The Thing
The verdict on the PC version of this small-screen conversion.
By rights this really shouldn’t work. It’s a film license for starters. Which usually means at best a half finished game thrown onto the shelves left to pick up sales through the license slapped on the front. Step forward those god awful Blair Witch games and most Star Wars titles. Next up it’s a third-person survival horror in the Resident Evil mould, as good as they were on the consoles this genre has never really hit it off on the PC. Rounded off by decidedly average review marks elsewhere and it doesn’t look good. Oh how wrong could I be? Very wrong in this case.
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The Thing is like playing a film, tightly scripted and with a strong narrative this title provides a compelling story. So as far as the plot goes I’ll try and be as vague as possible. Suffice to say this isn’t a game of the John Carpenter film but pretty much a full blown sequel. Considering the film is 20 years old you could be forgiven if you haven’t seen it and you’ll loose nothing from the experience of playing the game if you haven’t. The story is a simple one. You’re Capt. Blake, leading a military rescue team to an American scientific installation in the Antarctic wastelands. Something has gone wrong, your job is to find out what. It’s a safe bet there’s some big monsters running around and the problem isn’t that they’ve just run out of Malteasers.
Without fail the first thing you’ll notice is the graphics. This game looks fantastic, and I’ve seen it running on an AMD 700mhz with Geforce 3 and an Intel 800mhz with Geforce 2 and it still looks great on both of those. Considering the game world essentially consists of lots of snow and metal buildings, Computer Artworks have done a sterling job of creating such beautiful and varied environments. Then there’s the detail on the models, the marines are equally as impressive as the environment they inhabit. Make no mistake, visually things are very impressive and for once you won’t need a monster PC to run it on.
For the first four levels a tutorial is present which does have the affect of ruining the tension that the early levels build up very well. You’ll be gingerly rounding a corner, then the game stops suddenly and a big blue pop up box appears from nowhere detailing a game function. They can be turned off so my advice to you is read the manual first. Then just jump straight in.
Comments
Does it work on Voodoo cards by any chance? (voodoo 5, can't afford another card 4 a while)
Perhaps I missed it, but could you put links to the developer or distributer in your reviews?
How many levels are there?Is it difficult or can you finish it in 10 minutes?
AMD 700ghz? Intel 800ghz?
Um, don't you mean MHz? And perhaps you should use the actual chip names (Athlon, Pentium III) instead of the company names.
A very good game, play it now!
Oups. Its fixed
Play nicely Jack
how do you save game on the thing?
Read the instructions?
when your in the lab how do u get past the laser sensors what is the what is the right order of swithches you flip
Get yourself a Dictionary and look up:
Mute & Moot
Loose & Lose
Preceding & Proceeding
Get yourself a dictionary and look up:
Nobody gives a damn
How hard is the thing to finish. Is it difficult?
I've read the *$&^* instructions! Please tell us how to save a game.
I would like cheats such as ulimated bullets and invincabilitaty for the thing game on ps2
The Thing is the best for Ps2 very cool, and if any 1 does not know how to save u have to go to a recorder thing and press O
I've got as far as one of the big things, but can't get past it!
It's as you go past the lorry,ang you go into a control room, then you open a door and your in the room on your own.
I can't kill the thing! you pan around the room there is enough lorry and 2 swiches please help? cheers andy.
Iv heard its a good game only wish i could play it everythings ok untill i play the game and go through the second door in the game then dammm it crashes any help???