- Excellent use of ambient sound
- Great homage to the movie
- Straightforward control
- Good team AI
- Buckets and buckets of gore
- Keeping your AI buddies sane and trust adds another element
- Loads of action
- Some strange bugs
- Fairly linear limiting replay value
- Some strange stuttering
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The
Thing
Score: 8.6 / 10
William B. Davis has been turning up
everywhere lately – at least in my neck of the woods. He’s probably most
famous for his turn as the Cigarette Smoking Man on the X-Files, but
recently I’ve heard him on radio dramas and now The Thing.
As The Thing opens, your character, Blake, is dropped off to investigate
the infamous research station and the disappearance of Alpha team – the
opening banter features William B. Davis and should immediately set the
tone for X-Files fans. Things quickly go all pear shaped, as things
usually do when research stations in Antarctica go off-line and
investigating teams vanish. Blake finds himself knee-deep in eviscerated
corpses and a horrific plot that tasks him with (ultimately) saving the
planet using an arsenal of real-world weapons and the assistance of
other team members. So, the story isn’t quite earth shattering and there
are several recognizable elements from other games (most notably
Half-Life) but it’s at
As with most other action games, The Thing showcases a copious amount of
bloody action. But it’s not violence just for the sake of violence. Most
often, you’re fighting for your life and never knowing for sure if your
squad mate is suddenly going to transform into one of those… things.
To battle the things – the results of some kind of alien viral mutagen –
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Blake has a healthy assortment of real-world weapons at his disposal:
the ever-present machine gun, the handy-dandy flamethrower, the tazer,
the pistol, the sniper rifle, the grenade launcher, and the “Best for
Killing Aliens and Zombies” shotgun. (Supported by a range of hand
grenades.) There is also a variety of equipment to use including
med-kits, fire extinguishers, blood-test hypos, and flares. Basically,
anything you could ever hope to be carrying while battling an alien
menace. But even with all this firepower, Blake can’t do everything by
himself.
Squad members encountered along the way become Blake’s most powerful
weapon and most versatile tool. The fact they can succumb to their fear
and fry Blake up like a barbequed steak also makes them dangerous. The
AI squad members are a real highlight of The Thing. If you walk into a
particularly disturbing scene – say, someone is splashed all over a wall
and you’ve just stepped on their large intestine – your squad mates can
grow apprehensive of the situation. (It’s not uncommon to see one of
them throw up.) Keeping them calm is the only way you’ll make it off
Antarctica alive. Then you also have to worry about their trust level.
If they don’t trust you, they won’t do anything you ask them. One
crucial element to progress throughout the game is repairing junction
boxes to restore power, etc. Blake can hobble some boxes back to working
condition but there are many boxes that can only be repaired by an
engineer. So if they don’t trust you, you’re hooped. Giving them a gun
and lots of ammo or eliminating all the things in the area or performing
a blood test on yourself in front of them, often results in their “trust
meter” rising. Trust can be so strong that when another squad mate loses
it and starts firing at you, the trusted mate will fire on your
attacker.
There are three different classes of squad-mate: medic, soldier, and
engineer. As expected, the classes behave differently. The medic has an
endless supply of med-kits making him a much sought teammate, but if a
horde of things is crashing through windows you definitely want a
soldier covering your six. Regardless of class, I never once experienced
an AI squad-mate shoot me – at least, due to their actions. Ducking into
the line of fire will get you hit, but the team members usually find a
good spot beside or in front of you to lay down suppressing fire.
Managing your squad is fairly straightforward with quite a few options –
follow me, stay here, take weapon, give ammo, etc. – compressed into the
Xbox controller.
Actually, the overall control scheme is quite good and doesn’t take too
long to get a complete handle on. Movement is handled with the sticks –
the left one, general movement and the right one, strafing (instead of
free-look, which is accessed separately and welds you to one spot to
look around). Each works well, and because there’s a general lock-on
feature you don’t have to worry too much about losing your aim. (Some of
this depends on the difficulty setting chosen at the outset of a new
game.) Accessing and equipping weapons and equipment is also executed
quite well considering the buttons available on the controller.
Switching weapons on the fly is easy and especially welcome when you’re
trying to fill a hallway with fire to prevent any big things lunging at
you then zapping over to the machine gun and liquefying small ones
trying to flank you.
There are a few downsides to The Thing. The first, is that the Exposure
Meter (which pops up when you’re running around outside in the balmy
–40C weather) seems to err on the generous side. For most, this aspect
might not be noticed by anyone not looking for nits to pick. Not once
was I ever in danger of having the meter drop to zero. And the cold
doesn’t seem to affect team members either, even though they make
comments to the contrary. Then there are a few odd occurrences – bugs
that appear from time to time but mostly related to squad-mates when/if
they transform into things. If they aren’t in the right place, they’ll
just stand there ready to be slaughtered. (Some will appreciate this
bug.) Another flaw is the frame-rate stutter that’s encountered in a few
areas – whether in the default 3rd Person view or in 1st Person as you
look around. This happens most when there’s lots of gore. During the
outside levels, because of the unrelenting storm, the draw distance is
short, so these always move smoothly. A final downside is that The Thing
has a fairly limited replay value and the puzzles generally boil down to
finding keys.
Counterbalance to those detractions, are the liberal amount of save
points scattered throughout and the story (even though it doesn’t start
with that much promise). I was never left pulling my hair out because I
missed a save point or didn’t get to the next level. For the majority of
cases, save points (in the form of tape recorders) are easily accessible
and in reasonable locations. (Level design is very good.) The story
drives the game from mission to mission and moves logically through the
arrival of government shock troops right up to the helicopter climax.
Of special mention is the sound design. There’s almost a complete
absence of soundtrack and it really works in creating a sense of dread.
(Coupled with the sporadic nature of the thing attacks, at least in the
early going.) This is especially effective when windows shatter or a
door clangs open in the distance. The best example of this is when a
constant onslaught of medium-sized things pins down Blake and two squad
members. It’s tense but it’s also very satisfying.
The Thing is a good game that isn’t ground-breaking; however, it does
add some interesting considerations with the Trust and Fear of your
squad-mates and it creates a terrific atmosphere. It could have used a
bit more polish to eliminate some of the stuttering framerate in areas
and the changed teammates that stand still. Once you’ve beaten The
Thing, you may not have the desire to revisit it (if you're a chicken),
but it’s certainly a fun ride while it lasts.
