(The PC Version was reviewed with the 1.2 patch installed, so the sound glitches have been fixed and the mouse-look option has been added, please don't allow this to affect your view of this review)
John Carpenter's The Thing is both one of my favourite horror movies of all time and one of my favourite movies in general, so when i heard that there was a video game out based on the film, i was naturally excited to get my hands on it. Soon after, i realized that it was game based on a movie, leaving me with very little hope that the game will actually be good and making me very sceptical. So when i bought this game, I was not expecting much. The good news is that it's not absolutely horrible, the bad news is that it's the bare minimum of a third person action game that could have used a few extra month's of development time to prevent it from being mediocre.
You play as Capt. Blake, leading a military rescue team to the outpost in Antarctica from the first movie to investigate what happened after loosing contact with them. All is not as it seems, when the investigation into what happened leads you to shape shifting creates that can perfectly replicated whatever they have become, leading you into a conspiracy that surrounds the creatures. Despite falling a little short, the game manages to have some atmosphere as well as a good presentation. While it doesn't mean the game is forgivable for it's flaws, it helps the game and gives some good tension and motivation to see what happens next.
The story leaves little to the imagination, having the standard conspiracy story. I don't really blame the developers for doing this, since it's hard to follow up the movie and it doesn't really detract from the game. As I said before, the game is the standard third person shooter. The character you control moves like a tank and takes longer than necessary to get used to, so for the PC version, you should update to the 1.2 patch so you can at least have the mouse-look option, since it helps a little when fighting the Thing's.
During parts of the game, you will be working with a team of people. Usually a soldier, a medic and an engineer. The medic always carry's health packs, the soldier is able to help out during combat and the engineer helps with advanced fuse boxes, which have you switching between the engineer and you to fix. If you have to switch between you and the engineer for fixing fuse boxes, either have him do it and be completely useful, or have you do it, not some mixture. Why were there so many of those damn things anyway?
The mechanics of interacting with your squad at least try to add something interesting to the game. There is a trust/fear system in place with your squad mates. If they don't trust you, giving them a handgun with some ammo will help with that. They'll usually get scared if a bunch of Things show up and start attacking, which healing them or giving them some ammunition will prevent them from being completely useless.
The game also advertises that you won't know who's Human or who's a Thing, which is complete bullshit. You could test someone a million times and they wouldn't turn, only to turn when you cross some arbitrary line. This would have been an interesting addition to the game if it wasn't so poorly implemented. On the strategy side of the game, the larger Thing's require the use of a flamethrower before becoming weak enough to be killed. This adds something to the bland "point and shoot and hope it dies" strategy the game would have had otherwise. The game also features the ability to die if you stay outside in the cold long enough, giving you motivation to move along at a brisk pace.
In the end, The Thing has a lot of great ideas and had a lot of potential, only to have all of them to be unfinished and unpolished. While i don't think it's as bad as Spoony says it is, it will never leave mediocrity. If you loved The Thing and can get over the hump of tank controls and features that aren't quite complete, this is worth checking out, since you could probably get it now for cheap.
The Good:
+The game has a great atmosphere, making it feel like your really in the Antartic.
+Taking out the larger Thing's requires a little strategy, with using a flamethrower and machine gun.
+Squad mechanics add another layer to the game.
The Bad:
-The plot feels a little unoriginal.
-Without updating the PC version, you get bugs and miss out on a mouse-look option.
-Squad mates are dumber than bricks.
-Fucking fuse boxes.