The Thing

"Most innovative survivival/horror game to date!"

BACKGROUND

Anyone who's a John Carpenter fan remembers this horror movie from 1982. It's one of Kurt Russell's first movies as well. Basically, the movie takes place in Antarctica where a UFO crashes into the frozen wasteland not far from a scientific outpost. After they investigate, thing's begin to go terribly wrong.

You see, the ''Thing'' is an alien pathogen like a virus that invades a host and begins to assimilate it's cells and take the host over. It has the ability to modify the body's structure, rapidly heal injury, can regenerate new lifeforms from pieces of itself, and is collectively intelligent and bent on taking over more hosts to proliferate its species. So what you have is a dangerous life form that has the ability to look, sound, smell, and act human, in order to manipulate the situation into one where you are vulnerable to infection.

In the movie, the scientists were stuck in the middle of an arctic wasteland during a nasty blizzard in the winter where no help could possibly reach them, and one by one the Thing was infecting their numbers and turning them against each other. They began to lose trust in who was human and who wasn't, and in the end the expedition met disaster as everyone fell to paranoia, insanity, and victim to the Thing. If it ever reached the mainland, it would assimilate the world in 72,000 hours.

What's great about this game is the backdrop to the game. The game IS the sequel to the actual movie and picks up 20 years later when the military sends an expedition to region to discover just what happened there. John Carpenter actually oversaw the story and structure of the game to ensure it fit the bill as a true sequel. There's actually a radio clip in the game straight from the movie that is actually Kurt Russell from the end of it, which sets up the beginning for your team's mission.

GAMEPLAY -- 10

The reason I'm giving the gameplay a 10 is because of the great design that went into it. The developers brought a greatly needed breath of fresh innovation to the survival-horror genre with the team-based TRUST approach in The Thing.

Throughout the game, you have 1 to 4 characters to control in addition to your own. What's really cool about this is that they actually function like real people, and not like some idiot bots in any other game. They are people just like you, they get scared, pissed, happy...and they can lose their mind. The whole strategy to making it through the game's objectives in one piece, is by carefully managing your teammates' feelings towards you, the environment, and each other. If you don't, things will quickly deteriorate like they did in the movie, and everyone may turn on each other.

Your teammates have trust meters that change in relation to each other and to you. They are fully aware of where they are, and the odds that are stacked up against them. They don't know for sure who is and isn't infected, and that's puts a real damper on everyone's relationships. How you act around them and treat them can make them willing to follow your orders, or willing to blow your brains out in self-preservation. This makes for a very interesting angle on gameplay since you can't just go around doing anything you want without a thought about how this will affect their perception of you. Because in the end, you NEED each other's support and skills to survive.

Here's a few examples of things that can change how they think. Some members have different personalities and get freaked out when they see something really weird, hear a strange sound, or come across something dead. You can see how it affects them, and if you don't want them to lose it, you ought to get them away from what's troubling them...or remove it if you can. If one of your team members starts losing it or acting strangely, and you put a gun to his head, the other members will note this and see what you do. If you proceed to kill the man in front of them, they'll lose some trust in you since you may do the same to them. If the Thing comes after you all and they proceed to fight it and you do nothing, they'll grow suspicious, but if you help them fight, their trust will grow. If you heal them or give them weapons or ammo, that helps their trust, but if you take weapons away because they've been acting weird and you think they're infected, well, they get upset. And so on...it's like a chess game.

Each team member has a ''class''. Engineer, soldier, and medic. Engineers can repair electronics, medics can heal anyone but themselves, and soldiers are good fighters. You can issue orders to them, direct them to guard areas, follow you, perform actions with their specialties, etc. But how much they trust you will determine how well and if they do what you say. You need their skills to get through areas and puzzles in the game, so it's in your interest to keep them safe and healthy...unless they're infected in which case you need to watch your back at all times since they may lose their mind and take yours!

The weapons at your disposal are pistols, shotguns, machine guns, flamethrowers, blowtorches, grenade launchers, and different kinds of grenades. There are numerous misc. items at your disposal also throughout the game.

Thankfully, unlike RE there is plenty of inventory space with only a limit on ammo clips per weapon, plenty of save points with unlimited saves, and an auto-aiming feature that you can adjust to your liking.

Graphics -- 8

When I first popped in the game, I wasn't all that impressed. Then I remembered the setting and the movie this game was based on. It fits well...the environments and characters are all polygonal...no pre-rendered backgrounds here. You're in an arctic wasteland, so the areas are windly, snowy, dark, and gray. Colors are subdued and shadowed, creating a forboding atmosphere. The textures are well done for the most part, though there ARE signs of a multi-platform port here with pixellation upon zooming into certain areas. But for the most part, the game looks pretty good as you progress through the game. Flames, blood, fogging, and lighting are very well done on the Xbox version.

The complaint I have with the graphics is the fact that the cinematics lack the final polish. Every 5 secs or so in the opening scene, there is a small stutter in frames, and there is really no excuse for this. This should have been fixed before the game went out the door. It's annoying, but thankfully it's less pronounced later in the game. I'm not sure if the PS2 version has this, but it does have much longer load times and poorer graphics and sound by all accounts on the web, so the Xbox version is still the port to buy.

SOUND -- 9

There is very little music, but guess what...what little there is, it's the same score from the movie! That makes a world of difference in a game like this. And the lack of music backgrounds enhances the suspense element and atmosphere similar to the Silent Hills which is great.

DD 5.1 is very well done here. The voice acting is mostly pretty good, and Kurt Russell's voice from the actual movie scenes is a bonus.

Oh and...TONS OF SWEARING! You know this is a real movie sequel when they don't hold back on the script! This isn't a game for kids, because you'll hear your favorite 4 letter expletives generously sprinkled about to enhance your listening pleasure! About time the damn censors stay the hell out of it. Finally a developer with a sack!

REPLAYABILITY -- 4

I guess you could play the game on different difficulty levels, but other than that, once you're done with it you've seen it all.

OVERALL -- 9

I'm really enjoying this game so far. The story is excellent and truly John Carpenter's work. As a fan of the movie, this is especially a treat to see what happened after the movie ended, and thankfully the acting is pretty good! This is truly an entertaining survival horror game in a tired genre of old cliches.

If you're a survival horror fan, get this game! BUT, make sure you go rent the movie ''The Thing'' first, if you haven't seen it yet so you know where the game picks up. It will GREATLY enhance your experience and fear factor.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/02, Updated 09/28/02