Game Review: F.E.A.R.

[Fabricated]

I've had it done for two days, but I was a retard and forgot my frontpage password. Bah!

[Sairon]

I agree that the levels aren't very varied, but the level design is superb imo, the skyskrape which you spend a lot of time in actually feels like it could be an actual corporate building. I liked that there was an excuse for why all soldiers looked a like as well, they are clones after all.

[Llava]

So is the little girl evil?  Or is she doing one of those "I am scary at the beginning and misunderstood, but my real target is the same guy you're going after so really we're allies" things?

[Fabricated]

So is the little girl evil?  Or is she doing one of those "I am scary at the beginning and misunderstood, but my real target is the same guy you're going after so really we're allies" things?

No, she's nuts.

[Megrim]

Yea the little girl is indeed DefinitelyNotAtAllTheGirlFromTheRing™. Not in the sliiiiightest.

To be honest, from the hype this game recieved i was expecting a little more - but then i realised that this was Monolith, and that they make all of their games on a $2 budged, so it was ok. I own Shogo and i damn well liked that game.

As Schild said, the plot is nonsense (or rather, not nonsense, just very poorly developed. The idea in and of itself is actually quite good, especially the Predator-esque ending), and while the a.i. is not bad, it definitely leaves a great deal to be desired. Make no mistake, it is leaps and bounds beyond anything out right now and i very much hope that Monolith choose to develop the engine further into some truly fiendish artificial intellgence. However, i think i was most impressed with just how well the game scales to lower end systems with their auto-detect feature. It was a nice touch.

 - meg

[Fabricated]

Yea the little girl is indeed DefinitelyNotAtAllTheGirlFromTheRing™. Not in the sliiiiightest.

To be honest, from the hype this game recieved i was expecting a little more - but then i realised that this was Monolith, and that they make all of their games on a $2 budged, so it was ok. I own Shogo and i damn well liked that game.

As Schild said, the plot is nonsense (or rather, not nonsense, just very poorly developed. The idea in and of itself is actually quite good, especially the Predator-esque ending), and while the a.i. is not bad, it definitely leaves a great deal to be desired. Make no mistake, it is leaps and bounds beyond anything out right now and i very much hope that Monolith choose to develop the engine further into some truly fiendish artificial intellgence. However, i think i was most impressed with just how well the game scales to lower end systems with their auto-detect feature. It was a nice touch.

 - meg

What pissed me off the most is how they switched around character roles and how they obviously gutted a LOT of scripted stuff and plot from the corporate building, so you were left just the (admittedly creepy) Alma spottings, gunfights, and lame corporate voicemail. One of the characters in particular, Holliday, was supposed to be a member of your team and the "empath", which would've been really fucking cool. Instead they switch him to a demolitions expert or something for the military, and naturally, the token female character becomes the empath (despite the fact she was supposed to be the sniper of the group. They didn't even change her model. Check her trigger finger).

[Megrim]

Oh really? To be honest i pretty much didn't pay any attention to them beyond the "blah blah blah go find Hannibal Lector blah blah". Although, that one bit where she says "there was a lot of anger in this room" (about a room covered in blood) cracked me up. "Anger? Noooo, surely not! They were just redecorating."

 - meg

*Edit

What the hell, i could have sworn it said Schild reviewed it. Apologies =D

[HaemishM]

A friend of mine bought this but didn't like it, so he let me borrow it. I installed and played through about 4 missions/levels last night.

It is a motherfucking resource hog on some of the shinier settings. I had to shut down a good bit of the shiney to get it playable, though I'm going to work my way back up the shiney ladder gradually until I get a good balance of shiney and playability. It does scale well.

It's definitely a Monolith game. Something about the way my character's arms/weapons look, like he's holding them out as stiffly as possible doesn't feel right. It throws me off, and reminds me a lot of No One Lives Forever 1. Gameplay is solid though. The use of jump scares is decent; the jump scares aren't telegraphed so they are actually surprising. It isn't really scary for me, but the atmosphere does evoke a lot of "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" or "THAT'S SOME FUCKED UP SHIT" responses. The AI is top-notch, though. The soldiers work together, they take cover and use grenades, they try to flank me. Pretty good stuff.

I haven't tried the multiplayer, but the single-player is pretty good, probably 4 out 5 stars.

[Ironwood]

Can't really add anything to that.  My experience over the weekend has been much the same.  I have a rig that can create worlds and the FEAR eat it for breakfast.  (Someone said it would and I remember replying in my Hubris that I'd be fine.  I'm not.) 

The scares are scary, the gore is gory, the weapons are meaty and the AI is, you know, present.

The level design is a little strange and the repetitious nature of the levels will make you want to throw up eventually, but that little niggle aside, it's a really good game.

I think we put the plot down as another KOTOR II.  I think there was a lot in there that got .... revised.


(Although, what is it with the AI being scared ?  I heard them scream 'he's trying to flank us', when I was in fact sitting in a dark corner with my finger on the remote grenade trigger, giggling like a maddy...)

[Fabricated]

Can't really add anything to that.  My experience over the weekend has been much the same.  I have a rig that can create worlds and the FEAR eat it for breakfast.  (Someone said it would and I remember replying in my Hubris that I'd be fine.  I'm not.) 

The scares are scary, the gore is gory, the weapons are meaty and the AI is, you know, present.

The level design is a little strange and the repetitious nature of the levels will make you want to throw up eventually, but that little niggle aside, it's a really good game.

I think we put the plot down as another KOTOR II.  I think there was a lot in there that got .... revised.


(Although, what is it with the AI being scared ?  I heard them scream 'he's trying to flank us', when I was in fact sitting in a dark corner with my finger on the remote grenade trigger, giggling like a maddy...)

The AI says that depending on what direction you were moving when they lose track of you. FEAR also does that weird stealth-game crap where a bullet to the face is instantly fatal only when the enemy isn't aware of you.