Thoughts on FEAR
By Shaunage 3 Comments
For the first time in a while I sat down and played a game from start to finish. This time it was FEAR, the second game knocked off the stack. Fear, which I refuse to fully capitalise from this point onwards, is a weird mix between a PC style first person shooter and a horror game. PC style because the game has little autoaim and is amazingly hard on anything above the "please don't hurt me, crying in the corner" setting. The mix is weird because the two things happen completely seperately. The first 2 or 3 levels are walks down long hallways with the occasional screamer and numerous appearances by token scary little girl with a traumatic past, Alma. The next 2/3 of the game are pretty standard corridor shooter fare and then we head back to flashing lights and ghostly attacks until the game ends.
I got three levels in and had to start over on easy. Maybe I've gotten bad at games in my old age (20), but even on the normal setting Fear was tearing me apart. Some stuff on easy gave me trouble, too. I've finished COD2 on veteran and Halo 3 on legendary. I promise I'm generally good at shooters, I just had a really hard time with this one.
Fear does tell its story very well, apart from the whole "very nearly explain all of the plot twists in the first level" business. Creepy little girls might feel a bit overdone now, but she does her job. An appearance in a vent early on is probably the best example of a scare done well.
I was surprised how much of Monolith's other major series, Condemned, showed up in Fear. I'm aware Fear came out first, but I played Condemned ages ago and only just got around to this. The character models look very similar between the two games and of all things the "bucket getting kicked around" sound effect was reused. Of the two games I absolutely prefer Condemned. Clubbing hobos in the face with a lead pipe is a whole lot more interesting than shooting a clone army, even if you can do it in slow motion. Which looks amazing. The stand-out effect on the weapon side is the nailgun, which allows you to pin enemies to the wall, occasionaly in three or more different places.
I do have to say that I never really felt comfortable with my weapons. I carried around a shotgun, a kind of rail gun and a rocket launcher for much of the end half of the game, leaving me pretty much out of luck in a long distance fight, since I was saving the two heavy guns for the occasional Big Daddy-esque robot fight and maybe the last boss. Spoiler - there isn't one.
Overall I'd say I enjoyed Fear, but that it seemed just a little bit too long, even at just over 7 hours. I'm giving it a 7. This is not a game for points-whores, by the way. A run through the campaign on easy, actively trying to get them, earned me a whopping 40. Nearly all of the achievements are nearly impossible and well done to anyone who has them. I probably need to mention one death in particular that stuck out as being unfair, though the game was generally pretty good about those. Entering one room, I ran to the right. A truck barreled through the wall opposite and crashed directly into me, killing me instantly. Silly. Bonus points for giving us "escort missions" where the annoying helpless NPC is completely invincible.
Next game was going to be Timeshift, but I've realised that's maybe just a little too similar to Fear. A lot of slow motion shotgun work. Dark sector, probably.