The Thing: Remastered Review (ChubbiChibbai)
Look. It's Nightdive.
You already know what you are getting here.
The developers at this company pick games that they care about and then lovingly restore them and give them impactful yet tasteful overhauls fixing graphics, frame rates, bugs, controls and bringing it into the modern age while respecting as much of its original artistic design and gameplay as they can. Improving only on things that need to be improved without ever steering too far away from the game as it was intended to be played back in its original day.
You could play a Nightdive game and its exactly as you rememeber it feeling. Yet comparing against the original you realise just how much they have changed.
The work that goes into this is clearly significant yet often invisible because they do it with such integrity and respect to the source material.
And yeah.... that's why once again after not planning to buy any more games this month, the second this was released i bought it.
Looking forward to even hearing what they are working on next. Half the pleasure in their products is from the games they pick. Often surprising and non commercial games that someone on the team loved. I've replayed games i loved growing up and also been introduced to those i missed and all of them are wonderfully crafted.
I should probably mention a bit specifically about this game.
This plays great. Performance is flawless for me. Visually it respects the original while updating models, facial animation, materials. All that stuff feels apropriately modern and yet feels still retro. Surfaces have propper specular responses now. Blood and gore especially benefits from this. Creatures look slimy and wet. Snow atmoshere feels way more natural. lighting is vastly improved.
The games controls all feel comfortable. UI is pretty solid and feels intuitive once you understand the basics.
The gameplay is great. Love it. Pretty unique and good fun. It feels immersive despite its game design being fairly dated now. But you could tell it was trying to do something ahead of its time and it still feels unique.