Clive Barker's The Undying

That's it! I've had it! No more Undying. I simply can not take any more. It's not that I'm sick of the game or that the game is particularly awful, I'm calling this one for mental health reasons. I just saw some lights outside that I thought were LED flashlights or headlamps. Now, normally, I would dismiss such illogical fears, but since I've been playing a game where I'm constantly on edge for the sound of DEMONS FROM FUCKING HELL DROPPING FROM THE CEILING AND LEAPING TEN METERS TO KILL AND DECAPITATE ME, it didn't seem so unreasonable. So, instead of dismissing those fears and going on with my life, I grabbed my billy club from where it lay beside me and moved somewhere else in the house so the ROBOT ASSASSIN FROM THE FUTURE WOULDN'T PUT A SPEAR GUN THROUGH MY HEART AND BAY WINDOW.

Yes, I really have been keeping a billy club handy, it was recently presented to me by my grandfather, as it was made by his father-in-law. It is a beautiful, dark wood with a brilliant, shining varnish and is perfectly WEIGHTED TO DROP THE MOTHERFUCKING DEMON CREEPING AROUND MY COMPOST HEAP.

Yes, the game is a somewhat scary and the little references to religion and divinity to augment the potency of the terror, but let's not give too much credit to Clive Barker. I am also just an enormous pussy. I'm not talking Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead sort of thing. I mean, Half-life 2 scared me. Fuck, if Katamari Damacy had a zombie level, that would have scared the piss out of me too.

So, no, let's not give it all to Clive, I mean, I'm living in a big house by myself with a high-strung cat who that takes high speed circuits around the living room, pausing only to freeze inexplicably, tighten every muscle in his little body and stare out the window into the darkness. Is he just being a cat? Or is he alert to the FUCKING BODYSNATCHER THAT'S SECONDS FROM SMASHING THROUGH MY WINDOW AND UNLEASHING UNFORGIVING HELL ON ME!?

Or a burglar. I'm concerned its a burglar.

So Clive (whoever the fuck that guy is) had some help from context.

I'd like to give a succinct description of the plot but the opening cut-scene is so densely packed full of exposition that any attempt to wrap it up any tighter would create a super-dense mass that could puncture space time. In the span of 3-5 minutes, we learn that the protagonist is an irish veteran of "The Great War" (that's what they called WWI back before WWII, kids) who is part of a special unit that improves morale by debunking superstition in the rank and file. But it doesn't end there! His unit takes on a crew of saber-wielding Eastern European/Middle Eastern pirate/fiends. He defeats their leader and takes from him a glowing green stone as a meaningless "momento" (good thing that he did). He's wounded in the fight, wakes up in a hospital and is summoned to help his friend deal with a troublesome estate in Ireland. And that's where the game begins.

You tell me, Clive, did you plan to make some kind of prequel or did your development cycle run out before you were able to complete those levels? Not a terribly elegant solution, Clive.

Anyway, you meet your friend, he's dying, family curse, blahblahblah, his siblings have disappeared and the estate is being assaulted by monsters. You investigate.

And this motherfucker snoops around for awhile with nothing but a fucking six-shooter looking for trouble. Frankly, in this temporary moment of fright that I'm in here, I can't help but ponder the enormous differences between me the protagonist. He hears a bloodcurdling scream and goes roaring about to go find out what happened. Me? I saw the phantasm-hangman swinging on a light post at the entrance to the manor; out is the last place I'm going. Especially not in this manor full of the classic inexplicably unopening doors built along the blueprints drawn by an autistic toddler. And of course there is no fucking map, or any other method of finding direction.

And on top of that, as this Irish braveheart rolls around the manor, he interrogates the few employees of the manor that are unfortunate enough to be still walking aimlessly about the house. Usually, they will rattle off a cardinal direction to indicate where I should look for the next key, scrap of parchment, etc. Of course, this is totally useless because I don't have a fucking compass. Then they leave me, and, typically, are devoured by the horned and stooping monsters that prowl the mansion.

Now the first time I didn't really hold our hero responsible, but afterward, when he continued to waltz about the manor, talking to people and giving them NO WARNING OF THE DEATH THAT STALKED THESE GILDED HALLS, I was taken a little aback. I guess it says something about my gameplaying lately that I expect protagonists to behave like conscionable humans. But I believe that as he stands next to a bleeding corpse on the floor, talking to its co-worker, he cold offer a cavalier "look out for yourself" or something. No, I guess my protagonist is single-minded, Irish brogue-faking debunker and destroyer of the supernatural with no compassion for the drones that populate the manor's interior.

Anyway, you do eventually leave the mansion and walk through catacombs and ethereal nether-realms, and you slip into the past and the future and all that jazz though the enemies don't vary much from the horned grasshopper demonbeasts. You've got your cloaked and tentacled facesuckers, saberwielding swarthy types, shred wearing vixens etc etc (who, for all their supernatural power prefer thrown rocks for their method of damage delivery).

Maybe one day I'll be able to see how this games ends, but I've been carrying this intense fear of intense video games for a long time now. It's been real, Clive, but its on to the next thing.