixed one. By no means bad, but (perhaps more importantly) not good either.