Imagine if you will, a place of great evil, a location so drenched with an immortal, demonic being that its horrendous power reached out across the waters and poisoned the hearts and minds of countless monks and an group of mischievous children dabbling with the occult.
Clive Barker's Undying is by no means a new game, entering video game reality in 2001, on Saint Valentine's Day, no less, with a doughty protagonist aiming to help his old World War I friend investigate -and hopefully end- a deep family curse.
While quite a few of gamers out there might argue that the graphics and game engine don't hold up to today's standards, I argue that the story is transcendent as opposed to flashy-but-droll games that sparkle for a little while but whose light does nothing to warm you. Undying doesn't just warm - it still holds a blowtorch on your soul.
That said, if you are truly interested in the game, plenty of resources exist to explain the first-person-shooter, survival horror, timeless gem that is Undying.
My point here is to create a formal request to revisit this game and give it a sequel. So many requested a reboot, but some things should remain immune from Do-Over Syndrome (how many movie remakes are there which are horrifying flops compared to the originals?) We can go the safer route and ask for a second story for Patrick Galloway, his further travels into the realms opened up by the insanity of the Covenant family. What really happened when the men in black robes found him and drug him into their boat? Where did they take him?
Like any fan, a few ideas are swirling about in my noggin on what became of dear old Patrick, and whether or not he remained a pure soul in light of all the atrocities around him.
In general, I oppose fan fiction, if only because too many out there in this world use it to craft ridiculous Mary Sue characters and twist and manipulate the original author's vision until the story is a muck of ridiculousness, banality and porn. These writers seem compelled to turn their 'favorite' characters into something they are not instead of staying true to what made them love the character in the first place (sadly, this is probably true of their real lives, trying to turn someone they fell in love with into this sludgy, stereotypical highly-sexualized version so they may gratify themselves and are shocked when it doesn't work because that 'other' is actually an 'individual' who has wants and needs of their own, which is why the first party is falling in love with a fantasy and turning it into porn... and the vicious cycle continues...). Among the muck piles, however, there are a few gems here and there who strive to advance the story(ies) we have all come to love and do so in passably good fashion.
As I am dreaming up a little story of my own to answer some of the questions about the Standing Stones and the fate of Patrick Galloway in order to break my own rule and play around with a little fan-fic in time for Halloween.
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