Clive Barker's Undying

This game is still amazing, after all these years. It deserved a spiritual sequel, that I hoped Clive Barker's Jericho would be, but, alas, while the characters were good, it had none of this one's finesse. The world building and the attention to detail are extraordinary, as are the powers. I can still remember how hilarious the laughing skulls were, and how I jumped when the Tibetan war cannon started moving. I couldn't even finish the game the first time, I was so scared. Years later, when I approached it again, I found that the scare factor dies down a bit by the last third of the game, when you get to the human enemies. Then, Eternal Autumn, while a very cool name, proved to be a bit of a let down. Still, it can't shake my absolute adoration for Lisbeth, her eldest brother, and the damn scrying.

This is one of the best, most imaginative, and downright exceptional Horror shooters I have ever played. It's the first FPS I know of to dual-wield weapons and magic. The ability that allows you to see ghosts and the supernatural is nothing short of brilliant bridging the gap of experiencing the story rather than just being told it. Skinless ghosts chase you, tentacled monstrosities warp in from other dimensions, you do battle with a pirate king and his crew, packs of wolf creatures prowl every corridor, and all in a big scary mansion. Did I mention the main boss is basically Hastur? The game has literally everything you could want as a fantasy horror fan. By the time you're in a Yithian floating city wielding a cursed Celtic scythe (which you got through time travel) having an aerial battle with Mad Arab Alhazred you will have been glad to have bought this game.

This is one of the most, or maybe THE most scariest game I`ve ever played. At that time it was definitely one real horror, added with great atmosphere and masterpiece of a story. If you are a horror game fan, this game is definitely for you

Clive Barker's Undying is clearly done by taking Barker's story and heavily padding it out with repetitive FPS sequences. You do not realize this from the demo that condenses a lot of things. The reason the rating is not lower is because all FPS games at the time featured repetitive single player modes, even the acclaimed Half-Life. That was because they were simply following the Quake II formula that had no story and a lot of texture recycling, maxing out the repetitive feel. It does not help that Undying's enemy encounters involve hard-to-hit enemies that usually attack from blind spots such as above and behind. With you constantly guarding your back, there is very little immersion and the game feels boring. I get the feeling Undying was a promotion project for some EA executives based on how lifeless and unfun the game feels most of the playthrough. There is very little Barker content among all of the padding. Also, the game fails at show-don't-tell rule and expects you to read filler text entries in a FPS game. Having played the demo, the full game is a major disappointment due to the lack of content.

Played as a child and decided to revisit the game, glad I did. The moments which spooked me as a kid was quite laughable, especially since it was basically the comic relief character who startled my trousers back then. Of course with my now years of hardened gaming eliteness, hardest difficulty was a must. The beginning had a unique horror atmosphere as you take unexplored hallways and corridors, which is easily one of the best highlights of the game early on, and in general. The story starts to slowly pick up and you notice the pathing with the now same hallways are reused quite a bit, that special uniqueness fades over time. Afterwards the game takes a dive into new themes, keeping you refreshed and interested enough to carry out the story, not to mention Lizbeth. Slightly after getting the meele-god build weapon, the game starts to actually get boring, since you're basically dungeon crawling for quite some time, until you meet Lizbeth again. You get a new spell which made me rethink the entire mechanic system of the game and to be truth, it challenges that of even current games. The amount of min-maxing and APM'ing with your abilities sky rockets the game to new, interesting heights which you never expected, and that's the thing, the game keeps on delivering things you just don't expect for it's time, including the lighthouse area with a certain character interaction which was surprising. You have a ball for a few more hours, climb the story, intrigued, then something weird happens. Cave men. The game becomes weird, like Alice in Wonderland weird, but in a bad way. Until this point I was 100% item pickup, achievement god...now I literally had no interest other than completing the longer than expected campaign. It delivers well in the end. My main question, why hasn't the game been remade. It could sersiously be something.