"Who can you trust?"

‘The Thing’ is the latest movie-game adaptation to hit our PC’s, based on John Carpenter’s B-Grade horror flick of the same name. ‘The Thing’ boasts an innovative team play system, which has you trying to win over the trust of your team mates and convince them you are not a ‘Thing.’

For those who have never seen ‘The Thing’ then an explanation is in order.
In the movie of ‘The Thing,’ a small research station in Antarctica is attacked by an alien life form that has the ability to change into any human or animal it has killed, a perfect clone. The team of the research station are unsure who is human and who is not, and the movie plays on their fear that they can’t trust anyone.
The movie was strictly B-Grade, however over the years it has developed a cult like following.
Without ruining the movie for those that haven’t seen it, the game starts where the movie ended. You are a member of a military rescue squad sent into the research station when all communication is lost.
‘The Thing’ takes you into the bowels of a secret research station, full of human’s and ‘Things.’ Can you really trust your team mates? Are they human or will they rip your head off the minute you turn your back to them?
Character development is rather lacking, as each character is either killed off in under ten minutes, or just doesn’t say any lines of dialogue. This is somewhat of a disappointment for those wanting an experience true to the movie, as it’s more of an action game than a story based game.
The fact that you never get to know the characters makes them little more than cardboard cut outs, and you are rarely shocked when they die.
Story: 7

The graphics in ‘The Thing’ look relatively good. The animation is great, from the reloading animations of your character to the slow and steady lumber of a ‘Thing.’
Each character model is wonderfully detailed, the main character looks great in his heavy jacket, and the textures are so crisp and clear you can even see the decals on his jacket.
The ‘Things’ look wonderfully gruesome, with deformed bodies, bulging irregular muscles, and gaping mouths covered in blood.
Come to think of it, ‘The Thing’ is an extremely gory game. The halls of the research station are littered with corpses, some intact, some in pieces, some decapitated and some with no limbs. Blood is liberally splashed on all the walls, so those with a faint stomach may want to give this one a miss. Shooting a human character in the head results in a splash of blood and gore, as the head literally explodes. While not quite up to the level of gore featured in games like the controversial ‘Soldier of Fortune’ there is still enough here to satisfy the sadistic urges in those of us.
The fire effects look realistic, as the flames dance around on the screen till finally dying out.
The dark and moody lighting is an especial highlight of the game, as the light of your torch bounces realistically over the environment, lighting up the dark corners of each room.
The view distance on the outdoor levels is average, as there is a large amount of fog that doesn’t allow you to see very far in-front of yourself. While some may argue that this is for effect, it does render weapons such as the sniper rifle rather useless.
Otherwise, ‘The Thing’ has graphics that while not cutting edge, are very pleasing to the eye, with the use of some great special effects.
Graphics: 8

Sound is an integral part of any game, and ‘The Thing’ is no exception.
Every part of the audio of ‘The Thing’ is quality; from the sound effects to the voice acting, the audio is great.
The voice acting for the characters while rarely heard, is excellent, and you can actually hear the fear in the men’s voices.
Strangely some of the cut-scenes played with no sound whatsoever, even though the characters lips were moving. This problem was rectified with a patch, but it seems a disappointment that to play the game properly I needed a three-megabyte patch off the net.
The ‘things’ make growling noises in the background, which add to the tension as you have no idea where they are or when they will jump out at you, until it’s too late. Your team mates chat amongst themselves, which is a nice effect, making you feel like you are part of a bigger scenario rather than just one person.
The guns sounded a bit weak in some regards, a slight pity but one that doesn’t detract from the game overall.
Sound: 8

When it comes down to it, The ‘Thing’ is just another third person shooter, it’s all been done before. However don’t be too quick to dismiss, as while it has all been done before, never has it been done this well!
The ‘Thing’ can be likened to games such as ‘Max Payne’ as gameplay consists of blasting every enemy in your way and solving the occasional puzzle. Not good at games like ‘Resident Evil’? Don’t worry, The ‘Thing’ hardly taxes your grey matter, although it will get your trigger finger twitching.
To help you blast away each class of deformed beast are a healthy selection of weapons, from your standard pistol and shot gun, to a sub-machine gun, rocket launcher, flame thrower sniper rifle and various types of grenades. All the weapons; with the exception of the grenades and grenade launcher, can be given to your team mates.
Speaking of which, the AI is usually top notch. Your team mates will shoot at any enemy to cross their paths, they rarely get stuck on objects, and almost never shoot you in the back. There are some slight issues with them however, as occasionally they will get stuck on a door, or in the case of some engineers, run off to fix a switch on the opposite side of the level even when you asked them to fix one right in front of their faces. These little problems happen rarely, but can disrupt the flow of the game which can be annoying.
One minor annoyance was the auto-aim system. While it worked fine for most weapons, the flame-thrower automatically shot down at the floor, making it impossible to chase after an enemy while firing without stepping into the flames yourself.
The ‘things’ feature great AI, chasing you down and almost never getting stuck on objects. If only more games featured AI this good!
The team interaction side of things is nice, as you must win the trust of those you come across. Each persons trust is represented by a simple bar. If it’s in the red chances are they will try to kill you, if it’s the orange they won’t take commands, but if it’s green they will do what you say. Earning and losing trust can be done in various ways, the best way to earn trust is to give a gun and ammo, as this will result in a large increase in trust. However, things like proving you aren’t a ‘Thing’ through means of blood test kits found throughout the game and saving their lives with medkits can also result in trust gains. To lose trust you can simply shoot a team mate, fail to fight any ‘things’ in combat, or try to strip them of their weapons. Keeping their trust is vital to the game, as many puzzles require an extra character (typically an engineer).
There are three classes of characters, soldiers, medics and engineers. Soldiers serve little purpose other than to blow stuff up, medics can heal team members without the use of medkits, and engineers are needed to repair broken switch boxes.
At certain points in the game your team mates may change into ‘things.’ This is a good way of keeping you on your toes, and making you question who you trust, but it can also be somewhat flawed. For example, I used a blood test kit on my engineer and he was human, yet the minute I left the room he changed into a ‘thing’. Poor planning on the part of the developers.
Another problem is the save points. This is very obviously a throw back to the console versions of the game, and something that should have been taken out.
Sadly, ‘The Thing’ is a rather short game, and should only take a couple of hours to complete.
Game Play: 8
Life Span: 7

Pros
+ True to the movie
+ Graphics/Sound
+ AI
+ ‘Things!’

Cons
- Short
- Save points
- Linear
- Needs to be patched on certain systems

Overall, ‘The Thing’ is a solid third person shooter that comes highly recommended for fans of the movie, and survival horror games in general, just don’t expect anything revolutionary, it’s all been done before.
Overall: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/03, Updated 04/02/03