In a stunning flip of occasions, greater than twenty-two years after its unique launch, we’ve now acquired a rebuilt and remastered model of 2002’s online game primarily based on the long-lasting 1982 John Carpenter movie, The Factor, entitled The Factor: Remastered.This is one thing I really by no means anticipated to see, given how difficult the rights often are to re-release licensed properties within the online game world.
That is my first time replaying it because it’s unique launch, so I’ll be reassessing the sport to see the way it’s held up. I’ll even be evaluating how effectively the remastered components of this new launch assist to bridge that hole of the gaming know-how over the past twenty years.
Story
The story of The Factor sport basically acts as a sequel to the 1982 movie, the place you play as a workforce despatched to research what occurred after the occasions of the movie. In it, you’ll discover the identical Antarctic bases that you just see within the movie, and even encounter among the characters (or remnants of them) as you discover.
Total, the narrative sticks very near the occasions of the movie in some methods and rehashes lots of the identical story beats, however it’s completely different sufficient that it feels similar to one other installment in a considerably formulaic franchise. It’s nothing that’ll blow you away, regardless that you do discover out the final word fates of among the movie’s characters, if this sport is to be thought-about “canon.”
There’s a good soundtrack that repeats loads of the fundamental themes and elegance from Carpenter’s movie soundtrack, however it’s used very sparingly, since a lot of the sport focuses on the quiet or environmental noise as a substitute.
There’s a number of corny army dialogue and difficult man exchanges with some fairly horrible voice performing to go along with it, and a few foolish characters, together with a personality that appears similar to John Carpenter himself, however on the finish of the day, it’s principally simply periphery to drive the gameplay ahead and never terribly essential to the expertise.
Gameplay
The Factor is basically a horror-themed third-person taking pictures sport, and quantity of what you expertise right here continues to be very a lot a product of its time. This contains some comparatively inflexible character fashions and animations. Regardless of these items being improved on for the remaster, you’ll undoubtedly really feel the age of the sport and its engine when you begin taking part in.
Regardless of feeling considerably primitive in its engine and technical presentation, it nonetheless has a handful of gameplay options that make it stand out from the group to some extent, and which have held up decently with time. The gameplay manifests as a form of squad-based shooter, full with completely different lessons, every with their very own specialties, and whereas the mechanics aren’t terribly deep, it’s not too widespread to see this factor in a single-player expertise.
You’ll should handle your workforce as you undergo the sport, with sure character lessons being wanted to progress the story in sure components or to entry particular areas that you could’t do alone, and also you’ll actively must handle a number of facets of every character. This contains their well being, ammo, worry/sanity, and belief relationships that hinge on various factors. Many of those are fairly primary general and solely have 2 or 3 facets or actions that may have an effect on them, however they nonetheless have to be managed, both means.
A few of the shortcomings of the sport design are likely to step on the toes of the workforce administration components in a unfavorable means, particularly since teammates will come and go all through your journey, some since you allow them to get killed, and others are scripted to go away or die at sure factors. Sadly, any tools you gave to your teammates will have to be re-collected after their loss of life, in any other case you will get caught with out some essential weapons at sure factors, and typically these weapons will even glitch out or go to a spot that’s unreachable, inflicting some main points.
These workforce dynamics could make for some distinctive gameplay conditions, however can be a burden at instances, so it’s a divisive factor to evaluate, general. It principally balances out, however there will probably be instances of frustration assured for many gamers when managing these components.
One other facet to say on this part is the final sport navigation, and the truth that the sport does little or no to information you in the precise route in terms of discovering goals or the place to progress, with just some imprecise textual content goal descriptions in your pause menu to determine these items out. A few of the cutscenes may have conversations that additionally vaguely inform or present you the place try to be going, however they could be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of scenario in case you’re not paying a ton of consideration to the comparatively boring dialogue scenes.
There’s additionally no map by any means, so that you’ll often should do some meticulous trial-and-error when looking for your subsequent goal and easy methods to accomplish it. Whereas this does trigger the sport to really feel extra complicated in a sure means, as this could virtually qualify as a meta-puzzle in itself, it will get tiresome at among the extra obtuse goals.
The subsequent main a part of the gameplay is the fight, which is mostly fairly primary and clunky third-person taking pictures fight, with auto-aim at all times energetic until within the first-person aiming mode, and it’s often a wrestle of juggling many alternative facets throughout the fight. As an illustration, if in case you have workforce members on the time, you’ll must keep away from by chance taking pictures your teammates, which not solely kills them, but in addition ruins your belief relationship with them, and since hearth is required to kill quantity of the sport’s enemies (and hearth additionally stays on display for a very long time earlier than disappearing and it hurts everybody,) fight will shortly grow to be chaos, particularly in tight areas.
Therapeutic and dispersing ammo to teammates throughout fight provides one other layer of complexity and frustration, and if a teammate is killed, additionally they flip into a reasonably sturdy enemy at that time as effectively, simply including extra to the chaos. Whereas all these facets to make the fight and gameplay fairly distinctive, additionally they really feel like a double edged sword of extra stuff to fret about and get annoyed by. Most of the fight encounters contain combating enemies in massive teams, creating horde-like situations that you just’ll must survive to maneuver on, so the fight additionally will get pretty repetitive at a sure level, particularly with the small enemies.
Technical/Presentation
On the technical facet, The Factor: Remastered is a little bit of a combined bag, because the new visuals and efficiency normally are fairly an improve from the unique, with new fashions, animations, textures, and lighting results, and these items make the sport look and play a bit higher than its unique model, however it does include some down sides as effectively. As talked about earlier than, the engine the sport was constructed on reveals its age normally when taking part in via a contemporary lens, regardless that it’s nonetheless fairly playable general.
The controls do really feel improved, and there’s a number of customization with key and controller bindings, which is a pleasant contact, regardless that they’ll nonetheless really feel barely clunky simply as a result of engine itself. This particularly manifests in managing your teammates, the place the controls get awkward and also you’ll often should navigate via a number of menus simply to precisely give them instructions or assist them out.
Sadly, there’s additionally a handful of bugs and glitches that I encountered throughout my playthrough, from the weapons and objects glitching via flooring or objects, enemy or teammate AI getting damaged or caught, character fashions disappearing, and different little issues right here and there. It was nothing terribly game-breaking, and fortunately the sport has auto-saves after most main occasions, however having to reload checkpoints due to glitches isn’t enjoyable. There’s additionally only a normal degree of hit detection and collision being slightly off, because it was within the unique sport, with solely marginal enhancements on this division.
Conclusion
The Factor: Remastered is a pleasant repackaging and facelift for a curious sport primarily based on an iconic horror movie. There’s so much to love right here, particularly for followers of the movie, however it nonetheless has loads of the identical tough edges that it had again in 2002, even when some issues have been improved.
It’s a comparatively quick journey at round 5-7 hours on a primary playthrough with not loads of replay worth, however the comparatively low worth of this remaster makes it a better promote. It’ll most likely be a tricky tablet to swallow for gamers who aren’t skilled with video games from this period or the movies, however it’s nonetheless good to have a extra accessible solution to expertise the sport on trendy platforms.
(7 / 10)
(7 / 10)Good
Depend on Horror Evaluate Rating Information
A evaluate code for the Xbox Collection X model was supplied by the writer.
