Not many people got to play Clive Barker’s Undying when it was released in 2001. The game got tons of media coverage throughout its development and debuted to phenomenal reviews, yet almost no one bought it. Sales were so terrible that EA never even bothered to release a planned patch for the game. Indeed, only a few weeks after its release, the game was abandoned forever. By the time I bought it in fall of 2001, only about 6 months after it came out, it was already selling on Amazon for $9.99.
It was a pathetic fate for a game that should be remembered as one of the finest horror games ever made. Clive Barker’s Undying took elements of Gothic horror, the short stories of H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, and even a dose of old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure and then forced it all through the demented brain of Clive Barker to create an unforgettable gameplay experience. If your idea of horror is crumbling graveyards and spooky mansions populated by hoards of hideous monsters, this is a must-own game.
On the surface, the game is a simple first person shooter, similar to dozens that were being churned out for the PC in the late 90s and early 2000s, before the X-Box arrived on the scene to steal the genre away. You have to worry about collecting ammo, solving simple puzzles to move from room to room, and avoiding and/or shooting armies of enemies. Clive Barker’s Undying sets itself apart from the pack by augmenting the usual array of weapons with magic spells, including the ability to fly and toss around flaming, laughing skulls. While some of the weapons are traditional, like the revolver and the shotgun, there are plenty of more unique choices as well. How many first person shooters let you decapitate your opponent with a giant magical scythe? I can only think of one.
Beyond the gameplay, this is a game that is lovingly crafted from the ground up. Clive Barker’s name isn’t just here as a cheap gimmick to sell games. (Thank God, since it apparently didn’t help sell a single copy). The horror icon was instrumental in developing the games characters and storyline, and it shows. The Covenant family (the game’s main antagonists) are some of the most creepy and disturbed characters I've ever encountered in a game, and solving the mystery behind each of their horrible deaths is never a tedious task. The music and sound effects are excellent across the board, adding greatly to the game’s wonderful atmosphere and the “Standing Stones” music that accompanies the title screen is particularly memorable and frightening. (Somehow, a chorus singing the usually optimistic “While I breathe, I hope” in Latin to creepy violin strings and pounding drums is anything but comforting.)
If possible, even more care and attention was given to the game’s levels. From a haunted crypt to a haunted lighthouse to the haunted Covenant mansion (getting the theme?) all of the game’s locations make the most of their 2001 era graphics to create an unrivaled atmosphere. There’s even a trip to another dimension, and, in my absolute favorite section, a journey back in time to a 12th century monastery during a snowstorm. This game is genuinely frightening on a level few games ever reach, and once you’ve visited these locations and experienced the frights they offer, you’re unlikely to ever forget them.
Set during the 1920s (for some reason, an ideal time for horror stories) the game tells the story of a decayed Irish aristocratic family, the Covenants. Years ago, the family’s five children unwittingly performed an ancient pagan ritual at a group of standing stones on their desolate island home. The ritual gradually drove each of the children mad and sent them all to an early grave. Their spirits have now returned to haunt their one surviving brother, Jeremiah. In desperation, Jeremiah calls on his old WWI buddy, the paranormal expert Patrick Galloway, to lay his sibling’s spirits to rest.
Patrick arrives at the creepy Covenant mansion in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm, and the early part of the game has you exploring the mansion's dark halls and ancient corridors. Even in the first few moments Patrick is already haunted by ghostly visions and eerie noises, and the events just get stranger and stranger.
Like a lot of games, the best and most fleshed out section of the game is the first, when Patrick must track down the spirit of the youngest Covenant sibling, Lizbeth--in life a literary minded socialite, in death a vicious ghoul. The search for Lizbeth will take you all over the mansion, through a haunted cemetery and a ruined crypt, to the site of an ancient monastery, and back in time to obtain the magic scythe needed to decapitate Lizbeth and put her out of her misery. It culminates in an incredibly memorable confrontation involving Lizbeth, Patrick, and the corpse of Lizbeth's mother in an ancient tomb beside the sea. It’s one of the creepiest journeys in gaming and an experience not to be missed.
The Lizbeth section makes up the largest part of the game, and I imagine that before it was rushed to release each sibling had an equally lengthy buildup. As it stands now, once Lizbeth is out of the picture the other siblings go down far too quickly, and you’ll find yourself at the end of the game before you know it. It’s a fun ride the whole way through, but it never really reclaims the glory of those first few hours of gameplay. I don’t know much about game production, but I get the feeling that, unlike movies, they must be made linearly—it always seems that in the games that are rushed to release, it’s the later sections that suffer.
Nevermind the faults, though. When I think of Halloween of 2001 I immediately think of Clive Barker’s Undying. Sure, some people might consider it a waste of your college years to sit in a dank underground dorm room playing a computer game, but obviously those people have never played the game. I’ve played through it about three times since (regrettably, I never brought it to CA with me so I haven't played it for a few years) and if possible it’s gotten better every time. It’s one of those games where you’ll notice a new detail or some new wrinkle in the plot each time you play it, and the different weapons, spells, power levels, and difficulties provide plenty of replay options. Like all good old PC games, the box also came with extensive documentation, including a classy journal written by Jeremiah Covenant detailing the sibling’s backstory. (One of the many casualties with the rising popularity of video games has been these little extras that used to come with many old PC games. These days you’re lucky if you get an instruction manual.)
There’s not much left of Clive Barker’s Undying, even on the internet. A fan site, Standing Stones, has existed forever, but even that venerable site seems to have finally run out of juice. (You can find your way to a demo of the game by going there.) There are plenty of videos on youtube, and used copies are still fairly easy to come by, but by and large it’s a game that is mostly forgotten. It’s a shame. If you’re looking for a great scary story this Halloween, in any medium, this game is well worth a look.
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