this game was ♥♥♥♥ wasnt it?

[Jenoh]

NOT talking about Nightdive. Nightdive is amazing.

What im talking about is the Thing game. Like this is a bad game isn't it? Does anyone else remember the spooney review?

[mouse]

It wasnt BAD, but definitely fell off hard about halfway through. Especially when human enemies became prevalent

[Mystic Gremblin]

Wasn't this the game that had tons of Valve Handle sequences and where a person gets randomly assigned as The Thing if you use the test kit on them and also doesn't take scripted transformations in to account so you can scan someone then minutes or even seconds later the game decides they were The Thing the whole time?

[MeltingPotOfFriendship]

Originally posted by mouse:

It wasnt BAD, but definitely fell off hard about halfway through. Especially when human enemies became prevalent

True. That and the og devs had to cut loads of stuff out that they wanted to implement.

[Hans CakeStealer]

I remember renting it twice for my playstation and hitting an absolute wall late in the game with difficulty, or was it lack of bullets? I can't remember

[MeltingPotOfFriendship]

Originally posted by Hans CakeStealer:

I remember renting it twice for my playstation and hitting an absolute wall late in the game with difficulty, or was it lack of bullets? I can't remember

I owned it way back. I always got game over because key quest squaddies kept dying. Game didn't stop itself from rubbing it in by having said squaddie mutate after(which equated to them dying and the game over ofc).

[PJthePlayer]

Definitely disagree. I even replayed it on my Deck a while back because I remembered liking it back in the day.

[RageMojo]

i played this game again less than 3 years ago and it held up. I cant wait to play this updated version.

[evilmark443]

I was very hyped back when the original was about to release, but then once I got my hands on it I was VERY disappointed. I never even bothered to finish it because I hated the gameplay.

[Deformerad Dallarydsbo]

Not bad, not great, got me my dose of digital John Carpenter at the time but yeah.

Not really a good choice for a remaster with the huge backlog that is far less dated gameplay wise, then again you can consider this a form of game preservation so maybe it's not so bad afterall.

[Sono]

idk i always liked it. Does it have jank and the infection system is pretty scripted? Yeah. But alone as a horror game it was still fun. Even fighting against the soldiers, once you learned how to approach that aspect of combat, was fun. Game does a bad job telling you but you can lean around corners left and right in first person mode, which makes you a lot harder to hit (and undetected by turrets, this is how you're supposed to destroy them).

Originally posted by evilmark443:

I was very hyped back when the original was about to release, but then once I got my hands on it I was VERY disappointed. I never even bothered to finish it because I hated the gameplay.

Id say give it another chance, with the remaster or a legacy copy with fan patches applied to get rid of most of the bugs on the old PC version.

[ThornZ]

I believe I read on GOG they said they found a better solution to the infection system for this game since it was broke in the original. Should be a better experience this time.

[MeltingPotOfFriendship]

Originally posted by ThornZ:

I believe I read on GOG they said they found a better solution to the infection system for this game since it was broke in the original. Should be a better experience this time.

The infection system was never fully implemented and had to be staged. The devs confirmed it long ago that they had intended to do it, but couldn't due to limitations on the PS2 and time issues. Instead, your team has scripted "infections" and one, or all will always turn at key points and or level transitions/quest stuff. You can't control it. So either you are pulling stuff out of your rear(you have not cited anything), or "GOG" is lying.

[ThornZ]

Originally posted by Andy Wankski:

Originally posted by ThornZ:

I believe I read on GOG they said they found a better solution to the infection system for this game since it was broke in the original. Should be a better experience this time.

The infection system was never fully implemented and had to be staged. The devs confirmed it long ago that they had intended to do it, but couldn't due to limitations on the PS2 and time issues. Instead, your team has scripted "infections" and one, or all will always turn at key points and or level transitions/quest stuff. You can't control it. So either you are pulling stuff out of your rear(you have not cited anything), or "GOG" is lying.

From GOG forums...

When it comes to classics and their remasters, this one was the most anticipated.

The Thing: Remastered, the 2002 third-person survival horror shooter that serves as a sequel to the genre-defining 1982 film is back, remastered by Nightdive Studios and available on GOG!

We’re thrilled to welcome this amazing addition to our platform! Plus, we had the chance to chat with our friends from Nightdive Studios and ask them some of the questions from our community.

Grab this terrifyingly beautiful remaster, start downloading, and enjoy the interview with Nightdive's Studio Head, Stephen Kick, and Art Lead on The Thing, Joel Welsh, in the meantime!



(Keihltrein) I noticed that there's some quality-of-life improvement to the game, does any of this affect how boss fights are done? Or do some parts of the game have any major changes compared to the original one?

SK: With all our remasters our goal is to deliver the game you remember playing, not necessarily the game you actually played. That means updating and fixing legacy bugs, glitches, and sometimes the gameplay itself if it hasn’t aged as well as other aspects of the game. We’ll touch just about anything that could use some fine-tuning.

(raptorj16) I'm super excited for this Remaster! How much access did the Remaster team have to material from the original developers/the film studio? Was there anything discovered in those materials that enhanced the Remaster?

SK: We had a treasure trove of assets to work with! Out of all the games Nightdive has worked on, The Thing had the biggest archive to go through. Our developers had access to source code, concept art, original models, textures, and design documents. We were also extremely fortunate to have two of the original developers join our team and help guide us in creating the definitive remaster.



(Sargon) First of all, I would like to thank you for remastering The Thing and for bringing it to digital stores. I really did not expect to see this classic for sale ever again, as I was under the impression that film and game studios had little to no interest in re-licensing old video games, based on licensed IPs. You have now rekindled hope for many other video games to see the light of day again.

SK: You’re welcome! I grew up a huge fan of the movie and played the game when it originally came out, so The Thing was always something on my radar after I started Nightdive. We’ve had such a great relationship with Universal Products & Experiences and when the opportunity came up we jumped on it. I believe our love for The Thing will immediately be apparent when people get their hands on the remaster.

(Thanos) Thank you for your work in restoring classic games so that they aren't lost to time and can be experienced by new generations of gamers.

SK: It’s my firm belief that games are art, and if the developers and creators of games want to be in the same conversation such as traditional art, movies, and music we have to do a better job of preserving the seminal works that built the foundations of our medium. I am beyond honored that our partners have trusted us with such important games and it’s my hope that we continue to release long-forgotten classics with the care and attention they deserve.

What aspect of the game did you have to change most heavily, and what was almost perfect as it was in the original game?

JW: The aspects we changed most heavily were environments, gameplay, and AI. The setting of a US Army Special Forces team sent in to investigate the aftermath was really well done, along with original locations like the UFO dome in mid-construction and lab at the end.

Were you able to restore any content cut from the original game such as creatures or extra game areas?

JW: We restored as much cut content as possible through environmental storytelling. For instance, the exterior of the weather station was a lot more detailed. Same for the US and Norwegian camps. Movie set designs influenced those as well. The game was initially open-world and featured different locations like the UFO interior, Navy ship, and desert town.

It was an entirely different experience on paper, but we did what we could with design docs and concept art by borrowing anything cut late in development that wouldn't conflict with the established setting. For enemies, we had access to several models and textures that were much better than previous retail versions. We also updated a few that Ron Ashtini dubbed "Jam Monsters". For example, the Drag Walker in the opening movie.



(Berzerk2k2) The Thing (hahaha) I want to know is if you have improved the whole "your teammate can be infected" mechanic in the game and if you have, it would be interesting to know what has been done.

JW: We'll say this much... When you administer the blood screening device (Artwork's version of MacReady's blood test) to your teammate in the remaster, the result won't come back negative if they've been infected. From day 1, Mark Atkinson, one of the original devs who worked with Nightdive, dubbed it a major fan complaint and found a great solution.

(Angelblue) I'm delighted to see the return of this great forgotten game. I have a question about a game mechanic that, at the time, looked promising but, in the end, perhaps didn't work as well as hoped:

I'm talking about what I call the “everyone is a potential enemy” mechanic, with the trust and sanity of our allies to manage. That an ally can become an enemy at any moment. This mechanic was very promising, but in the end, it didn't work as well as we'd hoped (the original studio certainly couldn't go through with it, due to lack of resources). Did you leave these gameplay elements as they were, or were you able to improve them?

JW: The dynamic infection system was explored more by Artworks in the canceled sequel that Ron directed. For the remaster, we adjusted the squad mechanic to make it more user-friendly and improved the AI. Ron also redrew the icons so they're easier to understand. On that note, it was pretty advanced for the era - did you know that you can point your gun at your teammate's head and get a reaction? They also urinate and defecate on themselves, and vomit under stress.

I've always found this mechanic very promising for future horror games. And I regret that I haven't seen other studios use an improved version of this mechanic. If this gameplay element couldn't be improved for the remaster. Did you at least learn something important about this gameplay element that will be useful for other games? Perhaps for a remake if the remaster is a success?

SK: I guess we’ll see how well The Thing Remaster is received and we’ll see!



(Angelblue) What was the most difficult thing that had to be done on the remaster?

JW: By all accounts, the code was extremely complicated compared to previous Nightdive titles. As usual, Kaiser and the KEX team found a way to make it all work, with Mark and Ron providing invaluable support along the way.

[🆂🅾🅻🅸🅳🆄🆂 🆂🅽🅰🅺🅴]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2958970/discussions/0/4634861354807730150/

Someone overlooked my thread where I mentioned the Spooney review. But yes, I can't believe they would choose to remaster this and not REMAKE it. We get remakes of good games like RE4 and SH2, which didn't need remakes, but something like this that clearly deserves a proper remake. Nope.

[MeltingPotOfFriendship]

Originally posted by 🆂🅾🅻🅸🅳🆄🆂 🆂🅽🅰🅺🅴:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2958970/discussions/0/4634861354807730150/

Someone overlooked my thread where I mentioned the Spooney review. But yes, I can't believe they would choose to remaster this and not REMAKE it. We get remakes of good games like RE4 and SH2, which didn't need remakes, but something like this that clearly deserves a proper remake. Nope.

A remake would be neat. But with the way #CURRENTYEAR devs/pubs behave, would you even WANT them to? They'd make Blake a "diversity" hire who won't use those icky guns because they "trigger" her and isn't even a soldier, but an archaeologist, and everyone in the squad will be nothing but white men who will die quickly so that she can say that she survived the horror of X-ism!

I kid but we all know that remasters of old games/IP's can be hit or miss. Also Spoony? That's a name I haven't heard of since forever! Didn't he contract TDS and has been unhinged on Xwitter tweeting as his dead dog and crying about it or something?

EDIT: OMFG, I just noticed, he STOPPED posting on Xwitter and updated his Xwitter to link it to the Bluesky echo chamber(he made a post there a day ago)! And his posts are beyond unhinged and of course, is in full support of #CURRENTTHING! I can't decide if this is funny, sad, or both.