Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a man who has it all, he is best selling author and he has a beautiful wife he loves. Except for three little problems his life is perfect, his wife is missing, he hasn't been able to write anything in years and every time it gets dark a bunch axe murderer's try to axe-murder him. He is the protagonist to the video game Alan Wake, on of the best games I have played in a while.

The basic plot is pretty basic, your wife is missing, find her and anything that gets in the way, dies. This plot has been around video games since the first Mario game. However this game is proof that even with a tired old plot like rescue the girl, a compelling, interesting and addiction inducing plot can be created. I played this game through in 3 sittings, just because I wanted know what the story was. I won't go into much details on the plot, its better that you see it for your self, expect to say that if you like X-Files, Twin Peaks, Twilight Zone or the works HP Lovecraft you are going to love this.

The basic game play is divided to two parts, during the day you spend your time talking to various people and looking for clues. The second part is the night, where you walk through dark forests, scary mines and other abandoned industrial properties, its during these segments that a bunch of homicidal mines, lumberjacks and factory workers. Amongst the daylight scene's there are also flashbacks and dream sequences. The overall atmosphere is spook and foreboding at night and the world is realistically built, for example items can be found in appropriate places, like flash bangs are found in one level in the boots of police cars.

The combat in this game has an interesting twist, you have to use your flash light and other sources of light to banish the evil that possesses and protects them, before blowing them away with your revolver, shotgun or rifle. There are also flares, that help to give you space when you feel a bit crowded by the axe-murderers, flashbangs, which will destroy anything nearby and the flaregun, which will instantly kill almost any enemy it hits. Over all the combat system is easy and fluent to use and offers enough challenge to keep you on your toes, but not too much to make it frustrating. The only complaint I really have is the lack of a melee attack, it would be nice if you could atleast push the guy who is trying to stab you away. Very often I found myself desperately mashing buttons in close quarter situations vainly hoping to unlock the non-existent melee attack.

As with all games these days, there is a bunch of stuff you need to collect largely for the sake of collecting them. You collect pages of a manuscript, that shed light on the plot, read signs that explain some of the history of the place your adventure is set in, listen to the radio to hear what is going on at the moment in the game world and watch TV to find out more info about the plot. I liked these, because usually you collect stuff that has no bearing on anything in the game, in this game you collect Coffee thermoses and break up pyramids of coke cans. I hate this kind of shit, its a cheap way to increase the replayability of the game.

Overall Alan Wake was an outstanding video game experience, that once again proves that video games are as effective of a media for story telling as movies and books are. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good mystery story.

The Last Stand of the Cynical Pessimist

Cynisim and Pessimism are often used synonymously. This is not entirely true comparison, as I will now explain.

Cynisim is based on an Ancient Greek philosophy, that called into question the contemporary idea that wealth, power and fame were a source of happiness. Cynics asserted that these did not in fact lead to happiness, but rather the road to true happiness could be found by rejecting the material aspects of life and embracing a life of Virtue in harmony with Nature. This idea went on to inspire most of Western Ascetic traditions. One could even argue that Jeesus himself was a cynic.

I find this idea to be still relevant to the contemperorary society. The worship of materialism and the delusion that having money, power and fame is a road to happiness is more alive and well than ever. In fact we have turned the pursuit of material good into the foundation of our economy.

More recently cynics have turned their doubts into social and moral norms. Therefor cynicism is more about doubting than believing the worst about everything. Which leads us to the doctrine of believing that everything is bad, pessimism.

Pessimism is the belief that the cup is always half empty. Everything is always viewed in the worst possible light. Sending that job application is essentially pointless since it won't lead you to getting that job, there is no point in talking to that hot girl in a bar since she won't be interested and if she happens to appear to be interested in you, she probably has some sinister ulterior motive.

Now the big question is that if you believe that everything is going to fail and nothing will ever succeed, what is the point of doing anything? As a cynic and a pessimist I have found that having the mentality of a soldier fighting a last stand against an unbeatable foe.

A Last Stand is a battle where you are surrounded, there is no way to escape, no help or relief is coming and the enemy is superior to an extent that there is no question about the outcome, you will lose. In these situation the soldiers have two options, surrender or fight and die. Occasionally there might be a greater strategic motivation to fight or the enemy might have a reputation of cruelty towards prisoners. But essentially the easy way out is in either surrender or commit suicide. So why fight?

For two reasons, the predetermined outcome is as much of reason to fight as it is to not fight. Yes, you might expend a lot of energy and effort doing it, but being surrounded by the enemy sitting around waiting for evenetable is not going to be that much easier. The second reason is that there is the one in a billion chance that you might actually win, almost impossible is slightly better than impossible.

Even in the midst of the greatest bout of pessimism or during the deepest night of depression, I find great solace in this thought, I don't have to worry about the outcome since I already know what it is going to be. Sending a job application, while doomed to fail, is still better than not sending it. An extreme pessimist, who still attempts the seemingly impossible, is a much stronger than any optimist, because these people go beyond the outcome of an action, to them it is not about the outcome, they know that they will most likely fail and still do it, just for the sake of doing it. Under a barrage of failure, where the optimist will eventually be hard pressed to maintain their optimism and avoid having their hope turn to despair, the pessmist soldiers on as this is nothing but status quo for him/her. The success if it ever happens is a bitter sweet fruit to the pessimist, while to an optimist it is the lifeblood needed to sustain them.

PS While writting this I sent one doomed-to-fail-job application.