Clive Barker's Undying

I first played this game back in 2001. I still own it on CDROM. It takes a lot of effort to get it running properly. You need to run it as administrator, with fullscreen optimisations disabled. It's also worth noting that the game will not launch if you have your Windows multi-monitor set to "Duplicate These Displays". The game is a classic and worth the extra effort.

Average

Though the game was released in 2001 and is based on the original Unreal engine, it somehow looks more primitive than Unreal. It tries to create atmosphere and tell a story, but I think Unreal had more story and atmosphere. The story in Unreal was clear and simple. Undying is vague--something about a family curse changing each person into a monster, and it has something to do with bringing back some demon king, but what does that have to do with the curse and this family changing into demonic monsters? Why did each member of the family transform in the first place?! Even after reading the journal entries, I have no clue how it all fits together. It ambitiously uses human sprites in cutscenes, and this is something the first Unreal didn’t try. For good reason; polygon count is too low to make even stylized humans believable. Only the cutscene before the final boss feels cinematic and engaging, and that’s because it doesn’t focus on the human faces all the time. My biggest complaint is the level design. Loading screen every third door! Unreal’s levels were huge, so why are the maps in this game so small? In Unreal, it’s always clear where you need to go, why you need to go there, or pull that lever, or flip that switch. In Undying, it’s almost never clear why you’re going this direction or doing that. Each level is confusing, not intuitive. Ditto for the controls and the boss fights. The art looks primitive in a way the original Unreal does not. This is not a limit of the engine. I think it’s just the development team not knowing how to use the engine to its fullest potential. And the final boss... The all-powerful demon king is an immobile bug who is defeated by explosives? What a lame finale. (Brownie points: the mirrors in this game actually work! Even Doom 2016 doesn’t do that!)

Paid a couple bucks for this game and wow am I impressed. The level design and writing is fantastic. Cosmic Terror and Different realms occupy the house and it honestly has very Bioshock vibes just with a better story and writing. How this game isn't ranked as one of the best FPS games of all time idk. It has really impressed me.

Game style is dated but the story is still great and the vibe is creepy.