Game #1264: The Thing

 Calling it a thing might be a bit disrespectful

 Despite my dislike for survival horror games back then, The Thing was one of the few I actually owned. I never got very far in it, though! This is sort of a sequel to the movie of the same name, about 10 years separated at that! It's quite faithful to the lore of the movie, so back in the day, it received quite a bit of praise. Not every aspect of the game held up, but it's still a pretty interesting game that did some very original things.

 You play as series newcomer Blake, who gets to explore the snow base that was infested with the thing. Throughout the game you'll be escorted by up to four NPCs that make up your Squad. To simulate the paranoia characters felt in the movie, anyone can turn into the thing. Or that's how it was sold, now that the game has been thoroughly dissected, the truth is... everyone but you is scripted to turn at some point, however, they could turn earlier if they spend too much time fighting The Thing. There are blood tests you can use to test your allies, or to test yourself to increase their Trust in you, but it's possible to test an ally, get a negative test, and then have them transform in the next room you enter because that's their scripted transforming point. That said, if a character dies before he reaches its scripted transformation part, you will still get a game over, for you see, certain squad member are needed to get through certain stages, so if they die... it's game over. Which feels unfair, since sometimes a squadmate will get killed and you won't get a game over for it, and there's no way to tell which ones the game considers 'necessary' for the stage and which ones it doesn't. Still, considering when the game released, I think they did their best at bringing one of the key elements of the movie into the game, as dynamically as they were able to at the time. 

 What didn't age so well was the whole squad thing. Every member has a different role, there are soldiers, which are good in combat, medics, that work as infinite health packs so you'd better do your best at keeping them alive, and mechanics, which can fix stuff you can't. You get very limited control over them, you can tell them to follow you or to stay, in the case of a mechanic, order him to fix something, but they won't listen to you if they don't trust you. They'll also attack anything in sight. In order to gain their trust you can give them ammo or even weapons, as well as test your blood in front of them. There are a few neat mechanics, such as them possibly freaking out, in which case you'd better get them out of the room or use an adrenaline shot on them.

 Not only are squad commands limited, the AI is a bit dumb. A few times my NPC allies were too dumb to get to where I was, and they LOVE to get in your line of fire, as a matter of fact, sometimes it feels as if they are purposely trying to get shot. It's that bad. And sometimes it's kinda weird, if you finish a stage but your allies are not close enough... you lose them, at least the ones that aren't necessary to progress. For instance, one stage ends with you escaping a timed bomb. I was so fast that the bomb caught two of my buddies during the cutscene(Which looked hilarious) while the third one looked at me. Next stage I start off alone. I looked a video online, and somebody started the very next stage with their allies in tow. It's kinda dumb.

 The thing is not an easy enemy to defeat. The small creatures sure are, but the big enemies need to be disposed of with fire. It's usually a good idea to have a teammate with a fire weapon to aid in that regard. The game, at least on PS2, relies on an Auto-fire... and it kinda sucks when it comes to fire weapons, as it is all to easy to get burned yourself. I think the issue is that the auto-aim goes low. You can also aim in first person, but you lose most mobility, making it cumbersome. Swapping weapons on the go can be a bit annoying too, when it comes to switching to a fiery weapon.

 There's another element to the game, the cold. Whenever you are outside you have to be quick, as if you stay in the cold for too long you'll start taking damage. And then, the second half of the game introduces human enemies. In the later parts it gets downright brutal, I ran out of medikits a few times and had to manage through the skin of my teeth. Heck, bosses seem impossible to take down without taking damage, and near the end of the game there's an escape sequence with stuff exploding all around you that feels unfair, with some stuff that is pretty much impossible to avoid.

 Midway through the game, there's this part that strips you of all your weapons and items. I was super mad, because I worked hard to save up as many medikits and grenades as I could, only to have everything taken from me. However, the next level was super interesting, because, for example, there's a medic carrying the only gun you'll see in a while, but you can't take it since he doesn't trust you, so you have to give him ammo. Now you can choose to take his gun, and hope he doesn't go insane and kill himself, or bring him with you. These area has a ton of doors and rooms you can operate, so now you have to lure in the big enemies, the ones you don't have fire to defeat with, and try to lock them inside these rooms! It's very unnerving.

 It's a bit clunky and it hasn't aged the best, but damn it if it doesn't have a lot of heart. There was a lot of love for the source material here, and the game is a pretty neat take on the survival horror genre. That said, what we've got here is a decent game, somewhat held back by many small issues.

 6.0