Clive Barker's Undying - Far From Dead

[StewShearerOld]

Clive Barker's Undying - Far From Dead

First person shooter month comes to an end with 2001's paranormal shooter Undying. Written in cooperation with author Clive Barker it drops the player into a dark mystery where they'll need to use brains, magic and bullets to solve the mysteries surrounding a family curse.

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[BloodRed Pixel]

The last world of the game loses quite a bit on scare-factor by becoming more like 'Indie Jones / Quatrtermain'-looking but the rest leading towards it was a real pants browner back then and sometimes frakking hard.
A slightly flawed classic.

 

[Ml33tninja]

Loved it, when it was new. It definitely felt like a scary game at the time, but it doesn't age well.

The last world of the game loses quite a bit on scare-factor by becoming more like 'Indie Jones / Quatrtermain'-looking but the rest leading towards it was a real pants browner back then and sometimes frakking hard.
A slightly flawed classic.

Hear, hear, well said.

As someone who bought the game last year I feel it aged very well. Some of the flaws could be seen more to how limited games were back then. From start to finish I could hardly stop playing until I finished it. Some many things in this older shooter that I loved than many of the newer FPS. And a decent story to boot.(man felt like crap when taking down the Covenant clan one of the raw deals in gaming)

 

[Rad Party God]

You can actually reload your weapons pressing ALT. Wierd, I know.

YES!, this game deserves all the attention it can get, this is one of the few games that captures that feeling of uneasiness that Eternal Darkness (and horror games of yore) provided, also the story isn't too shaby either, although I agree it can get a bit tedious at times (like when you get your Ice Dragon thingy) and the misplaced Loading screens are more inherent of it's engine limitations, but overall it's pretty fantastic.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Loved it, when it was new. It definitely felt like a scary game at the time, but it doesn't age well.

This is more or less my reaction, especially with the visuals. It's hard to take anything in the game seriously when the graphics look so terrible. I get the same reaction from most of the horror games of that time, since they're not realistic looking enough to be scary nor are they poor enough that it actually helps the scary atmosphere, like Silent Hill 1. The incredibly cheesy voice acting doesn't help matters either.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Ah..Undying, the game that traumatized and scarred me when I was young and made me swear off horror first person shooters forever.

Thanks for that, Clive Barker.

 

[Kajin]

One of the best games ever, or at least one of the only games I go back to and play again every so often. Loved it as a kid when my father bought it (to play himself, but I played it too). Love it as an adult, too. The graphics are a bit dated but it's aged remarkably gracefully in comparison to almost every other game from that era.

 

[StewShearerOld]

You can actually reload your weapons pressing ALT. Wierd, I know.

YES!, this game deserves all the attention it can get, this is one of the few games that captures that feeling of uneasiness that Eternal Darkness (and horror games of yore) provided, also the story isn't too shaby either, although I agree it can get a bit tedious at times (like when you get your Ice Dragon thingy) and the misplaced Loading screens are more inherent of it's engine limitations, but overall it's pretty fantastic.

Thanks for letting me know this! When I couldn't find the reload button I checked over the key bindings in the control options and didn't associate "weapon action" with "reload." It's also no wonder that my Google searches didn't turn up much, lol. I feel a bit silly now for playing the game that way, but thankfully it was still a lot of fun! I have made some adjustments to the review to be a bit more accurate, though.

Thanks again!

 

[Rad Party God]

Thanks again!

You're welcome! ^.^

I don't remember how I discovered you can actually reload your weapons, I think it was in the demo, I played it on my old laptop like 8 years ago and I think I pressed ALT by mistake (I didn't used to Alt+Tab as much as I do nowadays) and voilá, my revolver reloaded.

But yeah, "weapon action" instead of "reloading" is kinda wierd, even back then when the mechanic was already standard for most shooters.

 

[Airon]

Ah, what a great game this was.

Great story. Before everything twists and turns it's a great buddy tale.
Good exploration that didn't lead you on like a child and made it slightly harder to find stuff.

Nice weapons. Great monsters that scared the living daylights out of me back then. It also ran really well on my machine.

And great audio. Everyone did a fine job on this. The game oozes atmosphere, though by now the graphical environments are considered a little sparse.

And if anyone's scared by this game, you should read some of his books. The books of blood series in particular is one giant scaretrain. He's the man that wrote and directed Hellraiser, one of the nastiest films I ever saw. Almost Day of The Dead nasty.

 

[Rad Party God]

And if anyone's scared by this game, you should read some of his books. The books of blood series in particular is one giant scaretrain. He's the man that wrote and directed Hellraiser, one of the nastiest films I ever saw. Almost Day of The Dead nasty.

Actually, this is my first exposure to Clive Barker, I thought he was just another "celebrity programmer" like American McGee or Sid Meier who likes to slap their names on their games, but after I found out he really was a writer and film director, I was like "wow, it really shows", I saw Hellraiser and he definitely knows his horror stuff

 

[antidonkey]

The thing that really stood out for me with this game is you don't fight the boss until around the 70% complete mark. That's pretty unusual. I have many fond memories playing this thing. Shame about the final boss. It's definitely a let down.