Sep. 3 - The only thing we have to FEAR is an over-used pun
FEAR was one of those games that while I just owned my laptop I just looked at and said, "Wow!" and was just excited that it existed. It looked cool, was scary as crap, had cool slow-mo effects, and would melt my computer into glass if I ever tried to run it. That was OK. It was a new game with high system reqs and cost, like, 50 bucks. Neither my computer nor my wallet could take it, but I was OK with that. That all changed when I got my new computer. Suddenly one of the impairments to me getting new games was removed. Those of you who know me are aware of my...frugality. I usually wait until a game is $20 or less before I buy it, but here was a game that looked way too cool. Thanks to Wal-Mart cutting dental insurance for all its employees, however, they were able to sell me FEAR for a mere $30. And so, while laughing at and capitalizing on the misfortunes of others, I purchased the game.
Nathan playing FEAR...or minesweeper, I don't remember.
When I first opened the box I was met with annoyance. The game is a whopping five CD's and it comes in just those crappy paper envelopes. How am I supposed to store the CD's in a protected yet easily accessible and recognizable place? I forgave Half-Life 2 for this because you don't have to have any of the CD's in the drive to actually play the game. FEAR requires you to have the fifth disc (naturally) in the drive to play so it gets to float around on top of my computer with the Oblivion disc. Anyway, after I install this bad boy I start to play. I played the single-player demo a couple times which presented a part of the first level. I was expecting to blaze through this part since I'd already worked out the difficult parts. However, they didn't just chop off the very beginning of the game and package it as a demo. The demo was actually a unique experience, which I think was a classy move. You got to try out more of the guns and combat and really experience a demonstration of the game.
Try watching the intro while listening to Space Oddity by David Bowie
I read in another review that FEAR is very derivative. I will agree with that. The creepy girl on the front of the box and who turns out to be the center of the story pretty much is the girl from The Ring. I didn't really have a problem with that because I never saw The Ring, but I don't think it would have bothered me anyway. I was excited enough by the story and the action in the game not to be thinking about some movie. I think they handle their influences well. Well enough to make me smile when I catch things. One example that actually got me to vocally point out its existence to the screen was a very Akira-like metallic sphere deep inside a psychic research facility. FEAR also tends to channel the spirit of Half-Life 2. This is not a bad thing. There are certain presentation and puzzle elements that can be attributed to Half-Life but it's all done very well. It's like saying that a film-maker is clearly influenced by Scorsese or Kurosawa: those guys were so influential that as long as the influenced work doesn't suck it just brings deeper meaning. The story progresses as the unraveling of a mystery, but, pleasantly, it doesn't shove any of its conclusions or revelations down your throat. It simply hints at several possibilities and then confirms the one you've been guessing at (that's not to say there aren't any "woah" moments).
Those people at Gushers weren't kidding when they bragged about their "explosive liquid centers."
I know it's a buzz-concept (more than just a buzz-word but perhaps a buzz-phrase) that games are becoming more like movies. I see it more that games are presenting a more realistically interactive world to play in. In that light, I would like to commend FEAR's interactive world. One experience in particular stands out. It makes so much sense in real life but is rather foreign in a game world. You come to a door; it won't open. There are many way to open locked doors in games that range from colored key cards to flicking the correct switches to explosives. Never, in my experience, have you been able to smash the glass portion of the door with the butt of your gun and open it (with the implication that you reached through the ex-window and unlocked it from the other side). That made me so happy. I'm sorry if I spoiled it for any of you future FEAR players, but to me it represented a large step for games into the realm of realism. Another way FEAR progresses in this direction is when you tilt you character's view to the floor you can actually see your legs and feet. Plenty can be said for a game's graphics (and FEAR's are top-of-the-line), but Doom 3 didn't have these kinds of touches. The one thing that is a little disappointing about the realism factor in FEAR is character reaction. Half-Life 2 set a high bar for cinematic, believable characters that really react to what's happening around them and for better or for worse everyone else is now judged against that bar. FEAR's characters look amazing and are designed very expressively. However, there's a difference between character design and character animation. It seemed a stark contrast to the very emotion-susceptible Alyx from H-L2 when my female FEAR teammate barely flinched as our chopper was shot down over an industrial complex. It's just one moment and one complaint, but in a game with such outstanding production values in graphics, sound, and dialogue it stands out.
Yeah, she's hot, but she won't come on to you like Alyx.
To me this seems like a non-conventional review so I'll go ahead with another non-conventional idea that's important to me about shooters: the guns feel good. Each gun has its own sound and they all sound good. You get aural pleasure from firing the guns. They don't sound wussy or odd. You fire the guns and stuff gets wrecked. Even if you miss, walls and boxes and windows get blown to crap. If I wasn't worried about wasting ammo I would have just run around shooting everything because it's fun. The guns are fun to fire and they mess up whatever they're pointed at; to me that's the foundation of what makes a shooter fun. Also, I got attached to my guns. You can only carry three different weapons so there are occasions when you have to choose to give up one gun for another. I found it hard to give up for my assault rifle or my trusty shotgun for a more powerful techno weapon because I had chosen them so many times up to that time and succeeded with them, too. To me, the guns became characters. Maybe I'm just crazy like that, but it is a shooter.
Posted by Nathan
