Clive Barker's Undying
Set in 1923, you play Galloway, an intrepid Irish adventurer and explorer of the paranormal. Galloway has been summoned to the crumbling estate of his friend Jeremiah Covenant because Jeremiah’s dead siblings are haunting the halls of the gothic mansion.
But this isn’t a normal haunting -- it’s the final act of a drama that began when Jeremiah and his siblings were children. The Covenant kids took one of their father’s forbidden books of the arcane and muddled with forces that should have been left well alone. Now, many years later, the children’s spirits are trying to unleash the horrific Undying King. Needless to say, if the Undying King shows up there will be much suffering and gnashing of teeth.
The game begins inside the Covenant mansion and then spreads out across an ancient monastery, a creepy series of tombs and crypts, and a twisted parallel dimension. Your focus within these realms is dispatching Jeremiah’s ghastly brothers and sisters, as well as their legions of ghoulish minions.
The story is conveyed via journal entries, discovered books, and other objects, but none of the dense exposition does much to rescue the meandering plot. You’ll read diary entries that fill in background information for the primary characters in the game, but after a while you’ll find yourself scanning any discovered documents for relevant clues while ignoring everything else.
Thankfully, Undying more than makes up for its lackluster plot with some sensational atmosphere that will have the hair on the back of your neck ripping itself free and running for cover.
It’s been a long time since a game flat-out scared me the way Undying did, and in many respects it even outshines the excellent System Shock 2 in terms of generating sheer terror. From the very beginning, where the ghost of Jeremiah’s brother Aaron taunts you, it’s intensely creepy. You’ll hear the cries of children (which is always creepy), giggling ghosts, silverware and plates that have minds of their own, and sounds that have no place in the normal world.
In addition to the aforementioned crying children and laughing ghosts, you’ll also be forced to endure the sounds of a bludgeoning, the ominous creaking and slamming of doors, and other audio clues that indicate actions so ghastly you need the lights on just to contemplate. And even the ambient sounds, like the crunching of bones underfoot and the sinister hiss of the wind, brilliantly serve to heighten the fear factor.
Working in perfect tandem with the game’s excellent sound effects are some stellar graphics. The Unreal Tournament engine provides ample horsepower to render highly detailed environments and character/monster models. The game’s most impressive graphical feat, however, is the weather effects. The rain in one torrential downpour sequence is the best I’ve ever seen.
Undying neatly balances weapons and magic into seamless shooter gameplay with the ability to perform a two-handed attack -- your left hand controls your "standard" weapons while your right hand casts spells. Because of this you can quickly adjust your attack methods on the fly, which is handy when you’re faced with a slew of enemies immune to one form of attack or the other.
The standard pistol and shotgun make their appearances, but the real joy in the arsenal are the Tibetan War Cannon, which blasts ice at enemies, and spells like Skull Storm, which launches a laughing skull that explodes upon impact. Unique gameplay moments are conjured with creative use of the Scrye spell, which lets you see and hear past events that occurred in the room you’re moving through. I’m not going to reveal the specifics and ruin the fun, but the designers showed great imagination when they made the Scyre such an integral part of the game.
The beasties populating the game are wildly creative and chilling. From the werewolf-like Howlers to the truly bizarre Scarrows, all of the monsters seem to have been culled directly from the darker recesses of Clive Barker’s warped imagination. The monster AI is also first-rate, with enemies attacking in packs and skittering away so they can regroup for another attack.
On the downside, Undying has some of the longest loading times I’ve seen, even on a high-end system. This is a very sore spot in a game that relies so heavily on atmosphere.
In the course of promotional interviews, Clive Barker has expressed the hope that Undying will be but the first installment in a new franchise; I really hope that ends up being the case. Creating a game that actually scares you is no small feat, and it’s a true testament to Undying’s creators that they were able to craft a great action game that will also scare the tar out of you.