The Thing Remastered Review

The Thing Remastered is a remastered vision of the 2002 Thing game that was released during the sixth generation of console (arguably the best era). The Thing Remastered acts as a sequel to the 1982 movie and puts players in the proverbial shoes of Cpt J.F. Blake, leader of a U.S. Special Forces rescue team. Blake and his team are sent to investigate the nightmarish events that caused the deaths of the American scientific team that transpired at the Outpost 31 research facility.

The Thing Remastered is a third person action shooter with squad lite mechanics. While you’re responsible to survive this, you’ll also be responsible for your team members you’ll come across the game. The NPCs will also be class based; medic, engineer and soldiers. If one of your pals dies, it’s game over.

While you start off with your own squad, they won’t follow ’til the end. But you’ll save and come across NPCs that will accompany you. For your new pals, you’ll need to make sure to give them weapons so they can survive, support and trust you. NPCs won’t follow you if you don’t heal them or give them a weapon. On the flip side, if their trust in you is low and they suspect odd behavior, they will shoot you on sight.

And yes you have a bit of control over your squad. You can tell them to follow you, stop, ask them for their weapons and given them firearms; basic orders. The higher the trust you’ve established, the more likely they’ll listen and obey. You also have to feed them ammo, otherwise they’ll be defenseless. They can also go bonkers if they are traumatized. A little Adrenaline shot will bring them back to Earth.

The class “system” are important and they are more just a way to refer to your NPCs. The medic will automatically heal you and the other NPCs. The soldier will go gun crazy and shoot incoming threats whereas the engineer will be able to fix more “complex” broken fuseboxes. The protagonist can fix some of them himself.

Once again Nightdive studios hit it out of the park with The Thing Remastered. While the game keeps (obivously) its now dated visuals, it looks great. The developer gave it great care in order to make it look new despite its age. The game looks dark and drab due to the foreboding experience. Character models still look a bit blocky, but the definition has been a bit spruced up for modern technologies. The game also relies on the atmosphere and noises so there’s no score. The voiceover work still surprisingly hold up pretty well; but Per Solli, the man behind Capt. JF Blake, does go a bit over the top at times.

While Nightdive did a great job to remaster this game, there are some issues due to aging technology. The first being that NPCs aren’t smart enough to pick up ammo… even in a room full of ammo. You have to pick all the ammo you can and give it to NPCs once they say they are out. Also despite being able to give orders, NPCs won’t always follow. More often than not, I’d asked them to follow; for them to acknowledge and then staying behind.

The Thing Remastered is an absolute must play for fans of action game. I’ve been kicking myself for missing out on it the first time around. While a sequel to a horror movie, the game lacks in that department and enemies aren’t as gruesome as we’ve seen in most recent horror outings, but the atmosphere and eerily quietness makes up for it. Sure, some mechanics and the A.I. does feel a bit archaic at times, but it doesn’t stop from making The Thing Remastered a must play experience.