The Thing

"A Beautiful Thing"

For the most part, games classified as survival horror traditionally have two things in common. One, they are made by Capcom (FYI I hate the Resident Evil series) and two, they concentrate too much on trying to be scary and not enough on providing an enjoyable gameplay experience. The Thing, thankfully, follows neither of those stereotypes.

For the uninitiated, The Thing is based on a 1982 movie of the same title. I myself have never seen the movie but after playing the video game adaptation I probably will.

Now that I am done rambling, I'll get on with the review. All categories are rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.

Story: 8 While I haven't yet completed the game, the story seems very good. It goes like this. Strange occurrences have been reported at a research outpost in Antarctica and you and your team have been deployed to investigate. Upon your arrival, you find the base to be practically destroyed and the inhabitants slaughtered by some unknown entity. It turns out that the base was infected by a virus that causes humans to turn into hideous monsters simply called ''Things.'' A Thing can make itself look like any person to try to fool someone. Upon learning this, you realize that anyone around you could actually be an enemy in disguise. I'll leave the rest to you to discover.

Gameplay: 10 Simply put: SWEET ASS. The squad-based gameplay is right on the money, probably because the AI is great. Teammates will attack enemies, back you up and heal you all with human like intelligence. The Trust/Fear system is also genius. During the game, your allies will trust you more if you give them weapons or ammo or help them out in a fight. Taking away weapons or accidently shooting them will cause them to lose trust in you. If your allies lose enough trust in you they may think that you are a Thing and attack you.

But the most distinct gameplay aspect is this. During the game, your allies can become infected and actually turn into ''Things.'' The only way to tell who's on your side or not is a blood test. If the blood test shows that they are indeed Things, a somewhat funny animation of that character mutating into a thing starts. What's not funny is when they try to kill you. Sometimes you can increase your allies Trust in you by performing a blood test on yourself to prove you're a human.

Sound: 9 Although I never really thought that sound made a huge impact on how good a game is, The Thing has very creepy sound effects which add to the games atmosphere (there is no music in the game). From the sound of the raging blizzard to the screams of both Things and humans alike, the sound plays a huge part in adding to the games creepy setting. The voice acting is also very good.

Graphics: 10 Excellent. The character models are very nice, but could have been smoothed out a bit before the game was released. The Things look like something straight out of a big budget horror movie. The graphical effects are very realistic, particularly how dark rooms will light up when you fire a gun inside them. But the atmospheres are where the graphics really shine. From frozen wastelands to blood splattered corridors (and the blood flows very freely in this game), the atmospheres are very nicely done.

Overall: 10 The Thing gets my vote for game of the year (at least so far, but who knows what the rest of the year will bring). It is creepy without trying to hard to be creepy, which I like. Any action fan (and really, who's not an action fan?) should pick up The Thing. Fans of the Resident Evil series who are looking for a similar (and in my opinion: LAME) experience need not apply.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/02, Updated 09/01/02