First impressions: I Am Legend in Second Life

I Am Legend (for those of you that have been living under a rock) is the third film adaptation of the 1954 Richard Matheson novel of the same name. Quite the popular property, it has spawned film versions in 1964 (with Vincent Price - now in the public domain and available for viewing or download) and 1971 (with Charlton Heston - I saw that one when it came out); A Rob Zombie song; the upcoming Warner Brothers film with Will Smith; a DC Comics tie-in; planned online, animated featurettes;

And the Second Life game, of course. Whew. The game is doing very well in Second Life indeed. Last week I wandered around and took a look at it.

The basic theme - a lone man who unwittingly becomes a monster worse than those he battles as he struggles to save himself (and perhaps civilization) - really doesn't rate in the game experience - which is set some twelve months before the events in the film. Put whatever face you please on it. Functionally, this is team-oriented survival horror (where you can choose to be on the side of the horror), and the experience is polished to a good shine.

Five areas are depicted in the game. The first is an orientation area where people new to Second Life and new to the game start. It's also the place players come to to start play each session, and where they return to end a session.

The other four areas represent locations around Manhattan: Central Park, Chinatown, Columbus Circle and Coney Island; where the action all takes place. Gameplay is a mix of direct action, and coordinated territory control. Areas within each zone can be seized and contested by ether faction. Supplies and weapons appear at semi-random places around the map.

The two factions - the Infected and the Uninfected come in a few varieties. Both factions have two classes, Human and Dog. To distinguish them, we'll call the Infected Humans 'Darkseekers' (they do!), and the Uninfected Dogs just 'Dogs'. The Infected Dogs are voracious beasts, fast and dangerous. The Dogs are, perhaps, not so dangerous but have advantages of their own (such as a harness with high-intensity torches, which give the Darkseekers a hard time).

The orientation area provides free avatars for all of these (though uninfected humans are available in wider varieties) as well as the all-important game HUD which controls all the aspects of the game, and a basic weapon to begin with (a pistol with unlimited ammunition - more advanced weaponry can be found during play).

Electric Sheep Company are working hard on keeping the whole experience interesting, said ESC's Cory Edo, Project Manager for the game, "We're doing one major update in about a month. We'll take the game down for 24 hours, update the environment, release the final sim. One good thing about doing this in SL is we're really flexible. If we get good suggestions we can implement them really quickly, really take the culture that the game develops and reflect that in the environment."

Territory control is important. Though it is not totally critical to the game experience, it's definitely beneficial. Taking a safehouse for your faction provides some protection and controls the availability of a nearby respawn point for your side.

There's a number of safehouses. Empty buildings you can claim for your faction. You do so by using the generators in the back hall. Turn it on, the lights come on, turn it off, the lights go out. They also trigger the nearby resurrection point. So if humans hold all the safehouses, they also have a larger number of resurrection circles available to them, and vice versa.

Aside from territory control, there's a salvage system. Body bags spawn around the play area. Darkseekers can raid them for instant boosts: Health, voracity, strength, and so on, and can buff themselves up significantly. The Humans can collect items that can be combined to create new things (eg: barricades and more)at the Chinatown station or at the CDC laboratory. Competition over body-bags can be fierce.

I Am Legend basically offers either a solid team-based coordinated experience (as solid as your teammates, anyway), or a seat-of-your-pants solo hunt through hostile streets, although solo warriors of either faction who come up against a coordinated team will be handed their heads.

A note on the images: It was dark for all of these scenes, so I switched to full sun to take these photos. Therefore they may not look as dark and foreboding as you might expect, but it's considerably easier to see.