We already know games are better than horror movies: they involve you, they provide genuine surprises, and instead of shouting “Don’t go down the dark corridor alone asshole!” you get to be the asshole. Which is apparently better. Where Left 4 Dead simulates “Ragtag survivors versus hordes of undead,” cunningly converting the fact there’s always an idiot on your team into a cinematically-accurate fact, The Hidden is “Heavily armed SWAT team taking down a single mutant ohGOD HOW IS HE KILLING US ALL HGHRHRRLLLLL.”
The titular “Hidden” is a half-invisible hybrid of Hunter, Predator, Gravity Gun, knife-wielding lunatic and just for fun he’s got grenades. It’s fantastic.
This is the only screen in the game that doesn’t potentially contain an invisible murderer.
The core is the deeply asymmetrical gameplay: where the horde of “red vs blue” style shooters take every effort to make sure everyone’s even, and then have to engineer new anti-stalemate solutions, the lone Hidden is pitted against an entire team out to destroy him.
It doesn’t always work out for them
You’ll re-enact every single horror movie cliche on your first game, and enjoy them all: desperately spraying ammunition at perceived movement, accidentally injuring team-mates because you “thought they were
IT!“, suddenly finding yourself bleeding and confused and spinning in circles - and at every point it’ll have seemed like the right thing to do. The
Hidden’s ability to cling on any surface (not just the glowing highways of
Left 4 Dead maps) mean he really could come from anywhere, and more than once I’ve turned, seen my team-mate, turned, wait
where’s his head?
The First thing you learn in IRIS is to look up
The Hidden’s grenades prevent the IRIS (Infinitum Research Intercept Squad, because acronyms mean you’re secret and evil) agents from bunching up in a small room, as does the fact our invisible assassin has a genetically engineered gravity gun. I’m going to say that again: genetically engineered gravity gun. He can pick up and throw any object, including corpses, but he usually won’t do that because he can eat them to regain health. In other news: Infinitum Research created a gravity-mastering cannibal and make Umbrella Labs look like a safety-match company.
The quality of the mod is evident from the tutorial - for one thing, there’s a tutorial, and it’s not only an effective introduction to the controls but acts as a prequel to the game proper. You start as an IRIS agent, arriving for your first day of work at covert shadowy Infinitum Research facility number blah, stuffed with suspiciously stacked boxes and extremely bad ideas about what constitutes worthwhile genetics research. Just after the compulsory target range, there’s an explosion releasing subject 617…
This may be the creepiest tutorial message of all time
… at which point you enter the
Hidden’s tutorial, escaping the facility (and presumably into one of the many maps.) It’s a sign of serious quality on the part of unpaid
modders.
As is the fact the game’s incredibly fun.
It’s true that a weak Hidden isn’t much fun, but on the one hand that’s a Darwinian problem - he’ll quickly be killed - and on the other you can also set your server so that the strongest player from the previous round takes the mantle, ensuring enjoyable opposition and active competition to grab the “psycho murderer” job. Because what that reveals about human nature isn’t terrifying at all. Maybe …. maybe we’re the Subject 617s.
And don’t worry about being annihilated on your first game. I mean, you will be, but you won’t be sitting on the sidelines twiddling your thumbs: a cinematic security-camera style spectator mode allows you to enjoy the action, with faint heat trails now displaying the Hidden’s strategy.
Can you see that faint blue trace on the right? Because they can’t.
Told you
Installing the mod is simplicity itself - the
self-extracting file automatically uploads itself into your Steam game list, while your server host can easily turn a
HL2 server into a Hidden hideout. There’s still an active community of players, and there’s the minor fact that this great mod is utterly free. In fact, you’d have to come up with a really good reason NOT to go play it right now.
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August 18th, 2010 at 8:04 am
Hidden Wins!