• The Thing
• PS2
• 1 Player
• Black Label Software
• By TAMAKAS Red Dog

Okay, first, you have to see the 1982 movie by John Carpenter. No, go NOW. I refuse to continue until you do.

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No tricks now!

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Okay, good. Wasn’t that the best? Sure, there’s no Flesh Eating Cows, but you do get something just as bad (okay, maybe worse) - ALIENS! And the worst kind too: they’re like a virus, able to infect you and take over your body and use it as a disguise to infiltrate your co-workers and friends. The even infect DOGGIES! The horror, right? Good effects for 1982, too. Okay, enough fan-talk, you want to know about this GAME, right?

Let’s give you a bit of the corporate hype:

*BLECCH* Okay, that’s enough Corporate Hype. I mean, who gives a rat’s ass that Saliva has a song at the end of the game that plays through the ending credits? This isn’t exactly one of the bells and whistles you should be using to sell this game to the public. But don’t run away scared, kids! This is actually a game worth playing!

THE STORY

Dig, if you will, the picture: you play Blake, who sounds suspiciously similar to Solid Snake of Metal Gear Solid fame. Blake is the leader of the aforementioned rescue squad. After this game, however, I suspect he’ll be losing some ranks, because his squad members tend to either die or turn into shape-shifting mutants from beyond space. Not the kind of thing you want on your record. But I digress. As Blake, it’s your mission to figure out what the FUCK just happened. And if you saw the movie (shame on you for lying to me!) then you know what happened: slimy motherfuckers tried to take over the planet, but Kurt Russell (the hero of our age) stuck his foot up their collective asses and saved the world again. But poor Blake and his doomed squad don’t know this and have to find out the hard way. Blake is taking his orders over radio from Whitely who, of course, is sitting in his official chair drinking hot cocoa while you and your team are freezing your nuts off in sub zero temperatures. The team arrives at the U.S. outpost where the movie ended and, through them, we get to see the aftermath of what happened. This first board is brain candy for fans of the movie as you explore every nook and cranny to find familiar rooms, objects, and corpses. Not that there’s much there, I mean, Big Bad Kurt blew almost everything up. I won’t go so far as to spoil it for you, hell, it’s the first board in the game, how lazy ARE you? Once you’re finished there, Whitely takes another sip of cocoa and orders you to move on to other bases in the (freezing ass cold) area. And from here you go on and on, deeper and deeper into the mystery and horror of THE THING, yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill.

GAMEPLAY

Ah, games based off of popular movies. Such a good idea, yet always it’s handed to Fudpuckers Inc. or some other unknown crappy game company that doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. They barely know how to make the game look good or make sense, much less give it a stable control system. But there’s always an exception to the rule, such as THE THING.

Rather than just clone Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, or Metal Gear Solid, our dear friends at Black Label Games have attempted to give us a unique experience, at least unique as far as I know.

You play from the 3rd Person, with the camera always following you from behind. This can’t be changed, but for the most part you never have to worry about it.

• The Left Analog stick controls your movement - Up moves forward, sideways turns you around, back moves you backward, pushing the stick in makes you crouch. It’s pressure sensitive, so if you only barely touch the stick, Blake walks ssssllllooooowwwly and if you go full tilt boogie he breaks into a full run. Nothing groundbreaking there, but so many games skimp on the controls so that just running in a circle gives you hand cramps. Movement is smooth for the most part, though there are the occasional sticky walls problem inherent in most games like this. You can scoot sideways left or right using the R2 and L2 buttons, which is good when you want to check around a corner and back quickly without being spotted or for those situations where you want to go all Punisher and strafe the baddies with a hail of machine gun fire.

• Speaking of gunfire, let’s talk weapons. X shoots. Most weapons have an auto-targeting system that can be adjusted in the options, but you can also go into First Person View mode where there’s a handy site icon to focus your fire on a more specific area if you so desire. You can shoot until it’s empty, then if you have any more ammo on you you will automatically reload when you try to shoot, or you can push in the Right Analog stick to reload. Switching between weapons is as simple as pushing up or down on the directional pad, though if you don’t know what a particular weapon is you can press L1 to bring up the Weapon/Item menu to see the names of the weapons under the pictures. This also acts as a pause, so you can take time to think about which weapon would work best in a hairy situation, unlike the switching-on-the-fly method. You can also use weapons to shoot out explosive barrels, grating, and other interactive backgrounds.

• Items can be equipped by pushing left and right on the directional pad or pressing L1 and choosing the center icon to switch menus. Items are used by pressing the square button. Grenades fall under this category along with Blood Test Kits, Adrenaline Hypos, First Aid Kits, Flares, and Flash Lights. The Blood Test, Adrenaline, and First Aid Kits can be used on squad members, or you can go into the item menu and press circle to use them on yourself (except for the Adrenaline - Blake isn’t some pansy who freaks out at the sight of blood like some of his squad does).

• What really makes this game different is the Squad Members that follow you around. You have your basic Soldier (I’m ready to make shit dead!), the Medic, and the Engineer. You don’t want them around? Tough, because there are parts of the game that Blake just can’t do. He isn’t a trained engineer, so if there’s a door that won’t open because a complicated control panel is on the fritz, he’s fucked without one. Medics will heal you when you’re wounded, and heal your Squad too, so they’re pretty valuable and help save on First Aid kits. However, they have feelings too. They’re not little robots to dance around at your whim, you cold hearted son of a bitch! WHY WON’T YOU LOVE...? Uhm, what I mean to say is, the Squad members have brains, emotions, and opinions. What this boils down to is if you’re alone and walk into a room with two guys, there’s a possibility they could be infected. But from their point of view, the same thing is true about Blake. There is a Trust meter for each guy. The top is complete trust, "I’ll do anything you say, SIR!". The bottom is, "YOU’RE GOING TO GET US KILLED, DIE NAZI COMMUNIST!". You like that Sniper Rifle that Engineer is carrying? You can take it from him, but he’ll think it’s suspicious and his Trust will lower. However, you can whip out an extra Submachine gun you’ve been carrying around and give it to him and ration out a little ammo and his trust will soar. You stand back and watch as your Squad blows all the Things to Hell, they’re going to wonder WHY you’re not fighting. On the flip side, a guy who doesn’t trust you sees you torch a small army of Things and he’ll trust you enough to work with you. And there’s always the tried and true Blood Test to let them know for sure you’re not a Thing. Then there’s the Stress meter. Blake is cool as hell, nothing freaks him out. "Shape changing aliens? Bah, this is just another Tuesday!". But the Squad members aren’t quite so level headed. Each one has a threshold. Certain things will set them off, and you’ll see a small clock appear above their heads, counting down to when they lose it and decide everyone is their 3rd Grade Science Teacher and must die. You have to prevent this from happening. When you hear them start sounding like whiny bitches, check your squad menu to see if they’re moving their heads normally, or if they’re moving their head around wildly in a panic. You have three options when they start to freak. First, take them away from the room. Most of the time this is enough to get them back to normal. Second, Adrenaline Hypo. Give them a shot, it settles their nerves and they can take it. Call it "Blake Juice". Third, say fuck ‘em and tell ‘em to stay where they are and get the rest of your team the hell away from them. Dropping a flame grenade as you go is optional. You can also tell what your Squad is thinking based on icons that appear over their head. Like the clock, each one means something different. A target means they’ve spotted an enemy. A bullet clip with a question mark means they’re out of ammo. A red cross means they got smacked pretty damn hard. This along with their dialogue (I need a weapon!, I’m out of ammo!, What flavor of shit is THAT?!) help you keep on top of your team at all times. Combine all of these things together and you’ve got an almost realistic situation. The Engineer just turned into a Thing and lunges at the group wildly, you stand back because you’re almost dead and you’re team members are equipped to handle the situation. The solider is freaking out, about to lose it and the Medic doesn’t trust you because you stood back and LET the Thing attack them. This happens quite a bit, so you have to stay on top of the situation and handle things as best you can.

There are other odds and ends like buttons that take you to the menus, Key menu, document/mission menu, you get the idea. Lots of stuff to keep straight, but once you get the hang of what is where you’re switching between them quickly. Short version - except for a few glitchy stuff here and there, the controls are smooth and responsive.

GRAPHICS

FUCK the graphics. A good game is a good game, whether it’s 2D, 3D, animated, live action, top down, or up down left right B A Start.

Okay, quit yer whinin’, you graphics whore. The game looks okay. It’s not winning any beauty pageants, but you wouldn’t laugh at it if it asked you to dance, either. The characters and backgrounds look very PS1 era, only without the eyestabbing pain of grainy blurriness. However, everyone has their own faces, which is a plus when you’re going through squad members like tissues. Backgrounds are BIG and expansive, but usually you’re looking at nothing but snowy area for miles on end. You’re in the Antarctic for crying out loud. Effects are nice - fire looks like fire, explosions are big, and blood is red. The Thing beasts are nicely done, whether you’re looking at a lowly spider creature or a room-filling boss. And that’s all I’m saying, go away and leave me alone, you poor sad creature.

SOUND

This is where things hit the low end. Sound effects for the weapons are good, but most of the time that weird noise you’re hearing come from all over the place are your own footsteps, which sound like someone rubbing sandpaper on a chalkboard if you’re in the snow. On the plus side, there’s voice acting throughout the game, not just in cutscenes. This is a very vocal game, whether Blake is bitching because he needs an engineer or your squad members are reacting to their surroundings or spouting off one-liners as they riddle an enemy full of bullet holes. Explosions sound like explosions, gunfire sounds like gunfire, in the end, isn’t that all that matters?

WHY YOU BOUGHT THE GAME

Well, now that I’ve dropped the basics down on you, I’m going to tell you why I loved playing through this game.

• This game really tries to surprise you. You can be walking down a corridor when all of a sudden a grate bursts open and Spider-Things come scurrying out, ready to pounce at you or spit green goo. Or you’ll be walking with your squad into a room, when all of a sudden you and your engineer are still walking and you’re hearing ripping and screaming noises from behind you. You turn around to see your medic is transforming into a Thing Beast. Big brownie points for atomosphere. Ya done good.

• WEAPONS! Boom sticks galore. And I’m going to list every one for you and why they’re cool:

  1. Submachine Gun - this is the basic weapon for the squad in the game. You start off with this. It’s accuracy from a distance is bad, but sometimes you just want that RATATATATATATAT action, y’know?

  2. Handgun - weak damage, but the accuracy is awesome. True story - I’m hiding in a little cave I had to hunch down into while a gun toting moron was walking around looking to kill me. He fires some machine gun bursts into the hole and knicks me. I grab out my hand-gun and fire up at him and nail him hard, causing him to back off fast. I scoot up close to the opening and wait in First Person View, a few seconds later his head leans into view, checking in. BLAM! headshot and he’s dead. You won’t be using it a lot, but sometimes bigger isn’t better.

  3. Shotgun - "This is my BOOMSTICK!" My weapon of choice in almost any game, it’s got accuracy and one hell of a kick in this one. A direct close up shot will kill anything human and most of the smaller things, and two or three shots will weaken the larger Things enough to where you can burn them. The further you are away, the less damage it does, though. Aw, fuck it. BOOM!

  4. Sniper Rifle - nice little weapon, and one that gets used quite a bit in the later levels. At first glance you’ll think it sucks. You equip it and enemies are running at you, but no targeting cursor pops up. WHATHAFUCK?! you’ll think as you get ripped to shreds. But that’s not what this weapon is about. Unlike the other weapons, you press R1 on this one and the First Person View mode becomes SNIPER MODE. As you hold in R1, you use the Left Analog to aim the gun and Right Analog to zoom in and out on the scope. The range is wonderful - you can pick off some unsuspecting bastard with one well-timed head-shot and watch as he stands there, dumbfounded, wondering where the top half of his head went to. Also good at aiming at toxic barrels to take out multiple baddies in a glorious, fiery explosion.

  5. Grenades - you toss them and after a few seconds they go boom. Their accuracy is questionable. I’ve seen some land and kill guys a few feet away instantly while a guy standing right next to it keeps on trucking. It’s a hell of a party favor, though, and it comes in 4 different flavors! There’s your standard green one, which up close is deadly, but with some space is more of an annoyance to Things. There’s your blue Stun Grenades which are only useful on humans, stunning them so you can get by them or to make for easy targets. There’s your red Flame Grenade, which has a FIERY explosion useful for killing Things from a distance. And there’s my favorite, the High Explosive Grenade; bigger range of explosion and an excellent laxative. You can also hold a Grenade for as long as you want before you throw it, giving less reaction time to the intended victim. Of course, hold it too long and you become Blake-Chunks. This makes a handy Reset Button when you’ve loaded up the wrong save game.

  6. Grenade Launcher - uses the various grenades as ammunition with the added effect of the Grenades exploding upon contact. It’s a great idea, but most of the fights you get into are close range, so if you whip out the Grenade Launcher to do some heavy damage to a charging Thing, if it hits anywhere near you you get blown into Blake-Chunks for the annoyed Thing to eat with it’s chocolate milk. I didn’t use this much, other than to vault a grenade over a wall to take out possible unseen enemies. You do get some good distance from this thing.

  7. Flame Thrower - Fire! FIRE! FIRE! HEE HEE HEE HEE! Meet your new best friend for your stay in the Antarctic. The lowly Things are taken care of with basic weapons rather easily, but the larger ones are only weakened by gun blasts. Only FIRE will erase them from this mortal coil for good. Now, this isn’t some perfect world where you can hold that trigger down all day and watch the Things burn all around you, no, the fire hurts YOU too if it hits you. So you can’t just stand in front of a rampaging Thing and shoot fire endlessly, because it will keep trying to hit you and those flames hurt a LOT. Thus, the best use of the FT is to lay a wall of fire on the ground to keep the Things back, fire off a few shotgun blasts (or whatever weapon you prefer) to weaken them, and then run up, blast them with a wave of fiery death, then back up quickly as you watch it melt into a puddle of pink goo, turning into smaller Things to try and survive (which can be blasted away easily with normal weapons). The fire effects are nice, too.

  8. Blowtorch - I only saw this a couple of times. The range is small, very small. I would even call this a weapon, really. If you absolutely are out of Flame Thrower ammo, go to this. It is handy for burning off grating, though.

• The enemies are dumb, but they’re not QUITE so dumb. They plan strategies to get at you, if they see you, they chase you, and do NOT forget about you if you’ve gotten away. The boredom of random battle after random battle is handled nicely here by mixing up the environments, variety of enemies, and situations. Yes, the majority of the time you are roaming a room and find an enemy that you have to kill to move on or run away from. But the real fun is when they throw you into a locked building where all the windows are busted and hundreds upon hundreds of Spider Things are jumping in from all sides attacking you as you and your squad are trying to shoot them, covering each side. There are several ways to handle this, either by playing OK Corral or shutting the other doors except one to keep the flow more manageable. Touches like that keep the game interesting.

• The variety of enemies starts off low, but moves up as you reach later levels. You have the Spider Things, Goo Spitters (I’M COVERED IN GREEN SNOT!), the Squad-Things, and so many large Thing Beasts that I had trouble keeping some of them straight. The larger ones will spit out Spider Things if you don’t shoot them, and when you burn them they’ll spit out a couple to try and keep alive. But you’re also dealing with humans as well. A Squad member whose lost it is just as dangerous as a Thing, and most of the time you don’t have the luxury of killing them (though you’ll want too, sometimes). There are some Evil Soliders as well, who carry different weapons and use different strategies to take you out.

• There are 4 unique bosses in the game. Three of these guys fill up a room by themselves. The final one is too big for a building to even hold. If you try to just blast them until they’re dead, you’re going to die pretty fast. Each one requires a strategy to defeat, and finding that strategy isn’t always easy. But when you beat one you do get to jump up and do the I KICKED YOUR SORRY ASS dance and point your finger at them.

  
  
  
  
  

  I SKIPPED TO THE END TO SEE A HIGH OR LOW REVIEW NUMBER

  I hate you all and hope you die, so FUCK your "10s" or "1s". I don’t go for numbers, or stars, or little hearts that say "#1" on them. To me, you’ve got three options - "It Rules!"; "Eh.", and "It Sucks!". Drumroll please.

  *BADABADABADABADABADABADABADA*

  Overall, I’d have to say "It Rules!".

  Yeah, it’s got it’s glitchiness and problems. Certain background objects like little snowy hills or walls will cause you to get stuck and have to wiggle the controller to get back on the path. This isn’t intentional, it’s just glitchy background evil. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen too much. The blood tests are useless for finding out if your Squad has turned into Things. True story - I gave a guy a blood test THREE SECONDS before he turned into a Thing and he came up normal. There is nobody who could play this game for the first time and make it through without continuing. Hell, I don’t think someone who’s played it three times could make it through without continuing. There are times when this game is going to kick your ass and you’re going to want to pop it out of the PS2 and use it for shooting practice. And the ending is crap. Plus, to my knowledge, there are no rewards for beating the game other than the aforementioned crap ending.