Thing-Thing 4, the last of the Thing-Thing series games. Of course, if you read my other Thing-Thing reviews, you'll know that I love the Thing-Thing series games and this might as well be my top favourite.
Thing-Thing is a 2D-oriented platform shooter where you proceed by getting a kill count and surviving, kind of like Metal Slug or/and Contra in a way, of course those two are way harder than this.

Let me say that gameplay has changed radically, that is...Weapons are no longer obtainable, you can only carry two at max. There's now a "melee weapon", some silly Lead Pipe that hardly even deals much damage (Although by killing 500 with it you can get a better stronger sword, so yeah...). Weapons are unlockable but are very different from the other Thing-Thing games, meaning that you don't need to get a kill count in an area and so. What you have to do is find them, which is actually very easy, so this is what makes me find it as a flaw; Weapons are findable, which is nice, but very easy to find, which sucks. It actually seems to be more fun to get kill counts than finding easy to find weapons and all. Also, ammo type is different by a little. That is, there's still Magnum, Handgun and SMG ammo, but there's no Rifle or Shotgun ammo. There are three types of Rifle ammo, .308, 7.62 and 5.56. I did say that there's no Shotgun ammo since it's 12 Gauge, but thing is, they all got 12 Gauge so.

At least the weapon variety is huge, there's pretty much 25 and probably more. Each of them have different fire rate, accuracy, damage, recoil and so on. Also, there's a new addition; "Special", these weapons are what they are, special. It ranges from Gauss Pistol, Laser Cannon and even a "Skulldrill"!

Enemy types have been ADDED, not CHANGED. Thing-Thing 1 had enemies with given weapons but randomized outfit, Thing-Thing 2 had randomized outfits, Thing-Thing 3 has randomized weapons and outfits. Thing-Thing 4 has randomized weapons but different "outfits", and not just that, types. Each type has its own outfit. There are the regular guards, enhanced guards (White) and elite guards (Black & Red). The big difference that I noticed from these guards is their HP, that's pretty much it. It ranges from 10, 15 to 20 respectively. And if you ask me how I know, the Game Guide says so.

Also, unlike in Thing-Thing 3, the continuation is almost like in Thing-Thing 2; You have to kill some guards to proceed. Although this time there's no counter unlike in Thing-Thing 2. Thing is, it isn't always like this, there are some levels where you can just proceed without doing anything (except defending yourself of course).

Just like Thing-Thing 3, there are bosses. and it's 2 exactly just like in Thing-Thing 3. Are they unique? Well, yeah. The first boss you have to fight in a car. The second boss you have to kill him two times. The second boss is somewhat less unique than the first one.

Now just to tell you how the boss lore goes; You kill Poseidon (TT1), Zeus (TT2), Hades Prototype (TT3) and the real Hades (TT4).

Survival mode doesn't exist here anymore, sadly. But the zombies and beans have not been removed, since you get a chance to either, kill zombies or kill beans in a two-way area.

Remember hard mode in Thing-Thing 3 and 2? Well, finally in Thing-Thing 4 it's toggleable. What sucks about it is that you don't really get a reward for winning it, unlike in Thing-Thing 3 and 2 with the guns and such. Besides, hard mode in Thing-Thing 4 is more like "tedious mode". Why? All it does is add even more enemy spawns and increase their HP, which is bullshit. Any weapon you thought that dealt 3 head damage now deals 9. So yeah, pistols get nerfed so much they become almost useless.

The storyline continues right where you have been left of, killing the Hades Prototype, you think you're trapped but then you get an unstable energy cell from Hades Prototype and throw it against the wall, your chances to escape are possible. You get out of the chamber you were in into the office, then you meet Project 153 again, finally you kill him for real and then you proceed into the secret SystemCorps lab. Fighting through the forest that hides the lab, you get in the lab and find out what they're doing, you even find out that they were able to make their own living beings and even reanimate the death. Finally, you reach where the boss should be, but...Not before you kill the real Hades. Thing is, the SystemCorps' boss is not there. It was a trap, you got no choice but to die.

For graphics, the gore system has been heavily improved from Thing-Thing 3. You get a chance to explode somebody's head WITH pieces (and his brain) coming out. Sometimes you just get a very gory headshot, that's cool. It all depends on the weapon calibre I think, probably how many times you shoot in the head too. Well, that is for the "head gore", now for the rest, one of the things I like is that it is somewhat dynamic, by that I mean...You shoot somebody JUST in the chest and when he dies, only his chest is gory, but his head is alright, it's normal. If you shoot in the head and the chest, both parts will be gory. Great! Just by shooting one time in the head and many in the chest or viceversa, both parts will be gory! Holy shit! This gore system is very nice. Sadly, if you kill somebody with explosives, he explodes but not violently so, at least some parts are visible. Kind of nice that it only does when it's a direct explosion, the indirect one just kills them alright.

By the way, the blood has been greatly improved too. You can see it easily when you stand in a corner and start shooting people up (killing them more like it), the whole wall will be full of blood. Sadly the blood is not as good as I wish it was, but it still does the trick so, fair enough. I like it!

Okay, enough about blood & gore, let's talk about environment. The environment is similar to Thing-Thing 3 but with some enhancements, the details are now even better. Background and foreground looks way better than before and sometimes it even looks like you're near it or far away from it. Wait, did Thing-Thing 3 even have a foreground? If it didn't, well at least TT4 does.

The details on guns have been improved somehow, but it still suffers that "Trigger on left and right" graphical overlook. You can easily see that and easily understand what I mean by aiming your AK47 right and left. Also, all guns are still the boring Black & Gray, no wood on AK47 for example. Kinda sucks, but oh well. They do seem to be different than in Thing-Thing 3, though not by a lot. What somehow bothers me is how some of them got fancy stuff, such as the AK47 having a sight. What the hell? Oh well, I guess this is a "Tacticool" fever.

There's a small flaw on the customization; You got less than before, you can no longer wear any armour or fancy military-ish gadgets. This sucks. This was put because of the enemy types though. At least we are now able to change our "faces", which is the beard type and eyes. Want to be a mad 5 o'clock shadow anti-hero? You got it.

Let's go for sounds, I don't think there is actually much difference, except in guns. Each gun has its own unique sound and it sounds better than in Thing-Thing 3. Besides, there's no gore, blood and hit sounds. If those sounds were already in Thing-Thing 3, well, lemme just say that in Thing-Thing 4 they're more hearable than in Thing-Thing 3. Also, you can finally hear footsteps unlike in the other Thing-Thing games. Funny, Thing-Thing Arena 2 has footsteps but not ingame, yet this one has it everywhere. There's really not much to say about this.

As for music, this one is very similar to Thing-Thing 3, each area and its sub-areas has its own music. Some got it repeated. The music has got an extremely radical change (at least for me), that is...There's no more electro-industrial or anything. I'm not even sure what kind of genre this is, probably just techno. Same as sounds; there's really not much to say about this.

Overall, this is the best of the Thing-Thing 4 series games. I like it a lot despite having some flaws. Sadly there's not much desire to repeat playing this, although I think you can appreciate it more than in Thing-Thing 3 and 2. I highly recommend this game for everybody