The Thing: Dolemite's hands-on impressions
Okay, I own it, and I put in some serious playtime with this baby last night. All I can say is- sweet. I'm lovin' this game. It seems to convey the atmosphere and feel of the movie perfectly. So far, it seems to have broken the movie-based videogame curse of sucking, and sucking hard. The developers have actually taken the time and care to make a great game here, and that game goes hand in hand with the efforts made to tie it in with the movie. Anyway, I'll break down the report into sections to make things easier:
Graphics
Pretty darn good. Nice an' high-res, the textures are good, and the character models are great. I suppose if I had to complain I'd say that the character models could be a tad less blocky, but otherwise everything's fine. They animate well and their mouths move and faces change expression when they talk. There's really no problem with jaggies, either, in the environment or the characters. Speaking of the environments, they sport some amazing effects. When you're out in the snow, the gusts of wind and ice are very well done, and you and your team leave footprints in the snow. The fire effects are fantastic, and the fog coming off of ice when you're indoors is almost too realistic. I've only seen a few Things so far, but what I've seen is freaky and very well designed. Also, some sections of the buildings or whatever will sometimes collapse or fall for a cheap scare. Frame-rate's good, too, and I didn't notice any slowdown. Overall, thumbs-up graphically. Even the loading screens are cool- there's a little version of the computer simulation from the movie that shows what it's like when a cell of the Thing takes over the cell of a normal creature. When it's done loading, it says, "Assimilation Complete". Heh.
Gameplay
Ah, this is where it gets good. Yes, it's a survival horror game, but it plays nothing like Resident Evil. First of all, you're in command of a team. The team is comprised of a maximum of 4 people (in addition to yourself). You start out with a Medic, and Engineer, adn a soldier. You can give them individual commands, and as a group you can order them to follow you or stay put. The controls and managing your team take a little getting used to, but once you get a little playtime in, you'll have no problem at all. The trust/fear system is interesting. It seemed likt it would be a big pain in the ass at first, but once I got used to it, it became an interesting gameplay mechanic. I did run into a problem, though...in the beginning of the game, we fou8nd a dead body, and my Medic was on the verge of totally freaking out. To calm him down, I gave him my pistol (leaving me with just a machine gun). It worked, he was no longer scared, and he trusted me more, to boot. However, my team and I soon became seperated, and I ran into an Engineer that I needed to open a door for me. He was wounded and scared, as he had been attacked by a Thing. I gave him a medi-pack to heal him, but he still didn't trust me enough to obey my orders. So, I was forced to give him my machine gun, leaving me unarmed. it worked, however, as he obeyed my every command. I drove his trust up higher by giving him extra ammo for the machine gun. Still, it sucked having no gun. It seems that I should have given the Medic earlier a shot of adrenaline and saved the pistol for the Engineer. Oh, well. I did have the option of taking the machine gun back, but then they don't trust you as much anymore. As for the movie's infamous blood test, it's in the game, but in a different form. Instead of dipping a hot wire into a suspected Thing's blood, you can find a special hypodermic needle that, when you take a suspect's blood, mixed the blood with a burning agent that causes the same reaction. Cool. Anyway, I haven't gotten too far yet, but so far it plays great. The controls are responsive and easy to navigate, but the item menu takes a little pratice to get used to. Overall, this game is great.
Story
I won't say too much here, 'cause I don't want to give anything away. Plus, like I said, I haven't gotten too far yet. But there's lots of little touches here that tie the movie and game together. As you probably know, the game takes place right after the movie, with you as the leader of a rescue team sent in to see what happened to the team from the movie stationed at the Artic outpost. Of course, you arrive to find the outpost in ruins, so you have to find out what happened. You also get to visit the Norweigan camp from the movie as well. Here's a small list of things I've seen in the game that ties it to the movie- SPOLIERS- do NOT read further if you don't want some minor plot points revealed!:
I found MacReady's tape recorder and listened to it. It actually plays what Kurt Russell dictated to it in the movie! It wasn't actually Kurt's voice playing, but it was a damn good sound-a-like. Hmm...maybe it WAS him...
You find the destroyed remains of the UFO that the Thing was constructing at the end of the movie.
You find Childs' dead body! As you may recall, Childs was the only other guy left alive (along with MacReady) at the end of the movie. Guess he didn't make it. However, no sign of MacReady- yet...
You find the helicopter that Blair wrecked.
You find the big, hollowed out block of ice at the Norweigan base camp that the original Thing was removed from (switch to first-person mode and check out the steam swirling out of the block- very nice effect).
END SPOILERS
Sound
Not much to say here. The sound effects are all good and realistic, the voice action's fine, there's lots of cursing, and your character sounds A LOT like Solid Snake. The Things noises are very scary, and the game makes good use out of using very little background music at all. Mostly the thinsg you hear are just the noises going on all around you, adn the distant moaning of the Thing itself...
Overall, this game is great so far. It's original, it looks good, plays good, and is actually very creepy. Fans of the movie and adventure/survival horror fans in general should check this out.
