The Thing

"The introduction of trust/fear factor into the survival horror genre is a great concept but implemented poorly."

Frankly speaking, I wish that I did not have to give this game just a score of 6 because the addition of the trust/fear factor into the game is really an innovative and refreshing idea. However, this element is not being implemented properly and its potential is not being fully utilized, thus resulting in a game that is unpolished and somewhat repetitive. I hope that if there is a sequel, the game designers will tap out all the potential of the trust/fear element.

Story 5/10 – The story is very simple and is just for the functioning of the progress of the game. Captain Blake, our hero of the game is sent to Outpost 31 to find out what happened there and to save the team members who are lost there. However, this is not going to be easy as numerous creatures and enemies will try to impede Blake from finishing his missions. Not to mention, there are other more dangerous enemies lurking around, unseen in the bodies of Blake’s comrades… Yes, if any team member is infected, he can turn into “The Thing” any time and attacks Blake.

The story is pretty predictable; there is no shock value and extremely touching scenes. The merit of the story lies in the depiction of vastly different characters in the game. The team members that Blake meet have very different personalities from each other, they react and behave differently to various situations. It is easy to remember all the team members that Blake meet throughout the game because all of them make a deep impression in the player’s mind.

Gameplay 6/10 – With the trust/fear factor plus high interaction with non-playable characters (NPCs) elements injected into the game, the gameplay could have easily got a score of 8 or 9. The main reason as to why I give a score of 6 for gameplay is because these elements are not implemented properly and basically, you are left with a game that uses the usual “find this key to unlock that door” formula. Being a jaded fan of survival horror genre, it is takes more than just this usual formula to keep me satisfied.

Let’s talk about the highly acclaimed trust/fear factor, should we? This trust/fear factor is actually referring to the amount of trust your team members have in you and amount of fear they are experiencing. Since anyone can be infected, so your team members have every reason to believe you are infected, so if they do not trust you, they will disobey your orders (Yes, you can issue certain kinds of orders to your team members) and in extreme cases, they will start attacking you. So you have to gain their trust by giving them weapons and ammo, shooting the enemies or testing yourself with a blood test kit to show that you are not infected. As for the fear factor part, your team members are humans, so they feel fear when they see some gruesome deaths and corpses, when they get too scared, they will freaked out and kill themselves. To decrease amount of fear your team members are experiencing, you can give them ammo, quickly lead them out of the sight of the grotesque scenes or give them an adrenaline shot. So you have to constantly monitor your members’ states by accessing the team member menu to check their conditions. Due to this trust/fear factor, interaction with NPCs is strongly encouraged and is necessary in order to finish the missions. Besides giving your team members ammo, commanding them to follow you and giving adrenaline shots, you can also tell them to stay at that particular place, go and fix some electrical stuff (applicable to engineers only). For most of the time, you must make sure that they cooperate and stay alive because you need the engineers to fix complicated circuits and medics to heal yourself and other team members. The NPCs have extremely high AI in which they will automatically shoot at enemies (they are pretty accurate), check out certain areas (though this causes some problems in which if you run too fast ahead while they are checking out some place, they cannot catch up with you.), ask for ammo from you when they run out of ammo and get away from the line of fire. Besides keeping the team together, you must also watch out for team members who are infected, certain actions will cause your team members to become infected. This whole concept of the trust/fear factor is absolutely great in which you can actually interact with the NPCs. In fact, throughout the game, you will actually start to feel for them and will try your best to keep them alive and uninfected.

So why do I say that this trust/fear factor is not implemented properly, you may ask. Well, for one thing, no matter how hard you try to keep your team members from being infected, the fact is that most of them will be infected at certain points in time because they are scripted to do so. So that left me to wonder what is the meaning to keeping them alive and to monitor their conditions since they are doomed to be infected. Basically, they are just walking keys to opening certain doors, walking health packs and extra firepower, which is no different from your usual survival horror genre use of keys and health packs. Yes, there is no motivation in carrying on with the game because basically, the team members cannot be saved from being infected, so all you have to do is to fight your way through the game and to find out the cause. It is upsetting to see your team members who grow on you, turning into “The Thing” one after another, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it and this also makes the game very linear thus resulting in one ending only. This trust/fear factor could have been so much better, if you can actually prevent your team members from becoming infected, and when you get to certain areas, you can tell them to go to certain place to rendezvous, by the end of the game, you can gather the team members you have saved at rendezvous point and the number of team members you have saved determined the kind of ending you will get.

The rest of the game is very similar to your usual survival horror genre game, find this key to open that door, so basically, you explore around the areas of Outpost 31 to find the keys to open the doors in order to get to another area. One interesting element added to the exploration part is you cannot stay out too long in the outdoors where the harsh cold winds are beating on you mercilessly. There is this blue bar on the bottom left corner, which will decrease when you are in the outdoors, and when the bar goes down to zero, your life bar will start depleting rapidly. The main problem with this concept is the absence of maps so you could be wondering around without even knowing which way to go while the blue bar is decreasing, this can be quite frustrating at times. Thank goodness that most of the time, there are green lights scattered on the floor, which you can follow to get to your destination.

As for the action part, it is very similar to your usual survival horror “shoot em up” kind of action. So you need to shoot your enemies to death with an arsenal of weapons from the basic handgun to the sniper rifle. Actually, the use of sniper rifle is pretty cool. Your enemies are pretty smart, they swarm in from different directions to attack you, and thus it is best that you watch your back. Anyway, the main differences are that you have your team members to help you shoot the enemies, and you need to reduce the health of the larger creatures to red and then toast them with the flamethrower or blowtorch in order to kill them. It is cool that the aiming is auto and the crosshair changes colour according to the health of your enemies but the need to toast your enemies with the flamethrower or blowtorch is irritating and gets old fast. It is troublesome to constantly change your weapon to kill the larger creatures, not to mention that the flamethrower is extremely short-ranged, so you have to go right up close and personal to your enemies to burn them to death. Oh, did I mention that it is best not to use the flamethrower when your team members are nearby? Yes, if your team members are nearby, they will get toasted as well and the flames can easily scald you also.

The puzzles are very generic, just requiring you to find the keys; there is not much of a challenge here. So for people who hate puzzles, then you will be happy to know that this game relies heavily on action instead of puzzles. Puzzle fans, like myself may be disappointed though.

Controls 7/10- The controls are pretty complex at first since there are many commands actions to be use in this game. Luckily, the first few levels are very much like tutorials to help you get used to the controls. After some time, the controls should not pose much of a problem. The camera angle follows closely to the back of Blake most of the time; it is great, that for this kind of camera angle, the 3rd person perspective controls a la RE is used, so no dizziness or disorientation induced.

My main complaint with the controls is that the digital pad is not used for the maneuvering of the character, but used instead for the useless quick inventory menu access. If the digital pad is used for more useful purposes like different views in BloodRayne or character stats in The Sims, then I am fine with it. But in the case of instead of giving the player an option use the digital pad to move the character, the digital pad is used for quick inventory access, now that is irritating. For one thing, while you are accessing the quick inventory menu, time do not stop in the game, the action is still going on, meaning the enemies are still attacking you while you are try to find the right item to use. Most people will be using the main inventory screen to use their items or change their weapons. So the existence of quick inventory access menu really baffles and frustrates me.

Graphics 6/10 – The backgrounds have a nice blue tone to it giving a cold atmospheric impression and they are decorated with lots of gruesome looking corpses killed in various fashion. The fires and snow look realistic. The character models are pretty well done in the sense that the characters, meaning your team members, look very different from each other, thus it is very easy differentiating one from another and their mouths actually move when they talk. But they look pretty blocky and the faces of the characters look wooden. Also, the jagged edges are obvious. One glitch present in this game is that when Blake moves into a corner, all of a sudden, his face will appear on the back of his head, which is quite an eyesore. The creatures look disgusting enough for you to blow them into pieces without much hesitation, oh yes, you can blow them into pieces using the shotgun and grenades.

Sounds 7/10 – The music are pretty okay, bringing out the cold desolated feeling at Outpost 31, but nothing too memorable. The sound effects are decent from the fire raging to the dying sounds of the creatures. The voice acting is really good with the voice actors conveying the emotions, feelings and personalities of the characters effectively.

Conclusion – You can try out this game to see if you like it, especially for those who are not jaded with the survival horror genre. For those who are looking for some new elements in this genre, you can give it a shot to see what the trust/fear factor is like, but you may be disappointed though, after playing through the game halfway.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/03, Updated 02/03/03