The Haunted Hoard: The Thing (PS2)
John Carpenter’s 1982 science fiction film The Thing may not have caught fire on its initial release, but over time, public opinion on it shifted, its memorable special effects and chilling premise changing it so that it is now considered one of the best horror films of all time. Taking an already isolated group of scientists in Antarctica and further alienating them from each other by way of a murderous creature who can perfectly imitate humans and integrate into their group, The Thing’s constant air of mystery and tension keeps the viewer anxious and intrigued even during its final scene. The concept of the alien monster imitating people you trust certainly has legs, especially in the video game realm where the player can directly feel that sense of dread that comes from your trusted allies potentially being your worst enemy in disguise.
The Thing video game takes place as a sequel to the cult classic film, the player taking on the role of a new character named Captain Blake who heads to investigate what remains of the research facility from the film. Rather than being simple recon though, Blake soon begins to learn more about the alien creature that menaced the characters in the movie, not only having to grapple with the many forms of this unusual beast itself but a military force who aim to suppress information on the creature and utilize what information was gathered on it for unscrupulous means. Presented as a third person shooter, you’ll work your way through the many facilities on the Earth’s southernmost continent, contending with humans and monsters alike and receiving periodic assistance from others caught up in this battle for survival.
Front and center is the game’s pride and joy, the trust system, which is meant to integrate the movie’s uneasy atmosphere as a gameplay mechanic. The characters who join Captain Blake in his efforts can play different support roles like medics who heal you without you needing to use up health kits and engineers who can repair advanced technology, but each person on your team could potentially be one of the deadly creatures in disguise waiting for their moment to reveal themselves and kill you. The exact characters who are monsters is predetermined save for a supposed infection system that doesn’t seem to play a big part, so if you’re forced back to a previous save after dying to one you can plan on how to out them, but this isn’t really what undermines this system. The big idea of the trust system is certain actions and scenarios can turn your companions belligerent or suspicious, the characters starting to refuse to take orders or conceivably becoming hostile towards you and the rest of the group as they believe you might be monsters yourself. However, outside of plot determined points where the characters are pushed to their limits, it is very unlikely they’ll be pushed to any sort of interesting extreme. It’s very easy to placate a team member by giving them a weapon and ammo to help you fight off enemies, and there is almost no downside to doing this because if they are a monster, they will drop the weapon before transforming so you can pick it back up. There is no real relationship dynamic between you and most of your allies either. It’s convenient to have a healer on hand and extra guns in a fight, but they stick around for very little time so a potential betrayal carries little impact. The cast cycles through people too quickly and monsters will reveal themselves at certain predetermined points if they aren’t forced to earlier, and since these monstrous humans aren’t much harder than the other enemies in the area you’ll be fighting, it just feels like a way to push out a cast member after you’ve had a little time to have mildly helpful back-up.
With so many elements of the suspicion mechanics and the intrigue not amounting to much, it’s not hard to be underwhelmed by The Thing’s main selling point. The AI simply can’t assume the role of an interesting traitor in the bounds they’ve been given, but rather than completely destroying the intrigue of this game, it mostly comes up as something that doesn’t do any harm since it isn’t exactly pivotal to the third person shooting action. It’s a missed opportunity to be sure, but it’s more like finding a ride at the amusement park closed rather than instead getting on board and finding it to be boring. The structure of The Thing doesn’t depend on the film’s biggest selling point to the point it’s bogged down by its flimsy implementation, the experience instead falling back on its action elements and atmosphere.
Antarctica serves well as a hostile host to the events of The Thing, the dark icy expanse feeling chillingly empty as you need to push through the snow to find your next destination. Monsters appearing out of the darkness and a meter that drains as your character reaches actual injury from the extreme cold make moments of quiet navigation more anxious, but the game does seem a little eager to hurl its aliens at you as a constant threat. Early in the game a lot of little scuttling creatures demand consistent action from the player, these usually just showing up rather than having the type of build up bigger beasts get. Exploring the interior of the facility and getting a brief glimpse of a shambling flesh mound outside the window can be quite effective, but having a bunch of glorified crab monsters constantly running towards you is certainly just there to ensure an action quota is met. Most of the bigger monsters have something that makes them more resilient and dangerous, some charging towards you, bursting into the small creatures on death, or of course bursting to life from the bodies of former companions. You have quite a few weapons to handle foes of all sorts, but while a machine gun, shotgun, sniper rifle, and other traditional weaponry can kill actual hostile humans or whittle down the alien beasts, you’ll need fire to seal the deal. Incendiary grenades, flamethrowers, or other tools must be used to finish the job and kill the stronger monsters, and luckily the flamethrowers don’t use too much ammo so only careless use will leave you without these pivotal finisher options. However, determining when to use them is another story. As you wear down a strong monster, the reticle that indicates you’re targeting them will turn red and darken more and more, but when exactly it’s time to switch from ballistics to flame never really becomes clear no matter how many times you face off with these abundant alien monsters.
Most of the monsters are physically-inclined creatures who want to get in close and deal heavy damage when they do, but the military soldiers after you give The Thing some more traditional gun fights as well to balance out what could otherwise be a lot of backpedaling to avoid the creatures’ melee attacks. Auto-aim is a key feature in the gun play, your difficulty determining how lenient it is and it mostly existing to help overcome the mobility advantages your foes have. First person shooting does exist but is slow and sloppy comparatively, it working well if you have the room to rest and line up a shot but most confrontations are too fast-paced and dangerous to take the time to line up a shot. Balancing cover, weapon choice, target priority, and ammo availability makes up for the fact that aiming is often removed from the picture, plenty of tense battles arising from the fact that health is easy to lose and hard to regain and carelessness can lead to quick deaths. Save points and automatic checkpoints are present but not overly kind, some areas grueling gauntlets while just enough mercy exists in helping you not be overwhelmed again and again by dangerous scenarios. The need to be careful and intelligent during the gun play means it’s not just mindless action tacked on between moments of quiet atmosphere, the horror complemented by the stakes of the action. Puzzles augment how certain areas are approached as well even though they are often about the right order of operations making things harder or easier, and while the game does give you some heavy hitting weapons like the grenade launcher, it can also be surprisingly stingy in areas like reloading where doing so before a clip is used up fully will lead to you tossing away the unused bullets.
Bosses aren’t quite the highlights of the experience as you might hope them to be though. Like most monsters in the game they’re sort of shapeless and colored with fleshy and meaty tones, but almost all the boss monsters sit in place and are essentially large tentacles with human and animal features slapped on. They are fought differently from each other at least, almost more puzzles as you have to figure out how to avoid their high damage output in cramped battle spaces, but none go on very long so they don’t have the time to be outright bland. Most of the engaging action comes from moments where other people with weapons are firing on you or a mixed force of monsters and men are all fighting against you in the same area. Knowing what to do can sometimes be a little unclear and a few moments have dangers you can’t really react to in time to avoid taking damage, but The Thing continues to feed its action side well with consistent shifts in enemy tactics or novel environmental staging.
THE VERDICT: The Thing film may be famous for the dramatic tension derived from aliens imitating trusted allies, but the trust system featured in its video game sequel doesn’t really live up to its potential. Allies revealing themselves to be monsters holds little weight when they cycle through so consistently, are easily killed on reveal, and the systems meant to add dramatic interaction are easily worked around. Despite failing to integrate this ambitious mechanic well though, The Thing has a sturdy enough foundation of atmospheric horror and challenging third person gun play to still stand as an adequate horror shooter experience. Tension comes more from vulnerability and the danger to your character instead of potential betrayal, but confrontations with monsters and men both provide suitable action that has the chance to entertain despite the flawed mechanics they’re surrounded by.
And so, I give The Thing for PlayStation 2…
An OKAY rating. While some might dismiss The Thing once they learn the alien impersonation is done poorly and the trust system is flawed, that doesn’t mean it failed with its fundamentals. Had the game nailed its horror elements better it would have shot up in quality, but the foundation is sound because the shooting can bring a proper level of danger to the game rather than undermining it. More moments where monster reveals hold weight would be nice over waves of scuttling creatures or groups of well armed soldiers, but the enemies you do face are suitable foes for some challenging gun play. The PlayStation 2 might not have been the right system for a game of this ambition, both the graphics impeding the effectiveness of the monster designs and the systems for AI that can act suspicious or suspect a player being too rudimentary at the time, but it’s also very likely that the best approach for a betrayal type scenario in a video game is either something that takes place as a key part of a narrative or one where players assume roles rather than the computer characters trying to set up and pull off heartbreaking betrayals.
It is a shame that The Thing video game would be reduced down to being praised only for getting basic elements of a horror shooter right, the concept definitely one that deserves to be done justice. It’s not even that the ideas behind the trust system are flawed, it’s just execution and the narrative path means it rarely crops up meaningfully outside of predetermined moment. You don’t get the time to get attached to allies or have scenarios set up to make you suspect them since they’re so easily placated and do little to drum up suspicion once you put a gun in their hand. The mechanical reality of it is underwhelming, but The Thing can still provide some tension and excitement with areas where the mechanics can be engaged with in more simple but effective ways. If you view it as a difficult game where you shoot down alien monsters and an evil military rather than expecting more from it, you can find yourself with a decent and incredibly challenging shooter, just not quite what you’d expect from something claiming to be based on John Carpenter’s The Thing.