The game takes place sometime after the end of the movie, when a search and rescue team is sent in to see what the hell happened to the research team which was involved in the movie. Of course, the team gets into trouble, which seems to happen a lot in these Antarctic rescue missions. You are sent in to find the members of Alpha Team, find any survivors, and see exactly what is going down there. Of course, once you run into the Things, the faeces hits the fan. Unfortunately, very few references to the original story are made in the game, making the product feel a little less authentic.
The Thing’s gameplay is based mainly around squad based combat and exploration, as well as managing your squad. When you meet a team-mate you haven’t seen before, or have lost for a while, they may suspect that you are one of the 'Things'. To prove otherwise, you must use a blood test on yourself to gain their trust. Blood tests also let you check to make sure that they aren’t 'Things', either. Another way of gaining a team-mate’s trust is by destroying Things in front of them. If all else fails, or you have no way of persuading your team-mate to join you, you can always stick your gun in their face. Team-mates also react to the situation they are in. They may complain about things being boring, or begin wetting themselves due to fear, and even break down and start vomiting in the corner of a room.
There are 3 main types of team-mates, Soldier, Engineer, and Medic. Each type of team-mate has their own tasks to perform, for example, an engineer would be required to fix up broken fuse boxes, while a medic would heal you and your other team-mates after a battle. Team-mates do have problems now and then, such as getting stuck in the scenery, stopping for no reason at all, and not following closely despite your orders.
There are a variety of enemies in The Thing, ranging from small insect like creatures called "scuttlers", to 8 foot tall behemoths with massive claws, known as "slashers". The smaller enemies seem to think of themselves are being rather expendable, as they will charge right at you, making them relatively easy to dispose of, until they begin to come in larger packs, of course. The larger enemies are a little more intelligent, and will take cover when being fired at and dodge your attacks, all while trying to corner you, so that they can make a lethal blow. Of course, there is a variety of firepower available to you which will make sure this doesn’t happen. The smaller enemies can be taken out completely by your smaller arms, pistols, machine guns, and shotguns, but the larger enemies need to be fried by a flamethrower after taking a few shots. Ammunition is a very scarce commodity in the Antarctic, so use it wisely.
The Thing features a very solid control method. Some anti-Resident Evil fans may be pleased to know that the Thing uses an analog control method - forward goes forward, left goes left, and so on. Unfortunately, this leads to a few problems with the actual design of the levels, as you tend to get stuck behind things, and bump into things more often. The game’s camera is also average, as it is fixed, panning occasionally. The problem with the camera is that sometimes its placement doesn’t allow you to see some of the smaller enemies due to scenery blockage. The first person camera may help out to some extent, but things are still a little more difficult than they needed to be. A 60Hz mode has been included as well, so the game can be played the way the developer intended it, full screen, full speed.
The Thing’s graphics aren’t its strongest point. While the graphics are fairly pleasing, they just don’t stand up to some of the Playstation 2’s newer titles. The modeling on the soldiers has been rather well done, with a lot of detail going into their kit, although their heads seem to appear a little blocky. Their facial animation is superb, as the soldiers blink, and show a wide variety of expression and emotion. It would seem that the Things did not see the same level of work that the soldiers did, because they are fairly unimpressive, featuring poor texturing and almost laughable animation. However, the bad animation and modeling of the Things are almost cancelled out by the very nice gore effects. Blood will stain the walls, floors and the equipment, and all Things suffer rather gory deaths.
The environments are a fairly mixed affair. Inside, they have that bland Antarctic research lab feel to them (go figure). Construction of the inside environments is satisfactory on the most part. It could be better, however, as you tend to get snagged on the environment, or things are obscured a little by the camera. Outside of the labs, there are some very nice weather effects used to capture the cold, bland feel of the Antarctic. Draw distance is fairly average, as there is a large amount of fogging. Whether this is for framerate reasons or immersion cannot be seen.
Framerate on the whole is a very mixed affair. For the first 3 levels, the speed is very solid, at about 30fps. Things grind to a halt in the 4th level, due to a large fire fight at the beginning, which will see a drop to about 10-15fps, and doesn’t really seem to go above 20 thereafter. The inconsistency may put some off, but others may come to live with it.
Voice acting has been done well for the most part. The dialog is fairly serious, and the actors succeed in making sure it doesn’t come off as being cheesy. Your team-mates will converse with you, and with each other throughout the levels. They might question whether you are a human or not, or even rag on another team-mate for being a sissy. Music is relatively absent, as it is quite low in volume and runs in the background. Survival horror is a genre assisted by good music (for building fear, and so on), and this impedes on the overall experience. The Thing tries to make up for this by including a wide variety of ambience, and while this creates a decent amount of tension, things would have been better with a good musical score. Sound effects are pleasing, especially the squealing, growling and howling of the aliens.
The Thing isn’t a very easy game. There are 15 levels, each getting progressively harder, not to mention the ammo supply becomes frustratingly low. The problem is that the little problems found throughout the game all seem to add up, and make an otherwise pleasant, albeit relatively frustrating experience. The game is also very linear, and even though it might take about 15-20 hours to finish the game, there isn’t really much to go back for. A co-operative mode using the I-Link cable could have made things slightly more bearable, but no such option was included. The Thing is better than most licensed games on the whole, but pales next to the bigger and better titles in the genre.
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