Gameplay

Horror Gaming

It's difficult putting into words the experience of Undying. There's elements of a horror novel. As soon as you open the box you'll notice a small journal. It's written by Jeremiah Covenant and it chronicles his family's demise through the years - background information on the family you're about to investigate. There's a lot of text to read in the game, in the form of personal diaries, letters, and notes left by the family. You could get away without reading any of the text, but it adds a lot of depth to the characters and the overall story. I liked the volumes of text a lot, and it convinced me that more good authors should get involved with games.

A sky texture

Bodies leave big blood stains

Undying is also like a horror movie. As noted before, the sound really plays tricks on your mind. Whispers from unseen creatures to the wail of a disembodied head hurling toward you is honestly frightening in this game. Visually the game made me jump out of my seat a few times. A great example that sticks out happens when you're walking through the mansion to the next section. There's a table in front of a mirror with some bullets on it. Everything's quiet, and you haven't seen a monster for a while. When you go to pick up the bullets, you suddenly see a ghost behind you in the mirror. When you flip around to confront the ghost, there's nothing there - besides the sound of maniacal laugher far away.

I wasn't convinced that a game, not to mention one as hackneyed as an FPS, could actually be scary anymore. After playing through Undying, I stand corrected. This game constantly puts you on edge, just like a great horror movie. In fact, Undying had me so wound up that sometimes I had to stop playing it and calm down before I could move on. After I calmed down I smiled and realized that a video game was really freaking me out - that's cool.

Example outdoor environment

You fight humans too

And obviously Undying has elements of a traditional FPS game. First person is the best choice for this game since you really feel like you're in this game. A third-person or overhead action game would have taken away from the horror aspect. It's like watching a horror movie and yelling at the people in it, "Don't go in there!" but this time it's you that's going in the dark hallway without a flashlight in your underwear. Think you could kick Freddy's ass? Then Undying is for you.

Check out the building shadows

Dynomite!

Working through Undying you'll notice that the game is completely linear. This isn't a bad thing though, since it's a lot like reading a book. You don't go from chapter 3 to chapter 20 to chapter 8 if you're reading a book. Non-linear is a big buzzword for video games, but a lot of people lose the point that linearity isn't a sin. It works in Undying.

I also liked the level design in Undying. They captured the feel of a haunted Victorian house (think Disneyland's haunted house on LSD), underground crypts, an ancient abbey, and a nightmarish other world quite well. Everything made sense - if you needed to solve a puzzle to get from point A to B, you could see the general idea of what you had to do to get there.