Clive Barker's Undying

Do not save progress game!!! 10 days and all progress are erased!!!

As someone playing this in 2025, this is my unfettered view of this title. I went in knowing full well there would be technical issues to sort out, but thankfully there wasn't much. Aside from a widescreen fix I had to install, the game ran pretty well for the most part. I remember hearing about this one a while back. As a kid I would hear things about how this game was heralded as one of the most horrifying games ever made. Playing it now, I wonder how even back then people would say this. While there is a copious amount of blood and gore, the actual horror in this game is distilled by goofy animations and plentiful humorous moments. Not one time was I truly frightened by this game, and I don't think it was really intended to lean more towards horror. That all being said, here's some quick pros and cons. Pros: + I respect the amount of detail in the animations as well as the dedication to keeping all the game's cutscenes in-game rather than in pre-rendered cutscenes. + The atmosphere is unique, blending different environments so nothing got terribly boring. + For the most part, the game does a good job leading you the right way. There is no map given, but most doors are locked so you can recognize the ones you can actually interact with. I only had trouble in the past monastery, not knowing you had to jump through the window and climb the rooftops. + Weapons are quite satisfying, and all the dismemberment was a pleasant surprise (namely with the scythe). + Most of the voice acting is very good, as well as music, ambient, and sounds. + Haste spell. Cons: - Volume mixing is a mess. Some voiceovers are very quiet, then loud, and music is directional, meaning you can turn your view around and hear music coming from a certain direction rather than all around you. - Once you get a lot of weapons and spells, going back and forth between them is a pain. The selection wheel is not the most responsive, and overall the UI isn't intuitive. - Getting hit by enemies results in your view being punched so hard, you turn in a 90 degree angle. There's a bird enemy towards the end that makes your camera swivel back and forth to such an extreme amount that it's enough to make one sick. - Enemies track your movements to such a degree that it would make Dark Souls 2 enemies blush. - No reload key, forcing you to release your last two bullets so you aren't stuck in a long reload animation while getting shot for 50% of your health. - I encountered a bug that almost costed me my entire run: when you get the Phoenix (awful weapon btw), there are double doors that are meant to open, but it didn't work for me the first time. Thankfully, dying on purpose put me back at the start of that area, so I could do it over again. - Disappointed by the horror aspect. Many people were shaping this up like a truly horrific experience and how it "changed them" in some way, but it fell flat, being mixed in too much with comedy. - The first segment with going after Lizbeth was insanely long compared to the other members of the Covenant family. - Inconsistency with difficulty. Most of the boss fights are over before you can blink, but the final boss took 5 minutes of doing the same thing over and over again. It wasn't hard, but the health pool that it had was insanely huge compared to others. Some enemies would also do a ton more damage than others, like the cavemen snipers. - Story was nothing special. It was serviceable for a horror title, but again, people were hyping it up like the second coming. I give the game a solid 6/10. You aren't missing much compared to other games of its time if you skip this one.

Pros: - The atmosphere and creativity are all through the roof with this game - Monster design is top notch, as is the story. - Has an inverse difficulty curve. Near the end of the game, you feel very powerful and capable of tackling what the game throws at you. - Great variety of weapons, spells, and equipment. Cons: - Has an inverse difficulty curve. At the begging of the game, you're going to just scrape by with health packs and ammo. - Some of the game mechanics/design could have used more refinement. The standard Howler enemies are hard enough to hit, but if they hit you they'll cause your camera to jerk violently in a direction that is very disorienting. - The game needed to either slow down or pause combat while using the quick wheels. The lack of this leads to frustration in the game. Random thoughts: - I liked the area with the cavemen like enemies. Overall, glad I finally played and beat the game. Worh the time and punishment to see through to the end.

Fun 10 - 12 hour shooter with great atmosphere and level design, ending does seem a bit rushed and the final boss takes way too long to die to the point I thought the game was bugged... but still worth playing

Had some issues to get the game running properly. Installed a widescreen patch and had issues with freezes on alt-tabs. Could not find a fix, ever fiddled with lots of differend DxWnd configs but nothing solved it and had to play without alt-tabbing without a save. The game itself is amazing. A nice blend of horror, weapons and magic.