“Have you ever seen that John Carpenter film, ‘The Thing’? Well it’s ‘The Thing’ except you play as The Thing!”
That one-liner pulled off Twitter is a decent summation of Phobia Game Studio’s side-scrolling adventure, but it doesn’t really dig to the heart of Carrion, a game in which players control a nightmarish monster that resembles a moving plate of spaghetti. Well, if spaghetti had eyes, mouths and (amongst other things) the ability to rip a human being in half.
The appearance of the creature at the centre of Carrion is probably the best place to start in any review of this game, because it’s as refreshing as it is disturbing. When one considers how many monsters in games, films, TV shows and books seem to be based on human structure (one head, two arms, two legs, an upright hominid torso, maybe a couple of other appendages), Carrion’s beast feels like a breath of fresh air.
Beginning as what looks like a little red squid, the monster evolves over time to a mass of tendrils, teeth and eyes. Its growth and lessening in size gift it certain abilities as the game progresses, but its movement isn’t hampered in the slightest; there’s no crevice or height it can’t reach – provided a gate or barrier doesn’t exist in the way.
These barriers can be breached; it just takes a little evolution. As players guide Carrion’s creature through myriad subterranean mazes, they’ll unlock new powers, such as turning invisible, firing a blot of webbing (handy for reaching levers and stunning humans), the ability to bash through wood barriers and more. Some of these abilities are only available when the creature is a certain size, but there are pools in which it can deposit body mass and shrink if needs be.
Players will inevitably run into human foes who run the gamut from laughable (unarmed or armed with pea-shooters) to rather dangerous indeed (boasting electric shields and flame-throwers). Find one of them alone in an area and brute force can pretty much suffice, but in a section that’s crawling with a group of them, some timing, patience and stealth is required; en masse the armed humans are no pushovers, particularly the ones armed with flamethrowers, which require nearby pools of water if players want to staunch the damage they cause.
There’s a certain gleeful satisfaction to be had in executing a successful attack on a group of heavily armed foes; using vents, knocking out lights and flinging targets into each other never loses its appeal. A mixture of flanking, followed by hit-and-run tactics is the go-to approach for most enemies, particularly the armoured mechs that pitch up on occasion.
Beyond its combat, Carrion’s central conceit is that of a puzzle box. The underground labs the creature traverses are filled with barriers, gates, rows of blocks that allow the creature only to reach through them – or swim through them once the player acquires the evolution upgrade that allows Carrion’s monster to split into multiple entities. It boasts wooden barriers – initially they can’t be broken – and myriad switches, some of which are initially out of reach. But every new evolution, every new skill that pops up presents the player with a new means to solve a puzzle – or rather gain access to an area – that has stymied them up until then.
This, however, can involve a bit of back-tracking and it’s here that Carrion’s first problem becomes apparent. There is some variety in the different areas of Carrion’s underground labs, but some of the hub areas look very generic – all gun metal greys, an underwater area and passages that seem to run in circles. This can be frustrating, leading players to spend an awful of time look for a way to the next area and then realising they need to backtrack to earlier levels.
Carrion really could have benefitted from a couple of directional prompts for the player; they could have even included the ability to turn said prompts off for those players who scorn them. Carrion also doesn’t offer a map, any mission objective, even any hints that show you you’re at least heading in the right direction. Once again, there are some players who would prefer most games to be this way, but they don’t speak for the entire gaming community.
But surprisingly, for a cartoon-horror side-scroller, one of the game’s biggest assets is its minimalist story – and yes, there is a story here. In fact it’s decent enough to undermine the simplistic ‘The Thing’ description on Twitter.
The creature in John Carpenter’s horror movie always appeared as a malevolent force, hell bent on wiping out the occupants of the Arctic base-station. Carrion’s creature – while hellishly violent and (depending on the player) possibly sadistic – only seems to have one aim in mind: escape its bondage and leave. In a way, this makes it slightly more sympathetic than your average xenomorph. After all, if you’d been poked and prodded in a lab for Lord knows how long, wouldn’t you be just a little bit testy?
Carrion is a relatively brief (6-8 hours) sojourn in the… well, body-mass of a monster. It also isn’t likely to inspire too many repeat visits by anyone other than achievement hounds. If those and the aforementioned gripes aside aren’t enough to put you off, give it a whirl. It’s consistently fun to play and it’s on Game Pass at the time of this writing.
