The Thing

"Where's the paranoia?"

The Thing is a great movie, and its defining feature is the paranoia and tension between the characters. It is a great horror film, not just for the scary alien moments but for the psychological terror that stems from this mistrust and fear of the unknown. As such, fans of the movie should be thoroughly disappointed at the lack of this vital ingredient: paranoia.

STORY: 0/10
The whole movie-to-game concept rarely works. The Thing is no exception. The actual premise of the game story and the progression of the plot is not so bad. However, I've had to give a zero because the best thing about the movie's ending is that, in being consistent with the paranoia in the rest of the film, you don't know what is going to become of the survivors. I don't think the writers even knew. But then the game developers step in and go "who cares?!" and by the time you finish the game the allure of the movie will be completely ruined for you because you will have been told what happened. They don't even ruin it by mysterious insinuation; it blatantly destroys the very subtleties that made the movie a classic, which is what I call creative blasphemy and hence no points for story.

But if you must know, the game picks up where the movie left off. You play as the obnoxious Captain Blake, leader of a military rescue team that has landed with your men in Antarctica to find out exactly what happened to Kurt Russell's mob from the movie. What happens initially is all very good and intriguing, but soon into the piece it turns into a cliched evil scientists doing bad things. You also come across some annoying guy who leads you to believe there is more to the story than what's going on, but none of these hints are followed up to a satisfying extent.

GAMEPLAY: 5/10
Despite professional reviews that claimed the developers supplied you with so much fear and paranoia that your heart races and you're always looking around nervously while playing the game, the only thing that had me paranoid that game developers were currently reading my mind to see which of my most admired movies they could ruin next by making a blasphemous game about it. Certainly the paranoia wasn't achieved in the game. At no point do you actually wonder if your men have been infected and are leading you into a trap. Your men just randomly turn into a monster and it is very easy to kill them. There are no major consequences to the plot either, so you don't suspect they're going to turn, you don't fear what they might turn into, and if they do turn into The Thing it won't matter because you don't need them anyway, why would you be scared or even worried? It just doesn't matter. You don't need them anyway!

A potentially awesome aspect of this game if they had managed to create a sense of paranoia successfully was the blood-test. Theoretically, if someone threatened you because they suspected you of being infected, you could do a blood-test right in front of them to put all doubt aside. However, throughout the whole game there was only one guy who questioned if I was infected. I did a blood-test on myself in front of him, and he did not react. He stood there with a blank look on his face and his trust level did not increase, hence rendering the whole thing useless.

Which leads me to my next point: the AI in this game is pathetic. If you tell a medic to stay where he is so you can take care of a Thing so it won't eat or infect him and he runs straight to it and is killed. You go to put out a fire and he stands in it. You open a door and there's a little spider thing at the other side of the room and he shoots at it even though you're in the way.

Difficulty varies from level to level: some parts were very easy, but in other parts I got the impression the makers of the game wanted me to die, like it was additional punishment for ruining one of my favourite movies. There are basically no puzzles - if you find an access code you don't have to remember it, you just go to where the door was and walk through now you know it.

The most interesting and revolutionary part of this game is the way you control your men. Certain things you do will alter their trust and fear levels. This is a very good concept, however I cant help but feel something was missing. The game book says these men are as real as you, having complex emotions, and you must choose your actions wisely, but really in the end it made no difference. You give a man a gun and some ammo and he trusts you at the "100%" level. Thats it. Now he trusts you and will do what you say. Geez, that was tough.

This game has some glitches which ruined the gamplay for me. For example, many-a-time I'd go to put out a fire and position myself in front of it and press the button. Nothing would happen. So I'd step one step forward and get burned. Step back and repeat the process indefinitely. Another major problem was sometimes when throwing grenades, they seem to hit an invisible wall and stop right in front of you. This is very frustrating, especially in boss fights.

SOUND: 3/10
This game makes it clear how important sound is in creating an atmosphere (ie there is no atmosphere in this game due to the terrible sound production). There is no music in this game which is greatly disappointing for me. The sound effects aren't very good, for example the footsteps in the snow sound like an old man blowing his nose. Most of the larger creatures sounded like someone straining on the toilet, but, surprisingly, the voice acting was impressive and this games only redeeming feature in the sound department.

GRAPHICS: 7.5/10
Reasonable. The men and creatures were the worst aspect, the snow effects and blood splattering the best. I loved the blood splattering. .

CONTROLS: 9/10
Excellent. Let you do what you want. Mostly. Took a bit of getting used to, but that's often the case.

VALUE: 2/10
Unfortunately for The Thing, there are no bonus features. Given you might have to buy another memory card (you need about one quarter of your memory card for this game), The Thing might become an expensive venture - one you wish you may not have taken.

OVERALL, if you're looking for a horror game this probably isn't it. It's more a Syphon Filter style action game with a twist of gore and whole lot of glitches. And I don't know if it can be forgiven for ruining the legacy of a classic horror/thriller.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/24/07