Have a story idea? E-mail us at arts@otherpress.ca & wh = | | aa PED Alc lag By Livia Turnbull l aE \ al; \ al; | exciting and new; love is a disease, and everyone wants a cure. Lena Tiddle is one of those people, and she cannot wait to be vaccinated. But, as is custom, she must wait until her 18" birthday for the procedure. In the meantime, [: the future, love is no longer Lena runs with her best friend Hana, studies at her gender-segregated school, and helps take care of wal el | Livia’s Library: Delirium author was going for. The world of Delirium is decently constructed and interesting, but so much time is spent focusing on the world that it takes a long time for the conflict to actually start—and once it does, it’s very underwhelming. The main characters in the story also tend to be clichéd at times, and while the eventual conflict does fit into the main plot of the story, it disappears from time to time. The supporting characters seem to be very stereotypical as well, and I found myself laughing at the “The world of Delirium is decently constructed and interesting, but so much time is spent focusing on the world that it takes a long time for the conflict to actually start—and once it does, it’s very underwhelming.” her younger cousins. Eventually, the big day arrives, but before Lena can be scheduled for the procedure, she must undergo an evaluation that will determine her future. Understandably nervous, Lena is doomed to failure—that is until a herd of cows, spurred on by an invalid, burst into the evaluation room. Due to the chaos and confusion, Lena’s evaluation is rescheduled for another day; in that time, Lena discovers things forbidden, and realizes that the cure is not all it’s cracked up to be. Lauren Oliver’s first book, Before I Fall (2010), was fantastic— Delirium, on the other hand, is not nearly as great. Oliver tries to create a dystopia in Delirium, but the book does not quite achieve what the 6 situation because of them. Despite this, the topic of rebelling against authority was very well handled. Oliver put a lot of detail into what the authority really thought of its citizens, providing our heroine with a very good reason to rebel against them. Overall, I really wanted to like this book; if Before I Fall was any indication, Delirium should have been better, but sadly I was mistaken. While I will admit that this is a decent attempt at writing speculative fiction, Oliver should have waited before jumping into a different style. Worst of all, it looks like Delirium is going to be part of a trilogy, so we'll most likely have to wait a few years before Oliver starts writing books like Before I Fall again. Look out! Here come the Spider-men Does ‘Spider-Man: Edge of Time’ live up to its predecessor? By David Hollinshead, Staff Writer ES ES ES ES pider-Man has not had S great luck when it comes to video games—that is, not until the video game adaptations of the movie series, where for the most part they got it right. After returning to the norm of the lesser games though, a Canadian division of the video game company Activision, called Beenox, developed a Spider-Man game that was a success: Spider- Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010). After achieving fair critical praise, Beenox was then given the lead on all Spider-Man related games. In 2011, Beenox released Spider-Man: Edge of Time (EoT), which has in turn received mixed reviews. In EoT, Spider-Man once again shares the lead with another version of himself—as Beenox brings back Spider-Man 2099 to aid his Amazing counterpart. Your antagonist, scientist Walker Sloan, attempts to go back in time and create his company a hundred years before for his own personal gain. This obviously causes huge changes that Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099) and Peter Parker have to fix. Thus, the Spider-men work in tandem to restore the 2099 timeline. The gameplay for EoT is very similar to Shattered Dimensions, but with only a year between release dates, that was expected. In both games, upgrades can be purchased with XP points gained from defeating enemies and completing challenges. The gameplay can also be repetitive: if you have an objective, you usually find yourself having to do the same thing three times. That’s usually acceptable for boss battle strategies, but in regular play you need more diversity. Both Spider-men have their own personalized abilities. Amazing Spider-Man uses his tried and proven “Spider Sense,” which slows everything down and allows him to pulverize enemies one by one if he’s feeling overwhelmed. Spider-Man 2099 has a similar ability—only he speeds up so that enemies don’t realize where he’s gone. The difference between what each Spider-Man does and how they move was researched and implemented into the game to give players a feel for how they both are, as they are still different people with different powers. Although the combat system can’t draw too many complaints, the fights tend to drag on. As soon as you think you’ re finished with a group of enemies, another just appears out of nowhere, and you can be outnumbered by 50, easily. This often results in well-choreographed fight scenes turning to button mashing brawls. One thing that the game adaptations of the movies had— that no other Spider-Man game had prior to or since—was the ability to swing through the streets of New York, a touch that made you feel like you were really Spider-Man. Again, neither Beenox game has tried nearly as hard to make swinging from buildings a feature. Yes, in both games, Spider- Man can web-swing, but the maps featured were never big enough to make much use of it. This eliminated the point of swinging with a feature that allows you to “web-zip” from place to place (much like Batman’s grappling hook, for those Arkham series fans). Still, despite any hiccups in gameplay, the story in EoT has been heavily praised. It’s the first game to include the anti-hero Anti-Venom, and was written by Spider-Man 2099 co-creator, Peter David. The game also sports several powerful and well-created cinematic scenes that really get you involved. Beenox also brought in a superstar cast for the voice acting, and it definitely pays off. Voice actor Josh Keaton voices the Amazing Spider-Man (Keaton has a history portraying Spider-Man), and Christopher Daniel Barnes, who voiced Spider-Man in The Animated Series, plays Spider-Man 2099, It all wraps up into one not overly great game, but still one of the best Spider-Man games ever released. Since the game itself is fairly short, you might find yourself playing it again just to get your $70 worth of it—otherwise just borrow it from a friend. It’s a fun experience, and is proof enough that Beenox is headed in the right direction with Spider- Man. Beenox will also be developing The Amazing Spider-Man tie-in video game later this year.