The Thing

I played with the HD mod. A rating of about 7. I wouldn’t give it more because there are things in this game that don’t deserve an 8. It’s a good game, but I noticed some aspects that lower the score.

I wouldn't call this an awesome game. It’s good, but I liked the story of F.E.A.R. better. The parts that scared me the most were in the middle of the snowstorm. I was terrified of freezing to death, getting lost, and a huge monster appearing out of nowhere. Indoors, I didn’t feel scared. It seemed too generic with silly jump scares like monsters breaking through a ventilation shaft or door. F.E.A.R. has much better scripted events and a more immersive atmosphere. You can notice that the tension in The Thing mimics the style of Resident Evil from years before. For example, a cutscene showing a monster approaching. One thing they did was proximity explosions. You lose health, and the character even jumps from fright. But I didn’t get scared at all. It seems more like a trap to hinder you, not to scare you.

I played on normal, and this game is very hard. Friendly fire is enabled, and in confined spaces, it's a pain. You shoot at allies, and they shoot at you. I’ve died from friendly fire. With big monsters you have to use flamethrowers repeatedly. Combined with the weapon switching that pauses the game to open the menu, it makes the game a drag. This game has clunky gameplay with menus and interactions with NPCs also using menus, which makes you lose interest and fear as well.

The AI is kind of buggy. The NPC falls behind, and you have to go back to call him because you need him. NPCs also block each other, and if one can’t reach the panel, he gives up, and you have to push the NPCs out of the way.

One of the few positive things about this game is the NPC's fear and trust system. It adds another layer to the gameplay. Unfortunately, it’s very bad due to using menus and huge text boxes that pause the game for everything.

I didn’t completed it 100%. I didn’t kill the first boss. I tried and failed. Then I saw that there was panel to be fixed to open a door and move on. That’s exactly what I did. I didn’t care about losing health and went through the door. The second one I skipped with a glitch. The third one I didn’t see. The level to destroy airplanes required a sniper, and I didn’t have one. I used a save from moddb to progress, and since I got a save point much further ahead, I ended up skipping about 30 minutes of the game. To pass the level where you start with nothing after being knocked out I resorted to a guide. I couldn’t get through it.

A minor detail: in this game, you repair a panel and then have a lever to open the door. Wouldn't it be easier if the door opened automatically or if you repaired the lever itself? Over time, this repetition of two actions becomes very tedious.

A small blunder: you protect yourself from the cold in huts without doors. What kind of protection is that? It would make sense if it were acid rain... Inside the bases, the glass breaks but the cold air doesn’t enter?

Comments on design and spoilers

This game resorts to save points, which is much worse than checkpoints. This comes from the cartridge era. I think the industry abandoned this system after consoles started to come with built-in HDDs. The worst part is that the save points also seem to be part of the game's challenge, because some levels have none, or the save point itself is a secret.

I had to guess that some actions required holding the use button. If this was in the game manual, I don’t have the manual to check.

Manually passing ammo and medkits to NPCs is very annoying. They should have made it automatic so that NPCs have infinite ammo or restock on their own.

There’s a bug in this game that causes crashes all the time. If you try to load the game from the menu without returning to the main screen, the game crashes. It's another faulty port from the console version.

In the second level, there's a door with a code, and you have to see the code on a security camera. Since this game was made for low resolution, you have to zoom in with the camera. Without the manual, I didn't know which button zoomed in. However, in high resolution, you don’t even need the zoom in because you can read it clearly. This made me realize a problem that seems to be present in all games: the player's perspective versus the character's perspective. Sometimes games make the mistake of assuming what you know or see is the same as what the character knows or sees, but that's not always the case, which leads to problems.

Another issue with the previosuly mentioned door is that the game doesn’t open a screen for you to enter the code. Without anything to interact with, you get a bit confused. After you see the code, the character automatically opens the door, and you don’t have to enter anything.

There’s a recurring confusion. The game blocks a passage or door, and when you complete a certain objective, the path is unblocked. But this game doesn’t notify you! Not before or after. That’s why in some games, the character says something like “Later” or “I can’t go through yet.” In this game, there’s nothing to notify you.

The boss battles are all in confined spaces without enough room to move around. It might work for a movie (I've never seen the movie), but for a game, it’s horrible to play. They didn’t think it through. I tried several times with the second boss and gave up. Then I found a guide and discovered a glitch that allows you to skip it. Before reaching the boss, there’s another garage door. If you call the NPCs there and throw a grenade, it opens up and you skip the boss. The funny thing is that there’s a bomb there, and when you escape, the character closes the elevator door and leaves all the NPCs behind. Who wrote this script??

In the 6th level you are required a sniper to blow up the airplanes. If you try to do it without a sniper, there isn’t enough time because the hangar doors start closing, and you can’t reach all of them in time. I skipped it because there’s no sniper anywhere! If there was one in previous levels, I lost it by giving it to an NPC who died. It’s a major error that prevents progress.

In the meteorological station, I had to guess that I needed to shoot and break some holes to open a passage through the warehouse's ceiling. I wandered around outside in the snowstorm, losing health until I discovered this. The worst part is that this grate isn’t always destructible in the game, which is confusing.

In the level where you start with nothing, there’s an NPC in a decontamination shower. There’s a terminal to access a surveillance camera and a button. I pressed the button but didn’t know it activated a turret in a nearby hallway. That’s why I died several times. The button was placed in a way that made it seem like an objective.

In the final part, there are a bunch of laser trip mines, and the enemies blow themselves up. Huh?? I think I’ve never seen a game that does this. It becomes even more noticeable because this game is supposed to be a horror game.

In the final boss fight, you have to guess that you need to blow up the barrels. The first time, I kept shooting at the monster without any effect. Only later did I see the barrels. I hit two, then missed two, and the monster hit the helicopter, and I died.

This game doesn’t differentiate between extinguishable and non-extinguishable fire. There’s a part in the secret base where I died trying to put out a fire that doesn’t go out. Then there’s a part with a chamber full of monsters where you turn on the fire to kill them. After that, you extinguish the fire so NPCs can pass through. But the fire burns you through the wall even if you’re outside the room. The extinguisher also works through the wall to put out the fire.

Another thing I mentioned on my level design website is that in this game, small wooden crates are destructible by fire, but large ones are not. You can also destroy metal grates with fire. However, cardboard boxes placed in many levels don’t catch fire. Interestingly, explosive barrels have textures clearly indicating they are explosive.