Carrion (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

 

WHAT HAS GOD WROUGHT?

This is a John Carpenter's The Thing inspired game where you play as the creature. In Soviet Russia...bug hunts YOU.

The initial menu screen is completely hideous. Actually, so is the game's box art:

Most appealing box art ever. "Play as a mass of intestines and teeth!"

I want to take a flamethrower to this case.

It does have a nice art book at least.

MAC WANTS THE FLAMETHROWER!

The game begins with a capsule in a laboratory. A bunch of scientists have something locked up in here, but it just woke up.

Thrash around enough and the capsule shatters. Alarms go off, humans run around in panic... in a normal game, this'd be where you start playing as one of the humans in the base.

NOT HERE. You play as the loose creature, which leaves trails of red on everything. Is this Super Meat Boy II?

As you attack and gobble up people, you gain mass and health. And spray more blood everywhere!

Most of the gameplay revolves around pulling levers and solving lever-related puzzles.

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. However, here, it DOES NOTHING.

The Thing leaps around, snarling and snapping. It's like the honey badger of the cosmos.

This one guy is pointing his gun at the door, waiting for the creature to burst through. I just sat there for a minute.

In the aftermath of our "fight", The Thing dangles from the ceiling like some kind of jackass.

It's worth noting that the controls in this game are really good. The creature moves around extremely smoothly, and can latch on to walls and ceilings easily. Basically controls like an octopus underwater.

The first powerup. There are a bunch of powerups in this game that enhance the creature (by adding DNA from other specimens). This one lets you fire webs.

The game has a ton of background fans. Reminds me of Blade Runner.

One of the more forgettable abilities The Thing has is that it can emit a howl, which lures strong enemies over and scares off weak enemies. Using that while in hiding can have some interesting results. This game is all about just wreaking havoc.

There are a couple of flashback scenes where you see people landing at some ruins. This looks otherworldly, but I think it's just Washington state. The main base seems to be right outside Seattle, with all the caverns etc extending out into the wilderness.

In these ruins, the scientists? find some weird stuff, including the creature. Which they theoretically subdued somehow and imprisoned in that pod in the lab.

A few weeks later...

"Keep Calm and Carry On"

Now they've got flamethrowers!

The enemies become a real threat around this point. Your creature is overpowered, but you can still get shredded quickly under a major attack. A lot of stealth is required to be successful when dealing with heavily-armed humans.

The creature ducks into some water for protection. HAW! YOU CAN'T REACH ME!

Some gorgeous underwater scenery here. Gorgeous until you notice THE THING lurking in it.

These walker-mechs start appearing later. They've got gatling guns that can shred your monster quickly if you fight them head-on.

The solution is to grab pieces of the mechs off of them from around corners until they fall apart.

Meanwhile the monster shrieks a lot in triumph. At least there isn't any huskie-murder in this one.

The city of Seattle is visible nearby from the windows of this one tower in the base. If this creature, God Forbid, escapes from here and gets into the world...

...will people on Twitter be able to debate about its possible lab origins without getting banned? Or discuss it at all? Man, we're fucked.

Now I get the ability to possess humans via tentacle and get them to flip switches/radio their superiors to say "it's cool, honeybunny"

YOU TELL HER IT'S COOL, HONEYBUNNY!

Next I possess this heavily-armed trooper and sic him on the bathroom. Which is now the bathroom of DEATH

The Thing bursts out of a possessed human.

At this point the creature is massive from absorbing so many humans. It can still break apart and re-form and send bits to crawl into people.

Probably the most menacing name for an area ever.

At the very end of the game, I wandered lost for a while because I had no clue what to do next. Turns out you have to go all the way back to the beginning (if you can find it). Now with all of the powerups you can break into the area right next to the pod you emerged from at the start.

This gets you the final ability, which allows the creature to fully assimilate and imitate a human (rather than just manipulate them).

The process of takeover...is not pleasant

And now we have a perfect imitation.

He just sorta waltzes out of the base at this point.

There's a scanner here that checks a person's bio-signs as they leave (maybe to ensure that they're a person and not an escaped something-or-other?)

The chilling thing is, the guy passes the scan with flying colors.

And here we are, outside in the streets of Seattle, with no further resistance as the slow takeover begins.

"Entire world population infected in 3 years? Huh." says Blair before going completely insane.

Damn. What an insanely creepy game.