The Haunted Hoard: Clive Barker’s Undying (PC)

Clive Barker, the mind behind the Hellraiser films and initiator of the Candyman franchise, feels like he’d be a natural fit for some interactive horror fiction, but the game that bares his name wasn’t even originally his own product. Clive Barker’s Undying began first as an attempt to adapt a Stephen Spielberg work instead, but needing help with the story lead to them consulting Barker who took the game down a much different path. Now an original horror work, this first-person shooter may not be as well known as his other contributions to fictional horror, but it certainly provides an unsettling adventure worthy of bearing its author’s name.

 

Clive Barker’s Undying is the story of Patrick Galloway, a skeptic who normally is hired to disprove the supernatural but has found it harder and harder to ignore over the years. Considering early on in the game he’s already encountering spirits and casting spells, it’s little surprise the skeptic angle isn’t a big deal, but that mind that worked to analytically dismiss the inauthentic horrors works well for helping him take detailed notes on the true ones he now encounters at the mansion of Jeremiah Covenant. Jeremiah and his siblings seem to have been suffering under a terrible curse for most of their lives, and with Jeremiah nearing his own end, he seeks to speak with Galloway only for the restless spirits and warped survivors of the Covenant family to threaten not only Patrick’s life, but the world at large if they aren’t stopped in time.

Clive Barker’s Undying ends up divided mostly by which particular Covenant sibling you will need to contend with as they each pursued power in their own unique unnatural ways, but while the mansion is the main home for a great deal of the adventure, it’s hardly the only place as the supernatural allows you to travel to the past and to a surreal dimension populated with strange and violent creatures. The mansion itself holds many secrets and dangers as well, and while you’ll find yourself crossing familiar ground often to get to relevant areas, sometimes not with the best clue of where to go, the mansion itself can be quite eerie. Dark halls and unusual sounds aren’t out of place for a horror game, but they become more potent when you consider Patrick’s vulnerability. If the werewolf-like howlers catch you by surprise, they can shear off a good amount of your limited health. If a spirit appears from thin air, you might not be quite ready to turn your weapons on them in time to avoid their attack. Your unease comes from knowing that should some horror spring out or catch you from behind, you need to be ready to react, especially since Clive Barker’s Undying has a favorite trick of having enemies appear both in front of and behind you in tight hallways that can be a bit annoying before you come to realize you should be prepared for it. You can quick save most anywhere that can help ease the irritation at its most egregious ambushes, but even with that cushion, there’s still some fear to be found when you hear familiar noises that let you know an enemy is nearby even if you can’t see them yet.

 

Patrick Galloway doesn’t start off with the best means of defending himself either, making the early game even more tense. You need to land those shots with your pistol and your early magic is mostly just a sensory aid that’s primary use is viewing echoes of the past. Health kits aren’t that rare, but you will likely want to spend a good bit of time searching down halls or in special rooms in hopes of building resources which in turn risks running into more surprise danger. Over time though you’ll start to get more effective weaponry and magic, wielding firearms with the left hand and spells with the right, and they come to include some very unique and synergistic options. You get a reliable shotgun if you just want to hit harder, but you also get the Tibetan War Cannon, a useful tool that launches ice that slows foes but doesn’t rely on ammo, its speed and arc its limitations instead.

Ectoplasm is an attack spell that is cheap but a bit unwieldy as its shots spiral about, but then you have spells like Dispel or Invoke. Their stated purposes are simple, Dispel clears away magic effects and Invoke lets you animate dead enemies to help you, but they pack extra uses like Dispel instantly killing magical creatures and Invoke letting you make human enemies take their own lives in a rather brutal fashion. While a later Shield spell will probably centralize some of your casting, Clive Barker’s Undying does have you face many foes that keep you switching your attack options or experimenting with them, the reward for finding a particularly effective combination able to make the action satisfying without the game having to weaken its enemies to provide that feeling. You can also find upgrades for your spells hidden throughout, the player able to invest in their favorites or able to make some costlier ones more useful by reducing their mana cost or increasing their reliability, using each spell amplifier feeling like an important decision.

 

Despite the mansion being the main setpiece, Clive Barker’s Undying will see you infiltrating a pirate hideout, visiting a monastery at different points in time, and dropping in on other dimensions where physics are sometimes a loose suggestion, the range of enemies keeping you on your toes even if not always as scared of what you’ll find. You will probably become quite used to the threat Howlers pose after their strong presence in the game’s first segment, but then later you find a new concern when suddenly you find pirates tossing dynamite down into the pit you’re in. Mixed with the exploration of the areas as you look for key items or small solve puzzles, the game does start strong, but your growing strength can start to trivialize later portions, the last stretch of the game losing some of its edge especially with bosses that start to feel like they take a while without varying up their methods much. It hasn’t run out of ideas as you approach the end, it even whips out some of its stranger weapons there, but the new situations aren’t as novel as what you faced earlier or how you had to tackle them when you didn’t have things like the ever useful Shield spell to lean on.

THE VERDICT: Clive Barker’s Undying leads strong with atmosphere that pays off with potent threats, the player leaping at shadows to avoid untimely ends. As the adventure progresses, that eerie mansion is joined by a range of locations and some effective enemy variety, the player’s attack options expanding in interesting ways and ones that encourage some enjoyable experimentation. Exploration can sometimes be a bit confusing when the game doesn’t direct you well although searching areas can be quite rewarding still, and while some specific spells and tools make the game a fair bit easier down the line, Clive Barker’s Undying doesn’t lose its touch despite the decrease in potent danger.

 

And so, I give Clive Barker’s Undying for PC…

A GOOD rating. While you might come to lament some of its halls when you’re not sure where to go, the Covenant mansion is a strong start in setting you up for the usual tension present in Clive Barker’s Undying. Areas with secrets both helpful and dangerous give you reason to look around, soak up the atmosphere, and then experience that little fear as you know an enemy is around but not always directly in view. Some of its tricks do seem a little cheap to help put you on edge, but you’re not left without recourse and there’s always a bit of a thrill when a new weapon is added to your arsenal or a spell opens up some new possibilities. The strongest ones do start to centralize your options when you start nearing the game’s conclusion, but there’s a good amount of time spent in this adventure carefully pushing forward into strange new areas and being ready to fight on a moment’s notice should you hear something stir. Each person afflicted by the family curse leads to some new supernatural idea or area to explore, the mystery and writing in the notes pulling you in even when the motivations aren’t often too deep or complex for horror story characters. The boss fights don’t stand out much either, but the paths getting to them can make up for it with their richer designs and moments where you feel threatened and vulnerable in an area brimming with enemies.

 

I’ve been meaning to get to Clive Barker’s Undying for years but initial attempts didn’t go well when my mouse didn’t prove to be up to the task. You need to be quick to whip around and fire on Howlers and there are even spiritual enemies who can send Patrick looking off in weird directions to make aiming even tougher. With a good mouse on hand it was manageable rather than needlessly difficult, even though the game itself sometimes leans a bit on trickery to make its horrors more dangerous. The creativity in where the plot brings you definitely eases the sting of such ambushes and the occasional unclear objective, Clive Barker’s direction for this first-person shooter leading to something memorable and diverse even if it might not hold the same iconic and bold concepts found in his more famous cinematic works.