For my cash, there is not a greater horror monster than The Factor’s shape-shifting alien organism. Even 42 years later, Rob Bottin’s sensible results are nonetheless unbelievable, capturing every freakish amalgamation of tentacles, sharp tooth, sinew, and traces of malformed humanity with ghastly readability. I’ve seen The Factor dozens of instances, but seeing Norris’ decapitated head contort and develop arthropod-esque legs won’t ever fail to twist my abdomen in knots. These are the eternal photos of The Factor, however it’s the alien’s potential to completely imitate anybody that genuinely terrifies, permeating every scene with an unnerving sense of dread and paranoia that impacts each its characters and the viewers watching. Who do you belief when anybody may very well be a clandestine risk?
Again in 2002, developer Laptop Artworks tried to translate this sense into an formally licensed online game for The Factor. The now-shuttered studio got here near succeeding, too, making a third-person horror-action sport with a novel squad system that ensured you may by no means fully belief the individual preventing by your aspect. It is develop into considerably of a cult basic since then, resulting in this remaster from Nightdive Studios–a developer identified for faithfully restoring myriad video games, together with Shadow Man and Star Wars: Darkish Forces. The Factor: Remastered is a equally genuine expertise, albeit with a variety of key enhancements to the sport’s visuals, controls, and a few quality-of-life mechanics. Past this, it is a lot the identical sport because it was in 2002, for each the nice and the unhealthy.
The sport’s setup is considered one of its higher points, performing as a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s iconic 1982 movie. You play as the tasteless, one-dimensional Captain Blake, chief of a U.S. Particular Forces rescue group despatched to research Outpost 31 within the isolating tundra of Antarctica. In fact, we all know what transpired when MacReady and the remainder of this analysis facility encountered the shape-shifting alien life-form, and it does not take lengthy earlier than Blake is preventing off all method of horrific entities. He is moderately nonchalant about the entire thing, although, anchoring a comparatively skinny story that feels distinctly 2002 in all of the worst methods. Whereas it begins as a extra action-oriented facsimile of the movie it is ostensibly a sequel to, the narrative shortly delves into predictable territory with the navy experimenting on the Factor to make use of the alien for its personal acquire. It is all very stereotypical, with melodramatic voice performing and–aside from a enjoyable cameo from John Carpenter himself–an inherently disposable forged of characters.
The general public you meet are potential squad members. To outlive The Factor: Remastered, incomes and sustaining the belief of the surviving crew is paramount. By killing enemies and supplying every squadmate with weapons, ammo, and therapeutic, they will fortunately combat alongside you. The twist is that that is The Factor, so you may be handing a weapon to an enemy interloper or somebody paranoid sufficient to suspect you of being one your self. Not solely can your squad members be a Factor in disguise, however additionally they have the capability to activate you if their belief diminishes or they’re overcome by worry. They usually expertise nervousness, which spikes when witnessing traumatic occasions, reminiscent of seeing a dismembered corpse or a very grotesque alien. In the event that they endure from sufficient stress or lose your trust–because you by accident shot them, did not participate in fight, and so on–they’ll crack and run away, kill themselves, or begin capturing everybody round them, making an attempt to kill each you and your colleagues.
It is a considerate implementation of the movie’s tenants of belief, paranoia, and deception, with the potential to generate nail-biting pressure by pal and foe alike. All of a sudden, your squadmates are extra than simply easy NPCs; they’re folks displaying actual human conduct. It was an revolutionary idea again in 2002 when this type of belief and worry administration was unparalleled. Even in the present day, it is not one thing I’ve seen applied in different single-player video games; usually, it is reserved for social multiplayer experiences like Amongst Us as an alternative.
The Factor: Remastered is [an] genuine expertise, albeit with a variety of key enhancements to the sport’s visuals, controls, and a few quality-of-life mechanics. Past this, it is a lot the identical sport because it was in 2002, for each the nice and the unhealthy
For the sport’s first couple of hours, the way in which these concepts are executed is compelling. The Factor: Remastered instantly establishes an unsettling ambiance as you start exploring the dilapidated remnants of Outpost 31. Your teammates are already on edge even earlier than you uncover a flying saucer buried below the ice, with the howl of the Arctic’s bitingly chilly wind and Ennio Morricone’s haunting rating punctuating sure moments with one other alluring layer of unease. Nightdive has performed a implausible job of updating the unique sport’s visuals, too, with improved character fashions, textures, and animations, in addition to dynamic lighting and shadows to actually spruce up the 22-year-old sport. It nonetheless maintains the considerably blocky look of a sport from the PS2 period however smoothes over its rougher edges with fashionable strategies that make the visuals extra palatable for a contemporary viewers.
As you progress additional into the sport, you may come up towards all method of enemy creatures, from small four-legged scuttlers to extra humanoid monstrosities with lethal claws and uncovered innards. These bigger enemies should be broken with small-arms fireplace earlier than being set alight with both a flamethrower or incendiary grenade. Thankfully, Nightdive has altered the flamethrower in order that it does not burn you in the event you’re holding the set off whereas concurrently transferring ahead. Ammunition can be way more plentiful, stopping these situations within the unique sport the place you’ll be pressured to reload a save from hours earlier than to attempt to preserve sufficient ammo for later. Apart from these welcome adjustments, fight in The Factor: Remastered feels a lot the identical, using a beneficiant lock-on system that makes it straightforward to filter rooms with out a lot thought. It is high-quality however hardly compelling.
Your teammates aren’t too shabby in a combat, no less than, although their primary objective is usually to open doorways for you. The sport’s stage design is usually constructed on gating your development with damaged junction bins that stop issues like doorways and computer systems from working. When you’re in a position to repair a few of this broken tools, most of them require a specialised engineer, creating one of many first points with the sport’s notion that “anybody may very well be an alien.” For those who require an engineer to progress, then their demise or transformation merely ends in a sport over display, eradicating the potential for the kind of randomness that makes the sport’s idea so engaging. The extra you play, the extra it is revealed that The Factor: Remastered is actually struggling below the burden of its personal ambition. Sure squad members will develop into aliens at pre-determined factors, irrespective of how fastidiously you’ve got managed their belief and worry. Even when a blood take a look at reveals that they are nonetheless human mere seconds earlier than, that is shortly rendered moot by the sport’s inflexible scripting.
In consequence, The Factor: Remastered falters as a squad-based sport since you’re by no means incentivized to care about anybody’s survival however your individual. With the story dictating when sure characters will transform–and most teammates disappearing on the finish of every stage anyway–forming any kind of attachment to them is futile. There aren’t any repercussions for trusting your teammates, both. Any weapons you give them are dropped after they rework, and preserving their belief up and worry down is an easy process, so I by no means felt like anybody would crack, which progressively chips away on the sport’s pressure. By the midway level, Laptop Artworks seemingly struggled to take the idea any additional, turning the sport right into a boilerplate run-and-gun shooter that sees you preventing aliens and senseless human enemies alike. It is a far cry from the sport’s opening and makes for a banal slog in the direction of a disappointing ending.
I’ve fond reminiscences of taking part in The Factor again in 2002 as a result of there wasn’t anything fairly prefer it. It was creative and thrilling, and even in the present day, nobody else is attempting to do what Laptop Artworks tried within the single-player house. I commend the studio for what it achieved, however the limitations of the technology–and its design constraints–are way more obvious now, even with nostalgia-tinted glasses on. Nightdive has performed a implausible job of restoring this flawed however intriguing sport, persevering with its essential work with sport preservation. The entire adjustments it is made are optimistic, leading to a greater sport, each visually and mechanically. Nonetheless, this can be a case the place a whole remake would’ve been way more interesting, permitting for the belief and worry system to be fleshed out with much less rigidity and extra dynamism. As it’s, Laptop Artworks’ imaginative and prescient would possibly by no means be absolutely realized, and that is a disgrace.