Clive Barker's Undying

The raving ratings here made me expect something beyond special, which is probably why I only end up giving the game 4 and not 5 stars. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly a very good game with some novel ideas, decent storyline, and the first half or so has an amazing atmosphere to it. Each and every monster can easily kill you if you're not careful, you never know what you'll find around the next corner, and the first boss is just plain scary. Occasionally the game really had me almost jump out of my chair, and that's something that hasn't happened to me since I first played Aliens vs. Predator. Unfortunately once the you get past the first stages, I found the game suddenly didn't have much to offer any more. *Minor spoiler ahead* Once you acquire the shield spell, suddenly even the fiercest enemy that ambushes you ends up doing no damage, leaving it at your leisure to shoot it, decapitate it, or blast it into oblivion, and you just end up barging through the levels, no longer worrying about that dark corner, or that strange sound, massacring enemies left and right, which obviously completely kills the atmosphere. With that said, is the game still worth it? Absolutely! Go and try it for yourself.

5/5

Horror games were still rare in 2001 and Undying delivered a great experience back in the day. Your journey on an remote Irish island brings you to a haunted mansion, its garden, catacombs, ancient ruins and even another dimension. The gameplay is fluent and streight forward. It's always fun replaying the story. Clive Barker's style is written all over the places. If you like his books you'll love this game. At the end you can even experience some Lovecraftian horror in this FPS masterpiece. Technically it's based on the first Unreal engine and therefor has some strange flaws like kind of glossy and polished looking textures which is weird for this gothic style setting. And the viewing angles sometimes stretch figures oddly. Maybe Quake 3 engine would have suited the game better. The GoG Version unfortunately is poorly adapted to modern systems. When a clean installation and start from GoG Galaxy the version looks pretty much like back in the day. In the in game setup you only have a few 4:3 resolutions to choose from. In the folder you find nGlide 3dFX wrapper to change the resolution. During the game I experienced some minor graphic glitches. Go to the forums and get the fan made patches for better textures, gameplay tweaks and widescreen support.

This is the first FPS I've ever played, back in 2001. And a horror one too. It's got a simple story (but with a major twist just before the end), solid and fast progressing gameplay, many innovative weapons, differing environments that match with the setting, and boss battles. Around 15 hours for a playthrough. I liked the protagonist Patrick Galloway, how he remained calm throughout all the horrors he had to face. Too bad we didn't get a sequel or another horror game with him as the protagonist.

I would have loved to experience this on release. The dated graphics take NOTHING away from this game. Well worth the price even if it's not on sale.