Halloween is upon us. The night where the spirits of the other side are ever so close to our own, their wavering, spectral forms drifting through the moonlight as they bleed into our world to bring us bad dreams, or something like that at least, it's a little unclear. This month has seen us tackle many forms of terror in these Halloween reviews, and by many I mean four games and like maybe two different forms of terror. We’ve tousled with some vampire brides in some really sheer dresses that I didn’t notice until after I looked at the screenshots again in Nocturne, we’ve shot just a whole lot of gross fishmen hybrids and a few spooky extra dimensional monsters while surviving just a bit of jank in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, puzzled our way around, uh, more Lovecraft hybrids in Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet. Was it too much to do two consecutive Lovecraft games in a row? I swear it wasn’t planned, I didn’t actually really think about that until I finished Shadow of the Comet then went to do Dark Corners of the Earth; also, I played and did the write-up on them out of order for whatever reason, as that’s how I do things sometimes.
Well whatever, Lovecraft is spooky. Did I mention I really like Lovecraft?
The previous games have varied pretty wildly in terms of ‘scare factor’. Nocturne was dark, visually mostly, but it wasn’t really scary in the traditional sense of the word; it gets a 6/10 on the scary scale, it had some intensity to it. Shadow of the Comet was very atmospheric in its early 90’s pixel art, but no matter how many times you show me Jack Nicholson’s face it never had a chance of spooking me considering it was a puzzle game with really funny voice acting; it gets a 3/10 on the scary scale. Dark Corners though? That got me a few times, and has the distinction as being the scariest of the games we’ve covered so far. It had an atmosphere, the kind of unnerving audio design and hallucination angle, and the addition of the visceral FPS-action element that got pretty intense at times so, 7/10 on the scary scale. It’s definitely the winner…until now, with the final game. What horrifying visages await us? What ghastly reflections of our dark reality will we face in our final terro- it’s Clive Barker's Undying, the 2001 PC game. It’s the title of the article, you already know this.
Clive Barker’s Video Game Naivety
Undying is a 2001 PC FPS written by the esteemed British horror auteur Clive Barker who's done everything from stage theater, to directing the first Hellraiser movie as well as inspiring the Candyman series, writing innumerable screenplays, doing some unique visual art, and writing more short story collections than you can ever imagine. His work is defined by many personal touches, with stories often exploring the darker elements of the human psyche reflected into dark fantasy trappings of horrific sorcery and the damnation of souls, or the exploration of the intersection of sexuality with violence and pain. That particular last bit really seems to have been his bread and butter, but unfortunately not with Undying.The game was developed by EA Los Angeles using the Unreal engine, as was the style of the time of course; even back in 2001 Epic had the engine licensing market cornered. The team was previously known as DreamWorks Interactive, which was the video game subsidiary of Steven Spielberg's juggernaut movie studio, and were behind plenty of great games in their own right; they were the developers of the original Medal of Honour and its sequel Underground, the game adaptation of one of my oddest childhood favourite movies Small Soldiers, they published the underrated gem of Skullmonkeys, developed T’ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger which is something I never thought I'd be able to name drop, two insane Goosebumps adventure games with Escape From HorrorLand and Attack of the Mutant, and a whole bunch of Jurassic Park games. They co-developed the terrible Jurrasic Park: Warpath fighting game, and entirely developed the not-as-terrible The Lost World, and developed…Jurassic Park: Trespasser. Oh my sweet god, they did Trespasser. That game is the epitome of something far too ahead of its time in the worst ways, and is truly one of the most frustrating and confusing games I've ever played.
This was the first game they released after being bought by EA and being renamed to EA Los Angeles, but development of it had started earlier while they were still under DreamWorks. Clive Barker wasn't involved, believe it or not, until much later in the game's development. The original horror game idea had been floundering for some time, with the team lacking creative vision on it and being unable to move forward with anything. Steven Spielberg stepped in after a time, of course being the head honcho of Amblin and by extension DreamWorks, and suggested that the team look into hiring a creative type to whip the game into shape, to clear the obstacles the team had been hitting their heads against over and over again. It's unclear why exactly Spielberg recommended Clive Barker given they didn't even know one another outside of professional reputation and came from pretty different scenes in Hollywood, but he was the one who Spielberg recommended. The game’s lead artist, Brian Horton, knew a comic artist friend who knew Clive Barker, and managed to get a message to him asking for help nailing down the direction of the game from the elusive Brit.
From this 2003 Clive Barker interview with SharkyGames, I learned many eldritch secrets about the game. The game's original protagonist idea was a bald, tattooed bearded guy named Count Magnus Wolfram who had some sort of magical tattoo powers. Barker loathed this, and from that interview he asked the team; “Does anybody in the room know a Magnus? Does anyone really want to be in this guy's skin?” which is a very Clive Barker statement if I've ever heard one. He suggested that they make the protagonist more relatable and, once again in his own words from that interview, directed the team with this guidance on the new main character; “you’ve got a gay man in charge. Bring me someone I want to sleep with. Bring me someone fabulously sexy.” When Clive Barker tells you this, you take it at face value and you listen, which is just what the team did when they came back with the game's final protagonist, Irish adventurer hunk Patrick Galloway. He's pretty dreamy, I can't deny it.
There’s definitely a smoulder there, he’s got some roguish charm. I guess that’s what Clive Barker is into.
The game was also set to focus on a deathmatch multiplayer mode, as was again the style of the time, but this quickly was cut from the plans once the pieces started falling into place, and the team wanting to brand it as a single player horror game once Barker became involved.
It seems like Barker was pretty heavily involved with the game going off of that interview as well as the final product being so obviously of his work. It's really interesting just how down Barker was with helping to make a video game, as there have been plenty of other examples of video games involving famous celebrities where they aren't involved much more than just their name in the title. Barker, however, worked very closely with the DreamWorks team for 18 months according to his estimate, doing everything from corresponding with the art team on enemies and environments to personally designing the characters. According to a line from Clive Barker's own website, he aimed to give the game the ‘texture of a novel’ by generating ‘several layers of reality’ for it. He may be a little pretentious, but I think he’s allowed to be; Barker has earned the right to being a little pretentious. The team would often go down to Barker’s house where they’d collaborate on the art and the storyline, sketching things out figuratively and literally. Even how he became involved with the prototype of what would become Undying is fascinating; according to that SnarkyGames interview, he’d been declining video game offers for years until this specific phone call, when on a whim he just agreed this time. It paid off, as he’s stated he was greatly impressed with the work they’d initially brought over to his England cottage, seeing "great beauty" in the horror potential. That initial work in question was full paintings of some of the main characters the team wanted to feature as well as concept renders they had so far, as detailed here, once again on Barker's own website; included there is a painting of the original Count Magnus Wolfram protagonist.
Something Barker brought up in the interview and that I've caught on to as well was that his naivety about video games was something positive for the game, ironically enough. He claimed the team working on the previous version were “getting lost in the forest, unable to see the wood from the trees”. This tunnel vision had them spinning their wheels on development, getting too focused on this or that and not able to finalize anything. They had some ideas such as the dual wielding of spells in one hand and weapons in the other, but no real vision for how it should all come together. In this context, Barker was the best type of person to get involved. He knew literally nothing about video games by his own admission, and so had no tunnel vision. He wasn't getting in the weeds of obsessing about trying to make some new innovative game mechanic or graphical engine or fixating on one specific mechanic or feature and how to implement it, he was able to see the forest around them and the bigger picture. He could see clearly what was and wasn't working, and with his input from there they were able to finalize the core concept and form solid ground to develop from. From the core concept comes everything else. Once that came, the rest fell into place, and eventually we were granted Clive Barker's Undying.
And with that, let's journey forth with our fabulously sexy Irish hunk and sling some mystical charms at ungodly flesh monster abominations in this Halloween day finale.
Happy Halloween, everyone.
Undying To Meet You
Clive Barker's Undying sees you play as the roguish Patrick Galloway, an Irish adventurer hunk that Barker apparently would want to sleep with. Galloway spends his days looking for adventure and investigating magical artifacts, and I cannot tell you how happy I was that this game opens with the main character already accepting ‘magic is real’ rather than playing up some ultimately pointless skeptic angle. He receives a letter from an old war friend of his, Jeremiah Covenant, to come visit him at his family's mansion. Anything named ‘Covenant Manor’ located next to ancient Irish standing stones is cursed to all hell, which is correct; Jeremiah believes a family curse is killing him, like it killed his four other siblings throughout the years after they all did a botched magical ritual as children, and implores Patrick to help him break it.I'd avoid spoilers here normally, but practically all marketing material I found for this game reveals this and it's not at all a secret; Jeremiah's dead siblings are haunting the Covenant estate, and actively attempting to kill Jeremiah and by extension you. They’ve each been corrupted by magic somehow, and the game flows linearly with you blastin’ em down one by one in order to break the family curse.
The story is incredibly solid, as to be expected by something built up by Clive Barker. The concept is great, the setting of a cursed Irish mansion is spooky and grand, no complaints at all. Much of the finer contextual details are told through journal entries you can find haphazardly lying around as this was an early 2000s video game, but at least they're well written. There's a lot of journal entries to read here with each new weapon and character being introduced getting an entry added into Patrick's notebook I guess he carries around with him. This focus on the journal entries is good for people who like to read extra context on what's going on, but it does make an overall game sparse on storytelling if you're just going off of the cutscenes as a result. There were a few times I was lost when a character or concept was introduced that I had no knowledge of, only for me to then look through my journal entries to find that Patrick was writing about it like two hours ago apparently in my journal backlog. This isn't really a negative (oh no you have to read, the horror!) about the game, just something I wanted to bring up.
Patrick Galloway has some decent characterization about him, and luckily the game is improved over Jack Walters from Dark Corners of the Earth in that he's also a consistent character. He knows a little bit about things that go bump in the Irish night already, but he's still somewhat out of his element once things like the time traveling monks become involved. I personally like the angle of him more or less stumbling onto new developments before chasing after them; it plays up both that roguish charm he has, as well as the previously mentioned ‘out of his element’ vibe. Just protected Jeremiah from some ‘Howlers’, a monster he apparently already knows the specific name of? Well, the gardener just said he saw the youngest Covenant sister, Lizbeth, being all monster-like on a hill next to the family mausoleum; I guess let's wander over there.
Speaking of pistols, the main mechanical selling point of this game is in its dual wielding combat design. In Patrick's left hand he holds mundane weapons such as his trusty service revolver, a shotgun and molotovs as well as some magical artifacts like a dragon-headed Tibetan ice cannon and a repulsion stone. His right hand is what you cast your eclectic mix of magical spells and incantations with.
Left click is for left hand weapons, right click is for right hand spells, it all just makes sense. This makes for some pretty dynamic combat once you get your arsenal built up; you can be potshotting abominations with your pistol in one hand while simultaneously casting the Invoke spell to raise dead bodies to your side with the right, before switching your pistol out for a Molotov cocktail to launch at the next wave of gross freaks while you pull out your Ectoplasm spell on your right hand to bombard close range enemies with magical bolts. It flows really well, and a weapon wheel for both hands makes it a snap to pull out what you need when you need it. You can also map specific weapons and spells to the number keys if that's your jam, it wouldn't be a PC FPS if this wasn't the case.
The ‘normie’ weapons can be a bit of a mixed bag in terms of overall effectiveness. The revolver I always found reliable, particularly when you load it with highly damaging silver bullets you can find around. It was my main piece alongside the Tibetan ice dragon cannon and the magic scythe. The shotgun though, the blessed weapon that every shooter needs with no exceptions? It's pretty bad unfortunately. Its spread is way too inconsistent to reliably kill things with, which was very sad to experience. The molotov’s are also a little awkward to use due to some kinda odd physics that make them slide around the floor well past where you were aiming before exploding. Eventually you get a story centric scythe that's your only real melee option, and this slicer really murders things. It's balanced by the fact that it drains your spellcasting mana while you have it out, sometimes. When I first got it, it only slowed my mana regen down when I was wielding it but then at some point it started draining it instead; not sure when exactly that switch happened or why.
You can find hidden upgrades called amplifiers you can apply to spells to level them up to increase their effectiveness, and after only a few amplifiers they get pretty powerful compared to your guns. You also just get some straight up really powerful spells as well; once you're slinging around exploding laughing skulls with Skull Storm, you get pretty effective at re-killing the undead abominations around you without even firing a shot or throwing a fire bottle. Your spells don't have ammo or cooldowns, but are instead tied to your universal mana pool with each spell requiring so much mana to cast. This means that you're likely going to still be using your guns in-between big spells while you wait for your mana to slowly refill, and this balancing act between the mundane and magical weaponry made for some engaging and dynamic combat. I dare say I was having fun fighting various Irish monsters and skeletons and scimitar wielding vaguely foreign treasure hunters; the best part of Clive Barker's Undying for me was the combat. Just don't use the shotgun. The poor Undying shotgun, it just never stood a chance against a magic ice launching dragon cannon.
The magic is really where Undying is at, and you have a total of eight spells to eventually **** monsters up with once you get your full arsenal. There's some obvious ones of direct usage, like the previously mentioned short range magical bombardment spell Ectoplasm, Skull Storm, a defensive Shield spell that quickly became mandatory to have up at all times, Invoke which can resurrect dead enemies to fight for you in exchange for a lot of mana, Haste which makes you faster and jump farther and entertainingly plays a cheetah roar whenever you jump, but there's some cool funky ones as well.
Some of the outdoor environments can be pretty impressive in their atmosphere.
Scrye is one you start the game with that has a few uses. It's first is highlighting enemies when cast and acting like night vision, but it also has a pretty effect where it can reveal hidden things in the environment. Various spooky writings on the walls or even secret room switches can be revealed if you cast it in a certain spot, or sometimes even special little audio conversations or animations will play if you Scrye in the right place; it's pretty cool little atmospheric stuff.
Monstrous undead Covenant sibling who wants to devour my hunkish flesh? I can fix her.
The game can be fairly hard, especially at the beginning; enemies hit hard, and any time you get melee’d by something your view erratically swings around which can get very disorienting very quickly. It can take a bit of time before you get anything more than the erratic Ectoplasm spell and your pistol to blast away enemies, and ammo in the beginning of the game is scarce. I personally made the mistake of wasting precious pistol ammo on what I discovered were constantly respawning enemies in the first hour or so of the game, meaning for a while I was running around entirely dry trying to kill everything with an un-leveled Ectoplasm. It wasn't the easiest time, until I got the Tibetan ice dragon cannon then all was good again. That thing is sick.
If there's one tip I can give anyone reading this about Undying, it's this; there's always an enemy right behind you. The game absolutely loves to spawn enemies behind you in the middle of fights, and I can’t even tell you how many times I was mid magical slaughter in a hallway encounter only for an enemy to suddenly tickle my kidney from behind. If you're currently alive, there's an enemy behind you. There's always something behind you. Quite a few times I'd be walking through the atmospheric Covenant estate, just to turn around on sheer whim to see a Howler attempting to run up behind me. Remember, there's always something behind you in Clive Barker’s Undying.
The mansion is full of things going bump in the night, and the enemies themselves are satisfyingly ****ed up looking in that ‘flesh monstrosity’ kinda vibe mixed in with some classic ghosts and floating eyeball looking things and mini-Beholders and a few flying wizards. While the game takes place entirely on the mansion grounds, save for a few journeys into an otherworldly dimension, the estate is large enough to cover a few different locales that are varied enough that it doesn't get stale. My favourite section had to be the pirate cave area which is apparently directly beneath the mansion; it's all tight cave hallways and old prison ruins, and I dug annihilating dozens of shotgun wielding pirates with pistol and Ectoplasm in hand. Something pretty impressive is the variety of enemies you encounter; each sort of ‘chapter’ of the game where you chase after and take down another undead Covenant sibling has different enemies than the previous, with a few returning staples throughout such as the leaping Howlers and the weird sand monsters. My favorite enemies? The goddamn skeletons, as of course they're the best.
Just look at these adorable boney guys. Is there a better fantasy enemy than the skeleton? Spooky scary, indeed.
Undying I wouldn't say ever gets ‘scary’, but like Nocturne it has some good atmosphere at play and there is some good tension throughout. It does take itself a little more seriously than Nocturne I think, being less ‘pulpy feeling’ than Terminal Reality’s The Stranger simulator, and in overall presentation it's far more stylized; I like the grimoire look of the menus and their asymmetrical and odd button placements.
There’s still some intensity to the game of course through the combat, but nothing ever made me really unnerved or what I would call spooked, even when I suffered another surprise skeleton standing directly behind me mid ripping-my-heart-out-of-my-chest. It's not a ‘jump scare’ game really, and instead focuses on a spooky mood and concept. In a lot of contemporary previews Undying was being hyped up as ‘the scariest game ever’ for the time which is very entertaining to look back upon, but the game isn't that scary in actuality, in my subjective opinion looking back at a now twenty four year-old Unreal 1 engine game of course. I assume at the time it could have been a more impactful ahh spooky! game. It gets the same scare rating as Dark Corners from me; a 7/10, a solid effort still.
I’m going to need a bigger magical exploding skull.
This would be the part of my review where I talk about some negative parts of the game that I didn't like, so here we go; it's maybe a chapter too long? It took me about 11ish hours, and I think it probably could have been shortened to maybe 9ish and felt right. I don't really have many major complaints with Clive Barker’s Undying, in all honesty. I mentioned before how some of the guns and mundane weapons feel a little weak, which isn't really that big of a deal when your other hand can blast lightning bolts and throw grinning explosive skulls at will, and that's about it. This isn't necessarily a negative considering the era of gaming that Undying belongs to, but the voice acting was pretty hit-and-miss. Patrick Galloway's actor, Kai Vilhelmsen, definitely was slipping the Irish accent here and there and felt at times a little bored; some deliveries felt a little uninspired, even given Patrick's kind of stoic personality. The rest of the actors are entirely forgettable to be honest, but they occasionally give some entertainment value in their cheesy over-played 'monster villain' voices. This was the era before voice acting was a focus of game development of course, but I'd say at times I was taken a little out of the game when Patrick would suddenly not be Irish anymore during a dialogue.
Good job, Undying and by extension DreamWorks Interactive/EA Los Angeles; you have three fairly minor complaints from me.
I’d recommend Undying to anyone for sure, the game was a fun little time. The dual wielding combat felt great and was well executed, the story and setting is solid enough to keep you invested and wanting to bust more ghosts and ungodly amalgamations of flesh against all that is sane, and for the first time in this mini Halloween season review series; there was no jank. The game just worked, and was straight forward. Sorry, Dark Corners of the Earth. It's also the first game in this miniseries that I'd recommend to anyone with no real caveats, though if you're into this era of Unreal-powered single player shooters you'll probably get a little more out of it of course.
Once again, happy Halloween everyone; this was a fun month of ah spooky! games.
Until next time.
Pros
- + Great combat gameplay with the dual-wielding of weapons and spells.
- + Good storyline, setting and concept which adds some immersion.
- + The Unreal engine powers some pretty good environmental lighting and atmosphere.
Cons
- - Slightly too long, with the last chapter feeling like it drags a bit.
- - Most of the 'mundane' weaponry arsenal feels unsatisfying to use, and disappointingly the shotgun is the worst offender.
8
out of 10
Overall
Clive Barker's Undying is a solid and effective single player horror-FPS. It's great and dynamic feeling dual-wielding focused combat creates plenty of tension while you're blasting away at flesh monstrosities and adorable skeletons, and it's solid story keeps you invested as you do so. It's few problems, like some bland voice acting and a few unsatisfying weapons, are outweighed by the other parts of the game, and it's a good fun time overall.
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