The Thing: Remastered

If you’re reading this and thinking ‘Gee, that sure doesn’t sound like a particularly great game’, well, you’re right, it’s kind of not. The Thing: Remastered so gloriously channels the vibe of something you’d rent from the video store on a Friday night and binge across the weekend that I can’t help but love it anyway. Level layouts are often uninspiring, what few puzzles there are tend to be mildly annoying in their design, companion and enemy A.I. alike are completely wretched, and from start to finish it filled me with childlike delight in a way that no new game has in years. I’ve always had a soft spot for earnest B games, and The Thing: Remastered is the most earnest B one I’ve played in a long time.

The Thing Remastered is a solid operation that brings attention to a game that, already upon its release, had truly cutting-edge mechanics and solutions. Great to play again today.

The Thing was worth playing in 2002 and it still holds up today with all the convenient bells and whistles included in this faithful remaster.

Nightdive has simply made it look nicer on modern screens, run at approximately a bajillion frames per second, and updated the controls so they don’t make the modern player’s brain fall out of their head. Lovely stuff. I hope Nightdive keeps wearing other game studios’ skins.

Nightdive Studios has tackled this 2002 classic as its latest effort in games restoration and preservation, but more than that, the team actually fixed issues that held this game back when it was first released, making it arguably one of the most fascinating Nightdive remasters yet.

Nightdive has once again remastered one of the unforgettable classics with great care. The new textures, lighting, shadows, and interface conveniences have technically elevated the game a few notches. However, the shortcomings in gameplay remain unchanged.

Out of time? Maybe, but The Thing: Remastered maintains excellent tension at times, and team management, though not always focused, is an added value that should be noticed in a game like this.

It works as it should, which is always a plus (even if it’s a little baffling at times), and I have no doubt that if you sank a half-dozen hours or so into the game back in 2002, you should find that the game is probably the same now as it was then. I think that if you don’t have that sense of nostalgia you’ll probably find the game a little lacking, but as PS2 remasters go, you could probably do a lot worse.

The Thing: Remastered is a weird nostalgia trip that is fairly dated, but remains compelling enough to see through to credits.

Ultimately, The Thing: Remastered is mostly successful in recapturing the essence of the film, but it just didn’t give me good reasons to care about the characters, nor did it offer gameplay that was engaging enough for me to want to spend more time in such a dreary world without Kurt Russell there to fire things up. Even after being remastered, The Thing may have been better off left in the ice.

Technically great upgrade of an average action game.

I have fond memories of playing The Thing back in 2002 because there wasn't anything else quite like it. It was inventive and exciting, and even today, no one else is trying to do what Computer Artworks attempted in the single-player space. I commend the studio for what it achieved, but the limitations of the technology--and its design constraints--are much more apparent now, even with nostalgia-tinted glasses on. Nightdive has done a fantastic job of restoring this flawed but intriguing game, continuing its crucial work with game preservation. All of the changes it's made are positive, resulting in a better game, both visually and mechanically. Nonetheless, this is a case where a complete remake would've been much more appealing, allowing for the trust and fear system to be fleshed out with less rigidity and more dynamism. As it is, Computer Artworks' vision might never be fully realized, and that's a shame.

The Thing: Remastered, like the original, tries as hard as it can to be like a good game. Do not believe it.

Part of me wishes their effort was spent on a better game, but the other part is happy that I got to experience the absolute mess that is The Thing. I know it sounds weird to hear, “This is a mess; you should totally check it out,” but that’s what I’m saying. The Thing is a fascinating cluster of missteps, and a completely unconvincing facsimile of its source material. But it’s hard to look away when it turns itself inside out.