The Thing for Xbox

John Carpenter's The Thing is considered to be one of the best horror films ever made. The Video Game, while very good, will not get similar marks in its genre.

The Game starts out right where the movie ended. A team of special ops lands in the arctic base where the film had taken place. There purpose is to see what had happened to the scientists that work there. It isn?t long before these soldiers are introduced to The Thing. This alien life form cannot only change shape into dozens of different disgusting creatures, but it can take over the body of any of your teammates at any moment. This antagonist will be your sole opposition for the entire game.

The game is played in a third person perspective. The controls are decent for a game in this genre. You are given the standard variety of action game weapons, such as Flamethrowers, machine guns, etc. These weapons are used to easily dispatch the creatures that come at you. Perhaps a little to easy. It is very simple in the game to use your smaller weapons against the weaker enemies, and save up the stronger weapons to easily dispatch a level boss. There are puzzles in this game, but none of them offer any real challenge. The focus of this game is the action, and the puzzles are two easy to be fun, and just tedious enough to distract you from the alien killing.

What set this game apart from other 3rd person shooters are your teammates. These AI characters help you out during the mission. The artificial intelligence for these characters is some of the best work I?ve seen in a while. They are actually helpful. Another level is added to this concept with the trust fear methods of control. As I mentioned earlier, the thing can assume the form of any of your teammates. You can do blood tests to see whether or not any members have become The Thing. If a test proves positive the member will instantly become a creature that you must dispatch. Your teammates can also lose trust in you. If they start thinking you are The Thing, they will stop following your orders, or go crazy and start firing at random. You can gain there trust be performing certain actions. These actions include healing them or giving them weapons. These are actions that are beneficial to you anyway and would be preformed regardless of the trust fear tactics. It?s rare to see a team member go crazy at a point that?s not scripted.

The graphics are very nice. Both the creatures and characters are top notch. It?s hard for a video game to actual present something visually scary, but The Thing actually looks horrifying. Combined with the excellent sound this game actually produces a very scary environment.

The one problem with this game is that it gets very repetitive. After the first few levels, the games stops offering you anything more than a new weapon are bad guy to kill. It degenerates into an almost hack and slash style of game play. If you enjoy lots of action then this game is definitely one to buy. If you?re more a fan of horror puzzle games, then give this one a rent and see if you like it.