I've just finished whupping F.E.A.R. 3 or "F.3.A.R as it says on the game case, so I thought I'd run through the entire trilogy in this weeks review update. I must add though, that since this is a review of the trilogy, there will be spoilers to the predecessor games if you have yet to play them.
F.E.A.R.
When I first saw this game, I was immediately intrigued. What I knew about it was shrouded in mystery, but what I did hear about it were good things.
When I finally bought, played, and was amazed by the shear velocity of everything in the game. Now, I feel inclined to share my fair opinion of this great game.
Released in 2005 originally on PC and ported to consoles later, this action-horror masterpiece has done the rounds and never failed to scare and excite each time.
Graphics 9
First off, I just can't believe the other scores people have been giving the graphics section of this game. Scores were sometimes lower then they deserve, and the justifications for the sub-par score seem silly. Let me assure you: The graphics of F.E.A.R. are godly.
Seriously, these graphics rank right up there with the big boys of it's day like Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. They are that good.
The gun in your hand, the opponents coming to kill you, the backgrounds of your environment, the horrific terrors that attempt to stop your mission, EVERYTHING looks gorgeous and smooth.
I mean, if food was graphics, F.E.A.R. would be serving the 5-star food. As you might know, this game uses a lot horror elements.
Well the environs are definitely assisted by the amazing use of lights and shadows to keep you guessing at what is around the next corner. Lights will flicker on and off, dark alley ways will look menacing, strobing lights will confuse you, blood and corpses will unsettle you, and smoke and fog will add confusing and intense elements in the game.
All in all, the graphics are nice and clear but my only gripe is that for the better part of the game, that being the middle of it, you are in the same environment for hours, and you keep looking at the same office, hallways, chairs and desk setups, hell, it's may be beautiful graphically, but if I have to stare at the same environment for a few hours, it will get a little annoying.
The graphics are spectacular in everything they do, but some environment designs are overly repetitive.
Gameplay 10
F.E.A.R. is by far one of the best first person shooter titles that I have ever played.
Shoot-outs are very intense, plentiful, exciting, and incredibly awesome.
What makes the fire fights so enjoyable is the slow motion gunplay that really makes F.E.A.R. stand out from all other first person shooter games, and makes it unique.
In F.E.A.R. you have a little bar on the bottom of the screen that shows how much time you can enter slow motion mode in order to vanquish your enemies.
During this, time slows down for you allowing you to take better aim at your enemies, and wipe them out one by one. Slow motion looks incredible in this game, and it's simply amazing to see bullets whiz by your head in slow motion as they rip through the air.
F.E.A.R. has the smartest AI I've ever seen in a video game of the time. Often times you may even think you are playing against actual human players, and not bots.
The enemies take cover behind walls, flank you, call out your positions, communicate with each other, and use team work to try and take you down.
To truly experience how great the AI is, I recommend playing on the hardest difficulty, however they're no pushover on any of the lower difficulties, and may surprise you with their deadly tactics.
Gun battles never seem to play the same way twice, and always have a fresh feeling to them despite the fact the game is filled with these thrilling moments from beginning to end. F.E.A.R. can also be terrifying at times, and you'll often run into ghosts as you blast you're way through these dark and eerie levels, causing you to needlessly waste ammo which serve to mix up the shoot-outs later on.
Sound 10
Wow. From the horrific and creepy soundtrack (that admittedly doesn't place as much as it should) to the voice acting to even the SFX, the sound of F.E.A.R. has got it going on (not Stacy's mum)
Throughout the whole game, there will be parts where Paxton Fettel, the guy who you are tracking who will constantly menace and taunt you and your feeble efforts with his psychic abilities.
Monolith does a great job at creating a spooky atmosphere to accommodate F.E.A.R. At times the sound and music in the game can be very eerie and scary. Things being knocked over, creepy children laughing all around you, and loud noises accompanying ghosts help immerse you into the game world, and can be quite frightening at times.
The only problem I have however are things like phone messages etc, which make up the backbone of the games story can sound a little distorted and hard to hear, meaning to really understand it you need to put subtitles on.
Story 8
First Encounter Assault Recon (F.E.A.R.) is a secret military organization who's purpose is to deal with paranormal activities.
You play as a nameless elite super soldier (known through out the series simply as "point man") that possesses great powers that give him an edge over his foes. He has extremely quick reflexes allowing him to react quicker than any enemy could ever hope to accomplish.
This ties into the slow motion gun play that I touched upon earlier.
The story to F.E.A.R. is very good but is brought to you through telephone calls from your superior officers.
This can lead to a bit of confusion if you don't pay attention to the conversations. Basically the story is about a madman who controls an army of clones through telepathy.
As a member of F.E.A.R. you get called in to deal with this problem, and you encounter even worse foes along the way. The story is good but when all is said and done it leaves you with quite a few questions unanswered, and it's just not implemented well as the game goes on.
What's interesting though is the almost dual narrative, you start out hunting Paxton Fettel, and that's always the primary objective and plot, but the more you start looking into Alma Wade, the ghost antagonist and her history, things start to change up and Alma becomes a serious secondary objective that you need to deal with... But how the hell can you fight a ghost?
Overall 9
F.E.A.R. is a very fun, scary, and exciting first person shooter.
It has amazing Artificial Intelligence, graphics, game play, and enemies to fight against. While it does have some problems with the controls, story projection, but none of these things make too big of an impact that prevents you from enjoying the game.
F.E.A.R. is a solid and innovative FPS game, and if you have a few quid spare, than do yourself a favour and experience this game for yourself. You will not be disappointed.
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
A little history: Monolith, who made the original, did not retain the rights to the F.E.A.R. name from Activision/Blizzard. So they had to come up with a new name for the sequel, and came up with the idea to have the fans submit names, with the best one becoming the new game title.
They got a couple of good ones, like “Dead Echo” and “Dark Signal”, but ultimately settled on “Project Origin”. Yep…they chose the name that sounded most like a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. Thankfully, Monolith and WB games bought back the F.E.A.R. name from Activision/Blizzard and the game's full title became FEAR 2: Project Origin. The original F.E.A.R. mixed an action-packed FPS game with elements of Japanese horror, and the results were pretty damn good. Can the sequel live up to it's predecessor's reputation?
Graphics 7
Those who have played Monolith's Condemned 2 will immediately see that F.E.A.R. 2 runs on the same graphics engine, which of course makes it much better looking that the first F.E.A.R.
Levels for the most part are nicely designed, especially the levels that take place in the destroyed city.
Character and enemy models are nicely detailed, and the various gore effects are very brutal, including dismemberment and exploding heads. Hell, one enemy has a gas tank on his back for no other reason than to cause it to explode!
However, the most impressive feats of F.E.A.R 2 lie in it's special effects and set-pieces, from it's destructive environments to it's lighting to it's paranormal events.
One particular scene in a blinking light hallway in the elementary school is especially creepy. All these effects look even more impressive in slo-mo.
Some low-res texture work and a severe need for anti-aliasing keep it from being one of the best looking games out there, but what's here is impressive enough.
Gameplay 8
Not much has changed from the first FEAR gameplay-wise. Unfortunately, there is only one control scheme to work with in FEAR 2, with no customisation options. You fire, look down the sights, crouch, jump, and anything else that you would expect to do in a FPS.
Becket can even perform some martial arts melee attacks like in the first F.E.A.R.
The main gameplay element that separates F.E.A.R 2 from other shooters out there is the ability to go into bullet-time and wreck house. Like the Point Man, Becket has had “special” training which has augmented all his reflexes and senses, slo-mo does however make the game a little too easy, though at times it's a necessity.
F.E.A.R. 2 also removes the corner peeking that was featured in the first game and replaces it with the ability to use various objects in the environment for cover, This mechanic can be useful, but most of the time it shouldn't be needed, what with the slo-mo and everything.
Of course, the horror element is still fully intact in F.E.A.R. 2, thanks to series protagonist Alma's infatuation with Becket.
You'll constantly be seeing ghosts and other apparitions that impede your progress, as well as creepy flashbacks and Alma herself, appearing in both her child and adult forms.
This means that F.E.A.R. 2 includes more paranormal encounters than in F.E.A.R. with the ghosts actually attacking you at certain points, forcing you to shoot at something that basically isn't even there.
The most horrible paranormal enemy however is the ghouls that use dead bodies as puppets to attack you. These guys take a lot of ammo to take down and provide some of the game's more tense moments.
There are also enemies that remind me a lot of the creatures that appear toward the end of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and can lead to some creepy moments as they pop out of nowhere and jump on you, forcing you to fight them off. Overall, the action and horror come together just as well as the original game, and gives us another fun shooting experience, even though it doesn't really do that much more than the original F.E.A.R. did.
Sound 7
F.E.A.R. 2 has excellent sound design that puts it on par with the original game. Guns, explosions, bullet effects and the like are all phenomenal, and make you proud to own a 5.1 system. Voice acting and the little music that game has also get the job done very well. Everyone repeat after me: “No complaints here!”
I would say more on this, but just look at the paragraph in the F.E.A.R. review and then modernise the sound design to 2008 standards and there you go!
Story 7
The story starts out some time before the explosion that destroyed most of the city of Auburn at the end of the first F.E.A.R.
The original games Point Man is nowhere to be found here, as F.E.A.R. 2 has you stepping into the shoes of Delta Force member Michael Becket, who just like the Point Man seems to be missing a voice.
Him and his fellow squad mates have been giving the assignment to take Genevieve Aristide, the current president of Armacham Technologies (Armacham, of course, being responsible for the events of the first F.E.A.R.) into protective custody.
Of course, the plan goes to hell when the Point Man detonates the Origin facility and destroys the city with a nuclear blast, knocking Becket unconscious in the process.
When he wakes up, he finds himself in a hospital, separated from the rest of his team. Now Becket must fight through what's left of the city facing Armacham clean-up troops, replica soldiers, and a ghostly little girl named Alma who seems to have an attachment to him.
As far as stories go, F.E.A.R. 2's gets the job done in terms of getting you through the game, but overall it's not the strongest out there. Becket's silent demeanour and the fact that he'll be all by himself most of the game means that it will be hard to make some sort of attachment to him. It doesn't help that most of the supporting characters are all from the class of 2008 generic team-mate college, right down to the token "hot chick" of the group. Still, there is just enough storytelling (a lot of it done through intel you'll pick up in the field as with the first) and nicely written dialogue to get most players to it's fairly confusing (and disturbing) ending that leaves you wondering what's next.
Overall 7.5
F.E.A.R. 2's single player mode is average length, taking about 8-10 hours to complete. Afterwards, you can play the game on a higher difficulty level or play through each level again looking for any intel or slo-mo upgrades you may have missed. However, that pretty much covers it for single-player replay value, except for the trophies/achievements you can earn.
The only other value here is getting into the multiplayer, which I really don't see happening for most FPS fans with games like Call of Duty, Killzone, HALO and Resistance readily available for gamers.
Despite a very generic subtitle, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin lives up to it's predecessor in providing an action-movie/horror experience that should be enjoyable to most FPS fans. As long as you leave your brain at the door and don't expect a whole lot of wheel re-invention, you should have a hell of a time fearing Alma again!
F.E.A.R 3
The latest entry into the F.E.A.R. series, this time made by Day 1 studios instead of Monolith. And while you can distinctly see the change in developer, it plays and feels like a F.E.A.R. game.
Graphics 8
graphically, this game looks fantastic, I really cannot fault it in any sense, it's on par with todays FPS games in terms of how it looks.
But my only problem is environments look too samey.
Like the first level is a prison, all you get is brown walls and boxes, level four is suburbs and you get white, blood streaked walls...It's quite repetitive from level to level. Yeah I get that each level has it's own feel and look, but there is hardly variation within the levels themselves.
I mean, is it really so hard to chuck in a pink bedroom in one of the suburbs? maybe a rec area in the prison...
Still, it's a bloody good looking game and everything is well crafted and really sucks you into the world of F.E.A.R. 3
Gameplay 8
Standard FPS fare done very well.
like the other two F.E.A.R. games, this instalment follows the current trend of shooters, which this time round seems to be urban warfare in suburban settings.
I don't mind that, but it all feels a little samey.
Still, the gameplay itself is well done and solid, I had a blast playing through the game Running, jumping, and interacting with the environment are all spot-on, with one very large issue gracefully resolved. In many FPS games you need to be in the perfect spot to interact. F.E.A.R. 3 gives you some leeway, wherein if you're pretty close, the prompt will come up allowing for interaction. This removes a lot of headache, especially in the co-op multi-player where interaction is critical to success.
Yes, co-op. Work with a friend! This game supports local spiltscreen and online... I managed to play through splitscreen with wmy husband in about 5 hours, it's not exactly brilliant length, but we did plow through the game. on single player, or with less reckless playes, the game can be extended as firefights can become drawn out.
But the co-op also detracts from the scary factor of it's predecessors, and even in single player it's not overly scary, creepy yes - but there are no "OMIFUCKINGGOD!!!" moments.
Still, the atmosphere is good and keeps you on your toes.
Sound 8
Noise and voices are all done very well, and add to the tension of the game, both in single player and in multi-player.
Sound effects add to the creepy ambiance of the game, with screams, gusting wind, shattering boards, etc. keeping you from ever really being calm.
Shouting from the enemies and partners during the game can get a little repetitive, but this never becomes a major issue.
The only true issue that can be addressed is this: some sounds (especially the mech) can become overpowering. If you're using a headset or surround sound.
It's pretty much on par with the first game in terms of sound quality though, which is good... So like with F.E.A.R. 2, look at 1's review for sound.
Story 8
Weird, twisted, disturbing, any of those will do.
Point Man returns from the first game homicidal, psycho, dead brother Paxton Fettel in tow hunting down a their mother, Alma Wade who is now pregnant from the events of the second game and ready to drop.
Yeah, it's weird, and pretty decent for an FPS game.
It drives the game well, giving you a good reason to keep pressing on slaughtering any hapless fool who idiotically wanders in between you and the end of the level.
In shooter games a story is generally second to the action, but this one keeps your attention pretty well, made all the better by some good and creepy voice acting, where even the random fodder enemies are done very well.
Overall 8
The game itself isn't scary, not like the first two are, but it still has it's moments where you'll jump... But it seems to want to focus more on firefights than creepy as fuck atmosphere which really lets the game down as the constant fighting gets boring and I much prefer walking down a blackened hallway with a torch wondering what the hells gonna get me next rather than just walking from one fight to the other with a flickering light inbetween.
It's a solid shooter though with great mechanics visual flare, if you're looking for time to kill or are a fan of the franchise, definitely look this one up!
No comments:
Post a Comment