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Review: Clive Barker's UndyingReviewed By: Clive Barker's Bill Stiteler Review Date: July 29, 2002
I don't understand. All the elements are there...all of them. A world-weary adventurer with a tortured past and a lost love. A summons to the decaying estate of an old friend to investigate strange events. Portals to other dimensions. Heck, they even throw in a buxom blonde demon who wears outfits so slutty that Madonna would say, "Man, that's kind of excessive."
In Undying, you play Patrick Galloway, occult adventurer. Now, this would no doubt be the coolest job in the world, if people really did battle with the undead, instead of just fleecing the gullible on the SciFi Channel and trying to avoid the Amazing Randi. But I digress. Patrick has mystical powers which extend beyond mangling cutlery, thanks to a mystic stone he carries on his neck, taken from a shaman he fought in World War I. I must have missed that show on the History Channel. You begin with the ability to see things in the ghost world, useful primarily for freaking yourself out. When you hear a spectral voice whispering for you to look and see, it's probably a good indicator that something messed up is about to happen. Hanging bodies appear, and family portraits become more horrifying than they normally are. Deal with that.
So, your friend Jeremiah Covenant wants you to investigate the doin's a-transpirin' (you can tell you're in trouble if your friend is named Covenant, and he wants you to investigate his haunted mansion). He thinks it may have something to do with the occult ritual he performed at the ancient standing stones twenty years ago. He did this as a joke, to scare his siblings, who are all dead now, and who fly around the house killing people. Let this be a lesson to you; if you want to scare your siblings, tell them that their birthday has been cancelled, or that the guy from Blue's Clues is dead. Do not perform occult rituals at ancient standing stones. So, leaving Professor Numnuts to quail and quiver in his library like, well, pretty much every protagonist in a Lovecraft story, Patrick goes off to try the novel approach of doing something. The house is, of course, haunted (although wouldn't it be surprising if it wasn't?), and not just by a "ghost" like there is at your hippie friend's house; one who keeps the hallway five degrees cooler than the foyer. Proper ghosts with beastie servants who can chomp on you and be shot.
Which is to say, the game was scary in the first five minutes. I think it works so well because the designers of Undying realized the anticipation of a monster is scarier than the monster itself. I know I can kill them (the monsters, not the designers); that's part of the game. But waiting for them to appear, knowing they're out there, creates suspense. Vast, vaulted libraries and chambers (where attack could come from anywhere) lead to claustrophobic, labyrinthine hallways (where escape would be difficult). Add to that the spectral forces which control the parts of the house you have access to at any given time. Ghosts fly through walls, sometimes summoning critters to fight you, other times just to taunt you with cryptic statements. The design is somewhat nonlinear. Reading a walkthrough, I was surprised at how many encounters and useful times I'd missed simply by single-mindedly running through every (any!) open door in my pursuit of the stated goal (usually a key to another area).
It's been observed that in our new era of sensitivity, the only "villains" left in the world are Nazis and the undead (or, in the case of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, undead Nazis). Undying, however, manages to use some brilliant design to create a sense of menace, and against all odds, a force of evil that the player feels outmatched by, but which nonetheless must be stopped. But really, the only hack element missing is a bat who steals your items.
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Yet, despite all these hackneyed elements, I'm amazed to tell you that Clive Barker's Undying is not a wretched game. It's actually good! This atmospheric FPS successfully combines frenzied combat with a story of Things That Lie In Wait. And man, is it creepy.
The ghost vision doubles as night vision and also causes objects with a mystical aspect to glow. You'll quickly accumulate other spells, many with offensive aspects. This is good, because 1) lots of things want to kill you, and 2) you start off armed with a six-shooter. Zowie! If I were an occult adventurer (and barring a few party conversations with incredulous goth girls, I'm not), I'd pack a holy water firehose and more crucifix tattoos than 
But, if Undying were just about shooting demons, it'd be Doom, and Undying
is not Doom. While I'm sure Clive Barker had total control over his licensing royalties check, this is nonetheless a scary game. I installed it as soon as I got home one sunny afternoon, played it for about a half-hour, began to be unnerved and decided to play it later. Like when someone else was in the home.
One thing I especially enjoyed was the system used for magic. You use weapons with your left hand, and cast spells with your right. Mundane weapons (like your six-shooter) must be reloaded with a finite supply ammo (though boxes of bullets are so ubiquitous I thought I was staying at Ted Nugent's place). Your spells, however, draw on a reserve of magical energy which is not, represented by a little blue bar next to your health. Sure, the game has demons, occult rituals, and portals to hell, but this is heresy! Furthermore, though Jeremiah left first aid kits all over his house (must be a hemophiliac), your mana recharges itself automatically. Cast a spell, and the counter goes down from 100 based on how strong the spell was. Deplete your mana, and you'd better be fighting something that bullets can kill.