So based on the excellent reviews it’s been getting, I went out and got FEAR last night (I refuse to acknowledge that acronym). I was only able to play for about an hour or two last night after I installed it, but I’ve definitely got a feel for the game. My reaction: it’s great!
This game is scary. No, not fucking scary like Doom3. If you played Doom 3, you know that it has what, in the movie world, is known as “cheap scares”. A great gaming term used for it is “Monster Closets”. Basically, in Doom 3 you walk into a room that seems empty. You could even search around every goddamn inch of that room and you’d be positive that it’s empty. But as soon as you reach some invisible trigger point, LITERALLY a hidden wall panel opens up and a monster comes out behind you, of course scaring the piss out of you as it attacks. The game is also DARK as FUCK.
OK, enough about Doom 3. But I just wanted to make that clear, to give reference to how well FEAR does the horror. In FEAR, things are creepy! It’s not shit that tries to kill you, but rather stuff that just makes you scared.
For example, you’ll be walking along down a hallway and suddenly you’ll see some weird zombie looking guy (or the ghost little girl from the cover) walks, just for an instant, across your field of vision. Or, you’ll be walking through a eerily still room, and suddenly a couple boxes just fall off the shelf and it SCARES THE FUCK OUT OF YOU. Now from the reviews I’ve read, you also get scares with “the payoff” at some points too, but not every single time. What happens is the game builds mood and atmosphere very artfully and effectively. The other thing that adds to the whole creep factor is that the settings are all things very familiar. No fucking moon bases on Mars or crazy spaceships. No spooky gothic houses. Dude, I live in Southern California. I’ve never been in those places. What I do know are office complexes, run-down industrial areas, etc.
I don’t mean to suggest that this is just a creep-em-out game. Actually, it’s an action game.
We’ll I don’t want to go on too much longer, but here’s some cool stuff that’s rubbed off on me:
*Sense of character – when you walk around, you don’t float, but it really feels like you’re walking naturally. SHADOWS! When there’s a light source behind you, you see your whole character’s shadow on the wall. Sometimes this scares the hell out of you (like when you come around a corner), but mostly it just adds to the feeling that you’re actually there. When you look down…holy shit, you actually see your feel. Been a long time since I’ve seen that in an FPS.
*Destructable environments – well I haven’t gotten a rocket launcher yet (there may not be one) and even if I had one, you probably couldn’t blow a hole through a wall with it (when are they gonna make a game like this?). However, let’s just say that after a firefight, the room doesn’t look the same as it did when you walked in. Bullets not only make bullet holes on walls, but also tear out little chunks of concrete. This is especially apparent when you’re shooting at someone who’s covering around the corner of the wall and as you blast little chunks go missing.
*Enemy AI – OK, I’m not really going to go into this, but it’s pretty good. I’ve heard that it’s rare to have scenario play out the same if you play it again. For me, good AI should be standard. I expect it to be good, and I get pissed when it sucks. I think playing online games like Counter-Stike and Battlefield 2 raise one’s standards of AI.
*Weapons – I’ve only got like 4 weapons so far, but they’re cool. They feel like a reasonable mix of fun and realism in terms of accuracy and style. So far I’ve got the dual pistols, submachine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, and this thing called the Penetrator which is kind of like a nail gun. If you shoot someone standing in front of a wall, it actually transfixes them and pins them up on the wall. Not so much gruesome as it is just creepy to see someone hanging there. OK, you can also blast people’s limbs off (with regular guns). They do the Far Cry thing where you can only carry like 3 guns and have to choose and swap out to pick up new ones.
Uhh, there’s more, but I’ve already wasted too much time.
Bottom line: good game. Not just nice eye candy, but also pretty damn solid gameplay mechanics.
Anybody else played it?
