The Thing: Remastered Review – Cold Fear

For my cash, there is not a greater horror monster than The Thing’s shape-shifting alien organism. Even 42 years later, Rob Bottin’s sensible results are nonetheless unbelievable, capturing every freakish amalgamation of tentacles, sharp enamel, sinew, and traces of malformed humanity with ghastly readability. I’ve seen The Thing dozens of instances, but seeing Norris’ decapitated head contort and develop arthropod-esque legs won’t ever fail to twist my abdomen in knots. These are the eternal pictures of The Thing, however it’s the alien’s capacity to completely imitate anybody that genuinely terrifies, permeating every scene with an unnerving sense of dread and paranoia that impacts each its characters and the viewers watching. Who do you belief when anybody might be a clandestine risk?Back in 2002, developer Computer Artworks tried to translate this sense into an formally licensed online game for The Thing. The now-shuttered studio got here near succeeding, too, making a third-person horror-action sport with a singular squad system that ensured you possibly can by no means solely belief the individual preventing by your aspect. It’s grow to be considerably of a cult traditional since then, resulting in this remaster from Nightdive Studios–a developer recognized for faithfully restoring myriad video games, together with Shadow Man and Star Wars: Dark Forces. The Thing: Remastered is a equally genuine expertise, albeit with a lot of key enhancements to the sport’s visuals, controls, and a few quality-of-life mechanics. Beyond this, it is a lot the identical sport because it was in 2002, for each the great and the unhealthy.The sport’s setup is one in all its higher elements, appearing as a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s iconic 1982 movie. You play as the tasteless, one-dimensional Captain Blake, chief of a U.S. Special Forces rescue staff despatched to analyze Outpost 31 within the isolating tundra of Antarctica. Of course, we all know what transpired when MacReady and the remainder of this analysis facility encountered the shape-shifting alien life-form, and it would not take lengthy earlier than Blake is preventing off all method of horrific entities. He’s fairly nonchalant about the entire thing, although, anchoring a comparatively skinny story that feels distinctly 2002 in all of the worst methods. While it begins as a extra action-oriented facsimile of the movie it is ostensibly a sequel to, the narrative shortly delves into predictable territory with the navy experimenting on the Thing to make use of the alien for its personal acquire. It’s all very stereotypical, with melodramatic voice appearing and–aside from a enjoyable cameo from John Carpenter himself–an inherently disposable forged of characters.Most of the individuals you meet are potential squad members. To survive The Thing: Remastered, incomes and sustaining the belief of the surviving crew is paramount. By killing enemies and supplying every squadmate with weapons, ammo, and therapeutic, they will fortunately struggle alongside you. The twist is that that is The Thing, so you possibly can be handing a weapon to an enemy interloper or somebody paranoid sufficient to suspect you of being one your self. Not solely can your squad members be a Thing in disguise, however additionally they have the capability to activate you if their belief diminishes or they’re overcome by worry. They usually expertise nervousness, which spikes when witnessing traumatic occasions, equivalent to seeing a dismembered corpse or a very grotesque alien. If they undergo from sufficient stress or lose your trust–because you by accident shot them, did not participate in fight, and so on–they’ll crack and run away, kill themselves, or begin capturing everybody round them, making an attempt to kill each you and your colleagues.It’s a considerate implementation of the movie’s tenants of belief, paranoia, and deception, with the potential to generate nail-biting pressure by way of buddy and foe alike. Suddenly, your squadmates are extra than simply easy NPCs; they’re individuals displaying actual human habits. It was an modern idea again in 2002 when this sort of belief and worry administration was unparalleled. Even at the moment, it isn’t one thing I’ve seen applied in different single-player video games; usually, it is reserved for social multiplayer experiences like Among Us as an alternative.The Thing: Remastered is [an] genuine expertise, albeit with a lot of key enhancements to the sport’s visuals, controls, and a few quality-of-life mechanics. Beyond this, it is a lot the identical sport because it was in 2002, for each the great and the unhealthyFor the sport’s first couple of hours, the best way these concepts are executed is compelling. The Thing: Remastered instantly establishes an unsettling ambiance as you start exploring the dilapidated remnants of Outpost 31. Your teammates are already on edge even earlier than you uncover a flying saucer buried underneath the ice, with the howl of the Arctic’s bitingly chilly wind and Ennio Morricone’s haunting rating punctuating sure moments with one other alluring layer of unease. Nightdive has accomplished a unbelievable job of updating the unique sport’s visuals, too, with improved character fashions, textures, and animations, in addition to dynamic lighting and shadows to essentially spruce up the 22-year-old sport. It nonetheless maintains the considerably blocky look of a sport from the PS2 period however smoothes over its rougher edges with fashionable methods that make the visuals extra palatable for a contemporary viewers.As you progress additional into the sport, you will come up towards all method of enemy creatures, from small four-legged scuttlers to extra humanoid monstrosities with lethal claws and uncovered innards. These bigger enemies should be broken with small-arms fireplace earlier than being set alight with both a flamethrower or incendiary grenade. Fortunately, Nightdive has altered the flamethrower in order that it would not burn you if you happen to’re holding the set off whereas concurrently shifting ahead. Ammunition can also be far more plentiful, stopping these cases within the unique sport the place you’ll be pressured to reload a save from hours earlier than to attempt to preserve sufficient ammo for later. Aside from these welcome adjustments, fight in The Thing: Remastered feels a lot the identical, using a beneficiant lock-on system that makes it straightforward to filter out rooms with out a lot thought. It’s fantastic however hardly compelling.Your teammates aren’t too shabby in a struggle, a minimum of, although their essential goal is commonly to open doorways for you. The sport’s degree design is usually constructed on gating your development with damaged junction bins that stop issues like doorways and computer systems from working. While you are in a position to repair a few of this broken gear, most of them require a specialised engineer, creating one of many first points with the sport’s notion that “anyone could be an alien.” If you require an engineer to progress, then their dying or transformation merely leads to a sport over display, eradicating the potential for the kind of randomness that makes the sport’s idea so attractive. The extra you play, the extra it is revealed that The Thing: Remastered is basically struggling underneath the load of its personal ambition. Certain squad members will grow to be aliens at pre-determined factors, regardless of how rigorously you’ve got managed their belief and worry. Even if a blood check reveals that they are nonetheless human mere seconds earlier than, that is shortly rendered moot by the sport’s inflexible scripting.As a outcome, The Thing: Remastered falters as a squad-based sport since you’re by no means incentivized to care about anybody’s survival however your personal. With the story dictating when sure characters will transform–and most teammates disappearing on the finish of every degree anyway–forming any type of attachment to them is futile. There aren’t any repercussions for trusting your teammates, both. Any weapons you give them are dropped once they rework, and holding their belief up and worry down is an easy process, so I by no means felt like anybody would crack, which regularly chips away on the sport’s pressure. By the midway level, Computer Artworks seemingly struggled to take the idea any additional, turning the sport right into a boilerplate run-and-gun shooter that sees you preventing aliens and senseless human enemies alike. It’s a far cry from the sport’s opening and makes for a banal slog in the direction of a disappointing ending.I’ve fond recollections of taking part in The Thing again in 2002 as a result of there wasn’t the rest fairly prefer it. It was creative and thrilling, and even at the moment, nobody else is making an attempt to do what Computer Artworks tried within the single-player house. I commend the studio for what it achieved, however the limitations of the technology–and its design constraints–are far more obvious now, even with nostalgia-tinted glasses on. Nightdive has accomplished a unbelievable job of restoring this flawed however intriguing sport, persevering with its essential work with sport preservation. All of the adjustments it is made are optimistic, leading to a greater sport, each visually and mechanically. Nonetheless, this can be a case the place a whole remake would’ve been far more interesting, permitting for the belief and worry system to be fleshed out with much less rigidity and extra dynamism. As it’s, Computer Artworks’ imaginative and prescient would possibly by no means be totally realized, and that is a disgrace.