Clive Barker's Undying

Somehow, I managed to get a hold of Clive Barker's Undying. That game is great. I'm almost done with it, but I've played it solid and it looks like it should last about 12 hours total. Since it's built on the Unreal engine, the graphics are a bit dated, but they were executed so well back then, it's still pretty passable by today's standards.

If nothing else, the atmosphere is immersive and the weapons are fairly original and well-balanced. The weapon lineup includes molotov cocktails and more interesting weapons like a Celtic scythe. But where the game really shines is the spells you acquire throughout the game. They range from "scrye," which enhances your normal sight supernaturally, allowing you to see helpful clues and story-enhancing scenes. Another example of an original spell is "invoke," which not only allows you to raise dead enemies to fight for you, but also instantly slay undead or...my favorite, if used on living human enemies, it causes them to commit suicide (such as turning their gun on themselves or slitting their neck with their sword).

Anyway, the game is really great, imo. A good variety of locales, nice details, gameplay aspects and a pretty damn good story too (think Fall of the House of Usher). If you can find it, pick it up right away. This isn't meant to be a review, really, but I thought it'd be better than me saying,"OMG Undying is so l337!"

Undying is a great game, and I would be happy to continue playing it if I could get some better sound drivers. At the moment with the default Galaxy drivers, my sound shorts out when in view of water. :\

I’ve got it and I’d be happy if this game runs under Linux…

It's sad the game didn't sell very well, as it really deserves a sequal. I bought it when it first came out and loved every minute of it.

Was there every a strong (if any) modding or level-making community for Undying? I'd love to pick up some extra gameplay if it's possible.

Job said:

Was there every a strong (if any) modding or level-making community for Undying? I'd love to pick up some extra gameplay if it's possible.

http://www.fileplanet.com/filelist.aspx?s=96099&v=0

Thats what I found. Sadly the game kind of came and went so I dont think you will find much.

Job said:

Somehow, I "managed to get a hold of" Clive Barker's Undying.

You inspired me to "Get a hold of" a copy as well.

Great. I hope you enjoy it.

So far so good. I played the demo years ago and loved it. After installation the game said "We have selected 'Highest Deatil' because of your computer's specs". Made me feel good.

That game irritated me.

I actually never finished it; it trashed one of my save games and I didn't feel like starting over, especially since it requires you to pass 100 maps just to beat the first level.

Here is an Undying site that has some info on mods. I played a few 3rd party levels which were good, in fact I recall a Hellraiser level set that was OK (kinda annoying and no new models, unfortunately).

The irony of the game was that they designed it so it would work well on consoles, which is why the levels are so absurdly short (walk 10 feet and you have to load...). Unfortunately the game tanked so fast that the console port was scrapped before it even began development. It might be possible for some enterprising spirit to stitch the levels together (I think it used the standard Unreal map format), but I kinda doubt anybody would bother at this point.

Does nobody else have sound issues when water is being rendered?

I just beat the game and I'd like to know how they couldn't make a sequel to a game that finishes up so open-ended.

According to david, probably concern over money. Almost no big company makes entertainment for the sake of being entertaining.