Thing Thing 4 - Fire hot hollow points at people and things for the fourth time in another pistol-powered adventure
It’s a Thing-Thing Thing
It’s a Thing-Thing Thing
The curiously-named Thing Thing series has now been with us for 4 titles (not to mention the adjacent ‘Thing Thing Arena’ games that stand alongside them), and with each passing adventure comes more action, more adventure, more bullets, and more destruction of property as well as the bone, blood, and sinew of anyone that opposes you. For one reason or another, your mission to discover more about yourself or why/how you came to exist always ends up being violently opposed by your maker, and as usual, you must do what you have always done and indeed what you are designed to do, which is to embark on yet another violent crusade in order to get the job done, but not before pondering in deep thought and touching very lightly on the pseudo-existential issues and the irony of wanting to destroy the very organisation that created you. Who cares about why all this is happening when you’ve got this many guns? Not I.
Time to Play the Game
In terms of gameplay, Thing Thing 4 is a shoot-em-up fan’s dream. The classic movement controls apply here, with WASD movement keys and mouse-controlled aiming and shooting made possible by the on-screen crosshair. Double-jumps and backflips are standard, while scrolling through weapons is achieved with the ‘E’ key. Now that the controls are out of the way, I need to emphasis the fact that there are simply endless supplies of enemies to kill here; so much so, in fact, that the game feels like an extended trip through a gun-testing factory where live targets are used by being spawned from numerous enemy-generation points throughout the level. Of course, strafing, dodging and jumping come into it, but in all, this title is a bullet n’ blood fest, and is entirely unapologetic about this fact.
Gun Game
The one aspect of the game that blew me away literally and figuratively was the sheer number of guns that can be obtained. The classics make an appearance as they rightly should: guns like the Desert Eagle, USP, and Viper Magnum are present, as well as various shotguns and rifles. The experimental weapons are most notable, with a brain-driller that shoots projectiles which drill into the skull of the target, a gauss shotgun that rips enemies to pieces, and even a straight-up Nuke that makes the situation go from zero to Hiroshima in the click of a button. If you take nothing else away from this title, it will be the unbelievable size of the weapons arsenal.
A Winning Formula
By just peeking at the title screen of Thing Thing 4, you can see that if you look beyond the aesthetic, not very much has really changed at all since the previous game. You still get to customise your deadly killing machine of a character by choosing from a selection of different hairstyles, clothing, and footwear before even experiencing the opening cut-scene. The game still looks as it always has, though with some aesthetic refinement and re-jigging as is to be expected as a minimum from title to title. The art style remains distinctive and fairly dark yet still possesses an over-the-top outrageousness that can only be created by the conveyor belt of brutal murder that takes place here (probably to reflect the hopelessness of the situation): the number of enemies you get to slaughter after all remains outrageously high. Still waiting for some negative points? Beyond the fidgety and fiddly mouse-controlled aiming, I struggle to find any with this game. As a shoot-em-up, the title succeeds quite spectacularly. In spite of its resistance to drastic change between titles, the Thing Thing series from developer Diseased Productions a prime example of how shooting games should be done, end of story.
85/100