My godbrother introduced this game to me long after its release. I was getting into H.P. Lovecraft for the first time, and when i playing around with Lovecraftian-veined horror ideas, and told me about Cosmic Horror (the genre which this game and Lovecraft fell into). He then told me about this game, and I was instantly intrigued. I never read Clive Barker, nor did I know that he was responsible for horror films like Hellraiser or Candyman, but I definitely want to read his books thanks to this game.

First of all, what makes this awesome is the setup. It's set in the early 20s, the main character is an Irish WWI Veteran turned swashbuckling Occult investigator due to a run in with a cult during the war, and the whole game is set in an enormous Edwardian mansion on the English (or Irish?) coast. The first enemies, the Howlers, are like a grotesque cross between wolves and apes, and kicking their ass after being threatened by the malevolent undead entities of Jeremy's siblings makes me feel cool. When I get more powerful, and finally decapitate the siblings after giving me such a hard time, I feel like I'm nearly powerful enough to fight all the forces of darkness... Well, right up until I got to the twist ending.

Secondly, its gradual change of the horror tone. At the beginning, the tone is that of Edgar Allen Poe meets W.W. Jacobs meets Wuthering Heights meets Bood 1 meets the French film of Beauty and the Beast meets slasher horror. Then, gradually, the game turns into H.P. Lovecraft meets Celtic Lore meets Indiana Jones meets Ghostbusters meets Half-Life meets Jedi Knight meets Hexen II meets Arkham Asylum (the graphic novel). Then it becomes Turok: Dinosaur Hunter meets Unreal 1 meets Poison Ivy, and then it reverts right back to the Lovecraft meets Celtic lore. On the whole, the game is totally the prodigal child of Unreal 1, from its vast and explorable environments, small RPG elements, the relentless and "unreal" behavior of the enemies, its fast-paced and intense gameplay, everything. The Unreal Engine and Clive Barker's writing go well together, and the developers totally succeeded in turning Clive Barker's story into a game which compliments a whole array of favorite games.

Thirdly, the twists and turns in the story. The Trsanti were a cool inclusion, I think of them as being a cross between the grunts from Half-Life and WWI era Middle-Eastern warriors. I wish I knew more about the origins of the Trsanti, and which specific ties to the occult they have. I'm wondering if they were inspired by Abdul Alhazred, the Arabian writer of the Necronomicon. The inclusion of Oneiros, a dimension similar to the ones which Lovecraft and King wrote about in their works, feels totally like a Lovecraftian homage to Xen from Half-Life 1 and the Gateway to Na Pali from Unreal 1. Having the vulture creatures thank me after getting rid of Otto the jerk of a dark magician was a really interesting moment. When i got to the Eternal Autumn, I felt like that was a cool way to go even deeper with the cosmic aspect of the horror. Going to another dimension with Neanderthals and ground-hopping piranhas who worship a levitating, decaying Poison Ivy like being? It felt like something straight out of Turok (and maybe Turok 2), though the layout of the levels and the pottery containing items were totally something akin to Na Pali from Unreal 1. And the going back in time to a medieval Celtic monastery to get the scythe was a great breather. There were no scares, I fought against warrior Catholic monks, and I was treated to a beautiful snowy night accompanied with Gregorian chants. The level had a Thief and Hexen II aspect to it, and I just loved it once I got that wonderful (if evil) scythe. And the boss fights: even though they turned out to be easy once you knew what to do, they were well done, well animated, scary, tense, and cathartic battles. Not since Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight did I have the pleasure of having those kinds of dramatic boss fights, and Undying improves on the dramatic boss fights which Jedi Knight was good at.

In the end, I probably wished that it incorporated some gameplay and nonlinearity from Deus Ex 1 or more unscripted interactivity like in Half-Life 1, but I still find this game to be so awesome. The animations are top notch, the gameplay takes the best elements from Unreal and Half-Life and enhances them to the max, the environments and levels are beautiful and vast, the enemies are plentiful in variety, the weapons and spells are great, and the story is freaking awesome. This succeeds in the kind of horror, both in terms of gameplay, experience, and writing which other horror games miss. Doom 3 and Blood 2 come to mind. If Blood ever got remade or had a sequel, I would definitely use this as a template for how to enhance its story, horror tone, and gameplay. I say the same for Doom. This game definitely deserves a sequel, but I think it should be done with Undying's original engine, not with anything newer. Newer engines are capable of bigger, but the games developed for them have smaller levels and restricted design. I think that it should keep with the Unreal Tournament engine, give it a facelift, and take Undying to a level akin to The Nameless Mod. This game deserves an epic modifcation.

After playing this game, I so want to meet with Clive Barker at some point in my life.

If you are keen on starting in on his books, I'd recommend Imajica. I can see Undying fitting in very nicely within the Dominion background Barker outlines there.

Your enthusiasm is infectious, now I have to push this game up the list of games to play this year.

However, your idea about game engines is quite flawed. If anything, modern game engines are far less restrictive than older ones. The problem with modern games has more to do with bad design than it has to do with technical limitations. Only a few studios are given the privilege of working on a game for more than three years while most AAA games are churned out with unforgiving deadlines. Making beautiful levels is artistry and can be done fairly fast, but DESIGNING levels is pure and hard craftsmanship where ideas must go through a rotation of prototyping and testing several times until you have achieved the kind of gameplay you set out to create, and only then can you start with the real artistry and make it look like a real place. We're talking months of work only to lay out the design for something that will take the player 30 minutes to shoot their way through.

Modern games oftent have small levels, but not because the graphics are too resource heavy or because the graphics engines can't render large levels (quite the opposite, older game engines tended to break regardless of how much computing power you had available). They tend to be small (and singleplayer campaigns being pitifully short) because very few studios are allowed to spend some 5-6 years designing and perfecting their games and so have to cut corners hoping that you can pretend two catwalks connecting a bar with a gunshop is enough to represent the downtown area of nameless dystopian city #56..

Good post, Sufyan. I agree.

You have a very good point, Sufyan.

It's true that modern engines could do more than past engines, and the fault modern games is mainly to do with uninspired design.

Which is all the more reason why the modders should develop games on modern engines, because they know how to get it right.

Still, I would like to see some mods for Undying, and see what they can do.

http://jonhunt.com/undying2/

Another problem with modern games being pushed out the door so quickly is that there is no time or interest in building a Software Developers Kit (SDK) for modders to actually create substantial mods. There is no obvious monetary incentive for publishers to allow studios time and money to make their games mod friendly. Also, because of how techincally advanced game engines have become in the past few years, creating quality content is no longer as easy as it was in the early 2000's. Most people can learn to model with polygons and simple 2d textures and for many years this is what constituted 3D game graphics. Creating normal maps, programming shaders and complex character rigs is quite a step up and more demanding what an online based international mod team can reasonably put together in less than 5 years and projects rarely hold together that long when the work force is mostly working at night after their regular work and family life is over for the day.

Creating games has always been 100-200% hour work days. Now, modders face similar difficulties and skill requirements.

I thought about creating a new thread but since the OP attacked most of the aspects of this game I might as well post here. I agree most of what the OP said.

One thing that I haven't seen others write about is the sibil rivarly in the Covenant family. Just impeccable and watching them interact either with just Patrick or with another one of them in a journal was very interesting.

The horror atmosphere was lost one me 2 times during the game, once after the first boss is killed and the second when you retrieve the Scythe but I didn't lose motivation to play, it just changed the nature of the game and in retrospect that was actually a wise choice; you can't keep a horror game scary all the way through with a formula so mixing it up is good.

A couple of questions in case anyone remember. Was there a journal that explained anything regarding Otto Keisinger? Even Jeremiah and Bethany was somewhat cautious when it came to him, possibly because they had no idea of what the hell is agenda was. There was a letter from him written to Bethany that boasted Otto coming from the ancient city that Oneior was supposed to represent which I thought was interesting but nothing more on that.

What exactly did the monks do with that guy when they buried him at the standing stones? Was it a ritual to keep that hidden creature or power at bay? During that cutscene it said 791 BC yet when you read about monks in hunt for the Scythe they mentioned they have been guarding a hidden power only for 200 years between 1031 to 1231 AD.

In the end credits, Patrick said "Joe" and I thought Joseph, the father in the Covenant family, but was that true or some other person? I really enjoyed the reference that at the end he heard about other hidden powers all over the world, the possibility for a sequel yet there was not really a need of one.

I loved Barker ever since Hellbound Heart, and this game just fits perfectly into his world of writing. Its probably one of my favourite games . But where it excells is atmosphere. Its just so TENSE. Everything is great and i hope one day Barker would actually release a Undying book series.

Indeed. I can't wait to replay it in perhaps 3 years or more perhaps.

Did you read Imajica? I started to read it because DustyStyx recommended it but there's a heavy focus on a love story and frankly, I'm not particularly interested in one after expecting it to be weird, atmospheric and full of mysteries like Undying. Granted, I'm still in the beginning.

I did, but to be honest it was not very interesting to me. I like the book but it just wasnt for me. I got lost man times and unlike Hellbound Heart that gripped me and held me on the edge of my toes until the end, Imajica did not. Still an amazing book though. I also suggest Barkers books: Cabal, Books of Blood.

He is an amazing writer

Thanks, I'll check out the others and leave Imajica on a set-aside list.

You know. I know many people that consider Imajica the magnus opus of Barker (even Barker himself), but i guess every person has a certain taste that they look for in a game. So if anyone else is reading this: Go read Imajica, you never know it might be the best book you have ever read in your life :)

Unfortunately, the books in my native Polish translations are not very good. However, the game is incredibly horrifying and is one of the few "play alone at night" titles.

IIRC, from what I've read, Clive Barker was attached to the game relatively late in the piece, and worked as a consultant (more an editor than an author) to help improve the story and characters. The game was undoubtedly better for his involvement, but at the same time I don't think that very many aspects were radically changed from what was already in place beforehand.

The title "Clive Barker's Undying" was certainly a marketing tactic.