Overview

Developer: Dreamworks Interactive
Publisher: EA Games
Undying official page: http://undying.ea.com/

You're Not at the Bookstore

Just because you co-develop a game with a famous author doesn't mean you are guaranteed success. Take a look at Stephen King's F13 and Michael Crichton's Timeline, both of which bombed last year with the critics. Would Clive Barker, author of such novels as Hellraiser, fall to the same fate with his game? If our first run through with Undying is any indication, the answer is a resounding "no!" This horror themed first person shooter looks promising to us thus far.

Yes, it's a ghost

Huge rooms

What's it about?

Set in and around an Irish country estate during the 1920's, Undying puts you in the role of Patrick Galloway, an erstwhile expert of the occult. Galloway's old war buddy, Jeremiah Covenant, has asked him to investigate the mysterious happenings around his mansion. Apparently all his siblings have died premature deaths, and their souls are haunting the entire area, trying to hunt down the last sibling in the family. It's up to Galloway to uncover the mystery behind all the tragedy.

Graphics

The first thing we noticed about Clive Barker's Undying is its graphical polish. Based on the Unreal engine, Undying reminded us of 1999's Wheel of Time with its use of large textures, and fantastic architecture. Thankfully, Undying's developers appear to have successfully fought the temptation to use the Unreal engine's signature shiny floors and candy-colored lighting. Instead, they focused on expansive architecture and great use of dynamic lighting and shadows. The paintings in the mansion are testament to the game's texturing - they look like they were created by an oil color expert in their style and exquisite detail.

The overall result is a game that is an early candidate for best graphics of 2001. The only downside to this is that Undying seems to be a system killer. My P3 933 with GeForce 2 GTS gets absolutely bogged down at times, running at 1024x768x32 bit color. Knocking down the resolution to 800x600 made it more tolerable, but it could be another case of an Unreal engine game hating Direct3D. We'll try 16 bit color before the full review comes out and see if that speeds things up.

Looks like a painting...

The 'scrye' spell lets you see into the past in certain areas

Sound

The sound effects in Undying are probably the best we've heard in a horror game in a long time. The Howler wolves' spine chilling calls, and the clattering of bones from the skeleton warriors are just a couple examples of the great effort put in by Undying's sound designers. Wind rushes and whistles around as you walk through a hallway full of open windows and their billowing curtains. Floor boards and old doors creak in the Covenant estate, while the whispering cries of ghosts sound almost as if they're coming from inside your own head.

Ouch!

A chapel

Gameplay

As you'd expect from our graphics and sounds tidbits, Undying is an atmospheric affair, drawing the player into the game with its technical prowess. There are plenty of monsters to shoot, and you are given a certain amount of freedom to explore the levels, seek out clues, and talk to NPCs. In the end, it's still a pretty linear quest, but the huge levels offer the opportunity to poke around a lot. Among our only complaints so far is the game's use of loading zones, similar to Half-Life's. The loading time between zones takes a bit longer than we'd like it to.

One other plus about the game is that it's full of scripted sequences. Exploring about the mansion, you'll see ghosts of Jeremiah's dead siblings appear every now and again. The first time I found a mirror in the mansion I walked up to it and nearly jumped out of my chair when a ghost popped up right behind me in the mirror! Another time, I made my way down a candle-lit hallway only to have the lights go out suddenly and get attacked by Howlers in the dark. In the early part of the game at least, cool scripting like this is common.

Conclusions

So far, so good! We expect to have a full review of Undying shortly - in the meantime, enjoy the screenshots!