Customer Reviews

The Thing

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Yet ANOTHER game marred by a stupid control system. And it's tragedy here because The Thing has a lot going for it. The game borrows so heavily from Half-life that you'll swear you've played some of the scenarios before--but Half-life was so good I didn't mind. The Thing has some of the best AI I've seen for the characters you team up with. For the first time I found myself arming my team members better than myself because I could actually count on them to watch my back while I flipped switches. This trust builds great drama into the game because, at any time, these characters may wig out, turn into The Thing, and try to kill you, but until that point you're forced to depend on them. It's a powerful dynamic that gives you that "Who can I trust?" paranoia of John Carpenter's movie.

What kills this game is the INVISIBLE CERVICAL COLLAR the genius game programmers force you to wear as punishment for buying their game. Words cannot describe how stupid this is but I'll give it a try: Imagine any 3D shooter with standard mouse/keyboard controls. Now imagine disabling one axis of the mouse so that you cannot look up or down. Playing The Thing is like playing Half-Life with your neck vertabrae fused in place. WHY? Is this Sierra's sick joke upon its customers? Did they have a meeting where they said, "We have a great game here, now what STUPID, GLARING flaw can we shackle it with?"

The only way to look or aim up or down is to stop dead and go into "free look" mode. So the most natural movements, like backing away while aiming a flame thrower at an enemy's head, are impossible. Worse yet, the all-important flame weapons (necessary to finish off large "Thing Beasts") are permanently aimed at the ground 3 feet in front of you rather than outward (unless you go into "free look" mode). The result is an incredibly annoying tendency to set your own feet on fire, and I found myself fearing this more than the baddies. I cannot imagine how this game gets through even the most basic testing without people screaming about these flaws. This game wants to be so cool, (and I give it an extra star for trying) but in it's current form The Thing is an act of sadism of Sierra towards its customers.

And a futile plea to all game programmers from someone who shells out tons of money for your products: PLEASE put the "creativity" in the game and leave it out of the control system.

The Thing attempts to spruce up the shooter genre with some novel elements and largely succeeds. One of the most obvious is the squad-based aspect of many missions, requiring you to keep your engineer alive so he can fix a vital control panel while the soldier provides extra firepower and the medic dishes out healing kits. This works a lot better than in previous attempts, though the squad only really comes into play later on in the game, as almost all the members you recruit early on have a habit of turning into Things... This is further enhanced by the need to keep your team trusting you and stop them from freaking out, though this is usually easily accomplished.

The game is based on the aftermath of John Carpenter's excellent 1982 film The Thing, in which an alien entity takes over an Antarctic base by infecting people with a virus that causes them slowly to mutate in bloodthirsty monsters. The game puts you int he persona of J.P. Blake, a marine sent to discover what happened. After a few levels of chasing around in the snow, you discover you aren't the only one sent in after the aliens...

The graphics look like a spruced-up version of Half-Life, which isn't bad, though it's not quite as pretty as games based on the Quake III engine. The control interface unfortunately betrays the game's multi-platform target, displaying the clunkiness normally found on console games. Still, they've managed to avoid the worst excesses of console kludging, and it is fairly usable. The action itself is mostly third-person with auto-aiming (adjustable), though you can switch to a static first-person view.

Another console hang-over is the inability to save anywhere - you're restricted to save stations that are sprinkled around the levels. When entering a new level you often need to run around for 10-15 minutes of game-time before you find a save point, and while occasionally irritating, it does add to the tension of the game.

Overall, an excellent new shooter, well worth your money.

I was lucky enough to come across an early beta of this game, and I'm glad I did. The Thing game, by Computer Artworks (makers of the acclaimed organic-action game 'Evolva') was made for consoles, and you can tell (no mouselook, you 'lock on' to targets, etc.) but that doesn't mean it doesn't control well on the PC.

Be forewarned before you play. This game contains all manners of highly explicit gore, entrails; disemboweled, decapitate, AMPUTED corpses lie everywhere around the Antarctic stronghold which you explore. This game is also, I think, the second game in history of gaming to have the characters saying F-words, scatalogical terms, religious exlamations, etc. A bold step.

The graphics are very well done, and the game runs fluidly on my Celeron 800 MHZ processor, 256 megs of RAM, and a GeForce 3 Ti200 video card. The game, obviously, is an action game, you command a small squad of people. Anyone can be a Thing, and you must blood-test your "friends" to see if they are who they say they are. If they do turn into fully grown Things, and you don't have a flamethrower on hand (the only weapon that can fully kill a full-grown Thing), you're screwed. If you protect your teammates, it will minimize their chances of turning into a Thing, but in some circumstances it is inevitable.

As I said before, this game is dripping in blood, gore and swears so this isn't for the young'ns :). But, if you're older than 17 and have nerves of steel, have fun! ...wetting yourself.

The Thing is marketed as an enhanced first person shooter by Black Label Games and promises "an awesome blend of action, evasion, trust, and fear". I picked it up because I am a huge fan of John Carpenter -- Rowdy Roddy Piper in "They Live" consistently makes my Sci-Fi top ten. Unfortunately, this game fails to deliver on this promise, and even worse, it fails to deliver on even the fundamentals of first person shooter games. Net/net: I find it difficult to believe that any serious gamer could recommend this title. Here's why you should spend your money elsewhere...
1) Hyper linear, childishly simple, mouse in a maze game progression
2) No jump function (this is made even more ridiculous by the programmers use of a fence that comes up to the main characters knees to draw game boundaries)
3) No look-up or look-down capabilities
4) VERY limited weapon selection -- the weapons that they do offer have truly uninspired affects
5) Unforgiveably inefficient user interface

The reason I gave it 2 starts instead of one is because the programmers have made a moderately successful attempt at enabling the gamer to manage a squad. But since everything else about the game is so tremendously [bad], the novelty of this wears off in five or ten minutes.

Sorry Mr. Carpenter, looks like you'll need to file this one alongside of "Escape from L.A.".

Ok. A lot of people say its horrible. They can't look, its boring, whatever. The point is, this game was not made to be the best in gameplay. It was to be the most suspenseful and chilling game yet. If you liked Half-Life for its puzzles, plot, and sense of mystery, You'll probably like this game. As for lokking around, If you simply aim you can lokk well enough, and besides, You can take in enough with a few glances, which may be all you have time for with the possibility of ambush at anytime. I read a review in which someone complained about the fact that the rifle didn't shoot straight. Let me put it this way, The first time I see someone accuratly fire a rifle in one hand at moving targets in a life or death situation with his heart throbbing,I'll pay that guy $20. If you find it boring, There's nothing to be done, Some people like sensless slaughter found in deathmatches while others like games with an actual plot.

I always tell people of this game when they ask about the horror genre. Here is what makes this game stand out from other games.
- Yes it is a shooter but it has other aspects that other games don't.
- You can have people that you find join you and help you progress to the next location. You may need an electrician to rewire a box in order to open a door so finding this guy is important.
- Fear factor. If a member of your group comes into contact with too much gore and horror, they can become so scared they freeze up and can't help you. You have to be the leader and calm them down, kill the enemy that is scaring them, give them medications, etc. Anything to calm them down.
- Frost is a factor. Sometimes, you have to move from place to place quickly or you will freeze to death.
There are complaints that you can't aim in every direction. Yes it is true but you don't need to shoot the ceiling. You never will.
I recommend this even for the current gamer that wants a little retro gaming.
There are complaints it won't work on certain CD drives?? I had this since it's release and I have installed it on 3 different laptops and my desktop with no problems.

sure this game is kinda fun if you're into the movie but really not all that great. The only thing I found entertaining about it is how hilariously stupid the A.I. is.

I even have a story to tell...

Upon the point where you have to crawl into the ventilation shafts outside into the underground levels, I realized I couldn't bring my AI helpers with me since they do not know how to crouch.

So rather than leaving them out in the cold to freeze to death, I decided to take them out of their misery. So after a good half an hour of trying to command them to walk into a corner, eventually having to physically push them slowly into that corner.

Upon doing so, I backed up a good distance and equipped the grenade launcher, switched the first person view and right as I raised the cross hair to their general location, one of my team members said the most random, yet most hilariously appropriate thing ever...!

"I have a bad feeling about this..."

Ok, I'm back. I've played the game for over a week now and as I said before, it has some really fun and exciting spots. And yes, it might even scare you at times. And yes, the trust thing is kind of interesting, although I never really like squad-type games where you have to babysit somebody else. One thing that really bugged me with finding an "engineer" to fix some junction box and open a door for you, is that the SOB wouldn't stay put! I'd tell him to stay in one spot and as I went to clear the way of evil critters, I'd find the jerk standing out in an exposed position, where he could get killed! I finally resolved that by crouching and pushing the idiot into a corner or locking him in a room. There are a couple (so far) spots where you have to battle a HUGE alien critter. THOSE spots really got me screaming and cussing. The character moves too slowly, and firing is awkward and it always seems like you have no place for cover! I don't like that. But overall, I really DO like the game. I think the graphics are excellent, and for the most part, I enjoyed the scenery. I still don't like that you can't save on the spot and have to search for the room that holds the save machine. It's always a mile away from the action, so you have to run forever to get to it or to get back to the action! I do agree with the criticism of the whining character when he uses the flamethrower. I mean, c'mon... I fired that and/or the fire grenade a safe distance away and got killed! That really bugged me... And, right after saving the game, I get a loud "BOOM!" sound and my health is down by half - which I certainly don't appreciate, considering the lack of health packs... Right now, I'm stuck in a room with a huge critter hanging from the ceiling and another in a glass case and no way out. I finally figured out that I could push the engineer towards the door to get it to open and then shoot the critter in the glass cage and kill it. Then I just killed the engineer... No need to keep excess baggage... I found out that I could kill the critter hanging from the ceiling by firing constantly by running in circles and then when I see it's weakened, switch to the flame thrower and circle it while I sprayed fire on the ground surrounding it and it would die. But, I got way to the end of the game where I have to kill a humongous critter outside, from a helicopter. Problem is, the computer keeps crashing at this point! I don't know why it does that! I tried to download the two patches, but every time I do, it totally screws up my computer! So, Like Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb and Angel of Darkness, I now have a ANOTHER game I can't finish... I don't like that... Is this game worth the money? Not if you buy it new in the store. I'd recommend buying a used copy to get the value from it. It's not as bad as the detractor's say, but it DOES have some considerable flawes that seem to make it very frustrating at times...

I'm a gamer from india, i bought The Thing a week back and i never got disappointed, like what happened for half life.
Game play is great, u get nevrvous some times and even sometimes scared , graphics is really inspiring!!!.
The negetive part of the game is, u lose your life when u cross your team mate fighting with the thing, the story is not so good and objectives are not very clear.
overall u wont be disappointed with THE THING.

I'll admit, this game is somewhat hard and frustrating at times, but beleive me, if you put effort into the game, it will pay off with some good old fashioned gory entertainment. I got the game yesterday and it is true, I did need to get help on the internet when I got stuck. However there are abundant resources for whenever your in a jam. The reason I did not give this game 5 stars is because it had a flaw in it. The sound gets all messed up about 3 levels in and I did some research on it and you have to download a patch to fix it. Regardless, the patch worked fine. Beware though, this is a very very violent game. I would say that it is even more violent than Max Payne. There are some scenes in it that made me want to throw up along with my comrades. The old lady at Target was right to ask me if I was 18.