o paraphrase the Bo Jackson commercials of the '80s—John Carpenter knows horror. His vampire movies are legend, and Ghosts of Mars ain't half bad either. Yet before either of these came The Thing, the 1982 remake of a legendary '50s film. The movie was tense, action-packed and exciting—perfect stuff to port into a video game. And so it has been done.
Picking up where the movie left off, Black Studios' The Thing combines the movie's horror with an excellent action thread. A military rescue team is sent to Antarctica to investigate the disappearance of an American scientific expedition. What they find both thrills and chills. There's a grounded UFO, but that's the good news. The bad news is that there are a bunch of dead people—and most of them don't make pretty corpses. The player's purpose is to lead this team through the base, uncover the evil that lurks therein and destroy it.
More often than not, this leading is done from a typical third-person view. Gamers control the officer in charge of the rescue team, and the team follows the officer through 20 levels and gobs—make that gooey gobs—of monsters. A player may order the team to follow, wait, cough up their guns, repair electronics or heal each other. Hence, the game plays a bit like a squad-based, tactically oriented shooter, but there is no mistaking its survival/horror roots.
The team's willingness to follow is based on a trust/fear scale. If the members remain calm and trust that their leader has not been infected by the alien, they will follow him (or her) to the gates of hell. On the other hand, spooky sounds and gruesome sights can frighten even the most hardened combat veteran. Couple these creepy events with irrational behavior by their leader and they will refuse to move.
Carpenter's cold killer comes alive
The Thing is a creepy as it is fun. Lights flicker on and off as the team treads down unexplored halls. Guttural growls and maniacal laughter echo in the distance, and surprisingly frightening monsters attack without warning. Scary? Yes. Fun? You betcha. Whether blasting monsters or running from them, this game will keep gamers on the edge of their seats, sweaty fingers frantically tapping their controllers' buttons.
But The Thing is more than a creepy sojourn in Antarctica. There are puzzles to solve, a fascinating plot to uncover, and more than 40 non-player characters with whom to interact. And the whole trust/fear interaction with the other team members is the cream-cheese icing on a darn near perfectly baked cake. Managing the team is more than necessary, it's fun. These are folks with their own personalities: Some curse in their native language, others freak easily, others are rock-steady under fire. Unfortunately, contact with the alien can infect them, and there is often no way to tell until the leader orders a test of their blood. If the test is positive, the player will have to kill a man who used to be a favored comrade. Failure to do so will lose the team's trust.
Lighting flashes in the sky, snow whips across desolate Antarctica, and the monsters are believably grotesque. The voice acting isn't half bad either, and includes the vocal talents of X-Files Cigarette-Smoking Man and a cameo appearance by John Carpenter. It's too bad that the voice-overs also include an abundance of foul language ... language that does nothing to further the plot or the characters' character.
Foul language aside, this is one exciting trip into Antarctica. Powerful action, tense exploration and an innovative trust/fear team-control system combine to make this one of the best survival-horror games of the year.
Great game, but gratuitous cursing. Yeah, it's rated "Mature," but what's the point? Perhaps this is some coding geek's perception of machismo.
— Mark
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