Resident Evil: Fire and Ice
The video game Resident Evil has spawned a number of spin-offs and the like, including many game sequels, a series of movies (both live action and animated) and the graphic novel abomination known as Resident Evil: Fire and Ice.
It is the first real overall fail that I have read in a while. The plot summary from the back of the book reads:
Umbrella agents are once again attempting to dominate the world with their Zombie Virus, and S.T.A.R.S.’ Charlie Team is the only force capable of standing in their way. Each misfit member of this group as personal experience with Umbrella’s mutant horrors, but are they prepared to battle and entire circus of zombified freaks? Things look grim…and escaping with their lives will just throw them deeper into the battle for the future of humanity!
I looked it over. It could be good, I thought. I was very wrong. And I was wrong from the get-go. First of all, the zombie circus is the first chapter of the damn book! And the entire Fire and Ice story arc takes up 98-ish pages of a 254 page book! So how does it go so wrong?
I should warn you all that I came into this book with little knowledge of the Resident Evil universe. I know a very basic amount of info obtained by watching a few video game reviews of the series. I have not seen any of the movies, or actually played any of the games. Whether it affected my understanding of the story I’m not sure. But I can still tell good writing from bad and this is very, very bad writing.
I'm also going to spoil the hell out of this, so don't read it if you don't like that.
First of all, the plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. There are more unanswered questions and logical jumps that you have to make than a bad ‘80’s action movie. For instance, how in the hell the team manages to find an antidote to the new virus in a cactus garden shaped like a biohazard symbol. The logic for it is very, very vague and about as good as you would expect in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It introduces plots that it never completes (like a two page love triangle), gives you plot twists that make no sense (somehow one of the characters is a rogue agent rather than just an ass), and even ends the story on a cliffhanger. This story only lasts half the book and they couldn’t even end it properly!
Secondly, the setting is nothing like what the book claims on the back. The zombie circus bit is in the beginning of the story and over in a couple of pages. Most of the main plot takes place in both Alaska and Mexico (at the same time, and in a very strange way.) But it never tells us why it takes place there. That’s just where it takes place. You’re not supposed to question it.
Thirdly, the characters are stupid and you can’t bring yourself to care about their fate. I’m talking stupid as in lacking intellectually. The book does a huge info dump in the beginning, telling us why everyone has their own zombie killing motivations. Most of it is unnecessary bull. The only one that sounds like it might go somewhere is the first character, Patrick Brady. They mention that he’s the only person to survive a procedure to reverse the effects of the G-Virus and that as a result, he has a “sixth sense” about zombies. But he falls victim to the Swiss cheese plot and ends up as a zombie and killed by his teammates.
The new teammate they introduce halfway through the story can’t figure out that she’s turning into a zombie herself. Even after her “wound” starts growing either bone or metal (I can’t tell with the coloring) something out of it. I’m sorry but that would set off some sort of warning bell in my head. I’ll let it pass that as the wound gets worse you’re not equating it with zombies. But when it starts growing shit, you don’t ask questions? No, she cuts it off and rewraps it and acts like it never happened. Yeah you deserve to die as a zombie.
Fourthly, the dialogue is crap. I thought the bad ‘80’s action movie dialogue from The Good Old Boys was annoying. At least that was trying to be that bad on purpose. These people talk in one-liners. I’m not even kidding. In the first couple of pages we get:
“Just like we say in Brisbane - if the poppy grows too tall, you’ve gotta cut it down - strewth!”
“Lunch is over, you fat fr-“
After killing a zombie tiger: “Bad kitty!”
“You like chook do ya?” pulls out flamethrower “Howzabout havin’ it well done then?”
It’s all they do. It’s so bad, it stops being funny and becomes painful. It just continues through the rest of the book. Whenever they fight, they just start spilling one-liners. Real dialogue, or for heaven’s sake just a fight scene, get trampled over with this abomination of writing.
Fifth on my list is the fact that it never mentions that the main story isn’t the only one. In the main story, it gives footnotes to two other stories that the characters or story mention, and they specifically say “see page such-and-such.” Which wouldn’t be so bad if those were the only two stories. Apparently, half the book goes through a set of stories that (according to the guy that loaned it to me) crappily recap the first couple of games. They have it here for no apparent purpose and while some of these 11 (yes 11) other stories interconnect, they don’t connect with the main story in any way (except for the one that revolves around Mr. Brady) and some don’t even seem to have a purpose except for zombies.
It’s so bad, nobody else has been able to finish it. I did, because I refuse to not finish something, but it’s so bad I can see why people haven’t. There was mention by a few people that the art looked alright, but I have to disagree with that because I can point out a few art things that irk me. Including a scene where one of our agents is supposed to look angry and threatening and instead looks like Sinbad the comedian smiling. Stay far, far away from this, no matter how much of a Resident Evil fan you are.
I did a very, very in-depth rip-apart of this on my journal, if anyone cares to read it.
It is the first real overall fail that I have read in a while. The plot summary from the back of the book reads:
Umbrella agents are once again attempting to dominate the world with their Zombie Virus, and S.T.A.R.S.’ Charlie Team is the only force capable of standing in their way. Each misfit member of this group as personal experience with Umbrella’s mutant horrors, but are they prepared to battle and entire circus of zombified freaks? Things look grim…and escaping with their lives will just throw them deeper into the battle for the future of humanity!
I looked it over. It could be good, I thought. I was very wrong. And I was wrong from the get-go. First of all, the zombie circus is the first chapter of the damn book! And the entire Fire and Ice story arc takes up 98-ish pages of a 254 page book! So how does it go so wrong?
I should warn you all that I came into this book with little knowledge of the Resident Evil universe. I know a very basic amount of info obtained by watching a few video game reviews of the series. I have not seen any of the movies, or actually played any of the games. Whether it affected my understanding of the story I’m not sure. But I can still tell good writing from bad and this is very, very bad writing.
I'm also going to spoil the hell out of this, so don't read it if you don't like that.
First of all, the plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. There are more unanswered questions and logical jumps that you have to make than a bad ‘80’s action movie. For instance, how in the hell the team manages to find an antidote to the new virus in a cactus garden shaped like a biohazard symbol. The logic for it is very, very vague and about as good as you would expect in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It introduces plots that it never completes (like a two page love triangle), gives you plot twists that make no sense (somehow one of the characters is a rogue agent rather than just an ass), and even ends the story on a cliffhanger. This story only lasts half the book and they couldn’t even end it properly!
Secondly, the setting is nothing like what the book claims on the back. The zombie circus bit is in the beginning of the story and over in a couple of pages. Most of the main plot takes place in both Alaska and Mexico (at the same time, and in a very strange way.) But it never tells us why it takes place there. That’s just where it takes place. You’re not supposed to question it.
Thirdly, the characters are stupid and you can’t bring yourself to care about their fate. I’m talking stupid as in lacking intellectually. The book does a huge info dump in the beginning, telling us why everyone has their own zombie killing motivations. Most of it is unnecessary bull. The only one that sounds like it might go somewhere is the first character, Patrick Brady. They mention that he’s the only person to survive a procedure to reverse the effects of the G-Virus and that as a result, he has a “sixth sense” about zombies. But he falls victim to the Swiss cheese plot and ends up as a zombie and killed by his teammates.
The new teammate they introduce halfway through the story can’t figure out that she’s turning into a zombie herself. Even after her “wound” starts growing either bone or metal (I can’t tell with the coloring) something out of it. I’m sorry but that would set off some sort of warning bell in my head. I’ll let it pass that as the wound gets worse you’re not equating it with zombies. But when it starts growing shit, you don’t ask questions? No, she cuts it off and rewraps it and acts like it never happened. Yeah you deserve to die as a zombie.
Fourthly, the dialogue is crap. I thought the bad ‘80’s action movie dialogue from The Good Old Boys was annoying. At least that was trying to be that bad on purpose. These people talk in one-liners. I’m not even kidding. In the first couple of pages we get:
“Just like we say in Brisbane - if the poppy grows too tall, you’ve gotta cut it down - strewth!”
“Lunch is over, you fat fr-“
After killing a zombie tiger: “Bad kitty!”
“You like chook do ya?” pulls out flamethrower “Howzabout havin’ it well done then?”
It’s all they do. It’s so bad, it stops being funny and becomes painful. It just continues through the rest of the book. Whenever they fight, they just start spilling one-liners. Real dialogue, or for heaven’s sake just a fight scene, get trampled over with this abomination of writing.
Fifth on my list is the fact that it never mentions that the main story isn’t the only one. In the main story, it gives footnotes to two other stories that the characters or story mention, and they specifically say “see page such-and-such.” Which wouldn’t be so bad if those were the only two stories. Apparently, half the book goes through a set of stories that (according to the guy that loaned it to me) crappily recap the first couple of games. They have it here for no apparent purpose and while some of these 11 (yes 11) other stories interconnect, they don’t connect with the main story in any way (except for the one that revolves around Mr. Brady) and some don’t even seem to have a purpose except for zombies.
It’s so bad, nobody else has been able to finish it. I did, because I refuse to not finish something, but it’s so bad I can see why people haven’t. There was mention by a few people that the art looked alright, but I have to disagree with that because I can point out a few art things that irk me. Including a scene where one of our agents is supposed to look angry and threatening and instead looks like Sinbad the comedian smiling. Stay far, far away from this, no matter how much of a Resident Evil fan you are.
I did a very, very in-depth rip-apart of this on my journal, if anyone cares to read it.