F.E.A.R. Series Catch-All

Scratched, thanks for the link. Why I can't say as though I'm pleased with the direction they're taking gameplay wise, that HUD looks like a nice return to minimalism from the first one. Lol'd at the strawberry jam comment. >.< at the stupid achievement/challenge updates popping up (Eat three more magical bumbleberry tarts to unlock the Bumbleberry tart Eater Achievement!), but I guess there's no escaping that crap. (Unless someone thought to include a 'suppress challenge notifications' toggle in the options menu, which would pleasantly shock and surprise me.

Achievement pop ups in a horror singleplayer game do seem a bit of an immersion breaker.

Sinatar wrote:

There was nothing scary about FEAR. You're a walking arsenal with magical slow mo abilities and enough firepower to level a small city, how exactly are you supposed to feel scared in that kind of scenario? This is compounded by the fact that the main source of terror is a small girl walking around.

I did find Alma to be creepy and unsettling in a The Ring sort of way and as I learned a little more about her character it seemed more gloomy and dreadful that she is what she is.

What I did find scary were the sequences in which the guns do nothing. There are the parts where spirits of Fettel float at you out of the darkness and you have to put a few rounds in them and then there are the ones where Alma is slowly marching up to you in a dark hallway. It looks like the other shoot-outs with ghosts, so I lay into the trigger to no avail. Now I start wondering "what do I do to get out of this sequence? Do I keep shooting? Do I turn and run before she lights the gottverdammt hallway on fire? Do I just wait it out?" The end result is that I can't take my eyes off her and she gets what she wants from the horror sequence.

Now, some of them aren't as strong as all that but I think they do a good job of making me watch the horrors even if that's all I get to do.

A lot of the scary moments in F.E.A.R. aren't of the "jump out at you going 'bloogy, bloogy, bloo'" type. Hell, at least half the time if you aren't looking in the right direction when Alma shows up you won't even see her. Except for a couple of cutscenes you can probably play through the entire game and miss the "horror" bits (except for the occasional room painted in blood, but still...).

The actual horror part comes when you start reading the various logs and the like and start realizing who Alma is and what Armacham and company did to her. There is some really f'd up stuff going on in the story.

Yeah. The more I learn of Alma from the expansions, the more I get what I didn't get from the first game. The plot still flies wildly from one cliche to another but I think they realized that video games demand more explanation than films. That might just be from the time commitment of the expected audience. If FEAR is meant to pull Halo players into the horror genre, they can't give them a plot like in the film Vanishing on 7th Street in which what is causing the ghostly apocalypse is not important compared to what people are doing to escape it. (It's not a very good movie. Good enough. I'm just using it because it illustrates my point.)

Actually, if you want a really good unexplained ghostly apocalypse, check out KAIRO. (Pulse) The Japanese one, not the American remake

gains wrote:

Actually, if you want a really good unexplained ghostly apocalypse, check out KAIRO. (Pulse) The Japanese one, not the American remake

Best movie I don't want to see ever again. Ever.

My problem with the story of FEAR is that they've stretched the Alma/Armacham angle too much. They need to introduce new stuff if they want to roll out new games and expansions.

Atlas wrote:

You think that's a child in there? Don't be fooled. She's Alma. Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought about right and wrong, well, that don't count for much at Armacham.

I'm in a bit of a pickle with this one so far. Most of the previews I've read just make me angrier and angrier, talking about forced co-op throughout the game, regenerating health, etc. Then, I see stuff like this and I start to get worked up and excited again, hoping that making they'll really expand the story, gives us some psychological creepouts, lots of down-time-scary-creepy-crawly-listening-to-panicked-answering-machine messages-etc.

John Carpenter & Steve Niles weigh in on their contribution to the game

Puce Moose wrote:

I'm in a bit of a pickle with this one so far.

Wait a week, and see what 'real' people say about it.

Podunk wrote:
Feeank wrote:

I'm not sure what is Monolith up to this days, but I hope they take this opportunity to leave Fear behind as it's becoming unrecognizable.

Yeah, Monolith isn't developing this one. Last I heard, they were working on Gotham City Imposters, which actually might be something of a return to their silly roots.

I'm pretty sure FEAR 3 is Day1 and Monolith, like the first one was.

From wikipedia:

They worked in tandem with developer FASA Interactive to create their first two games MechAssault, which Microsoft used to promote their Xbox Live service, and MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf. They worked with Monolith Productions to make the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console ports of F.E.A.R..

In 2006, Day 1 signed a deal with LucasArts to develop science fiction video game Fracture. It has had mixed reviews by the gaming press. In 2010 Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced that they would be developing the third installment in the F.E.A.R. franchise entitled F.E.A.R. 3. and first announced using the title F.3.A.R. which was later confirmed as just for advertising.

Day one seem to be plugged as the main developer. I assume Monolith are mentioned as it's their baby, and from the looks of it, seems like the FEAR2 engine.

wordsmythe wrote:

I'm pretty sure FEAR 3 is Day1 and Monolith, like the first one was.

The first one was developed Monolith, and Day 1 did the console port several years later. From what I can tell, FEAR 3 is primarily developed by Day 1, although there is some mention of some Monolith guys consulting with Day 1. Monolith's site has this to say:

Monolith wrote:

We’ve heard the rumors, and we’re here to put them to rest—F.E.A.R. 3 is coming, and in a big way. Our team at Monolith has handed the reins (and the creepy paranormal telepathy powers required to control them) to the team at Day 1 Studios. They’ve already spent some quality time with Alma in the past, so we’re confident that they’ll deliver an experience that will scare you senseless all over again.

After trying it out (legally, I promise), I'm similarly excited about this as I was for Deus Ex when I tried that (illegally, yes). Not quite as excited - because Deus Ex looks *awesome* - but the gameplay is really fun. And I haven't seen anything about forced co-op. Singleplayer is very prominent, and once you finish a level you can replay it as the other character.

Hyetal wrote:

After trying it out (legally, I promise), I'm similarly excited about this as I was for Deus Ex when I tried that (illegally, yes). Not quite as excited - because Deus Ex looks *awesome* - but the gameplay is really fun. And I haven't seen anything about forced co-op. Singleplayer is very prominent, and once you finish a level you can replay it as the other character.

That's music to my ears. I had a bit of a fugue earlier, and when I regained consciousness a few moments later I discovered I'd pre-ordered Fear 3. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a great single player experience. I want them to bring back the blinky red lights and the blocky phones with answering machine messages!

Pre-loading on Steam just became available for me. Pre-loading initiated before retiring to sleepy town! Nice!

It finished downloading last night and seems to have installed without any issues. I'll crank it up after darkness settles across the land (have to get pumped up with the right vibe) and post a few impressions.

IGN gives it a none-too-shabby 8.0.

What the? Tom Chick likes FEAR 3?!?

The games I was looking forward to this week are the games I’m not playing. I have no idea whether Shadows of the Damned and the latest Call of Juarez are any good. Instead, the game I’m playing is one I fully expected would be a chore. But so far, that’s not the case. In fact, I’m about to write something I never thought I’d write:

It looks as if Fear 3 is very good.

I try to be careful with the word “very”. It’s usually verbal filler. But I’m going to leave it in that line up there. I’m five chapters into the campaign, and I’ve just dinked around with the multiplayer options. But it looks like the guys at Day 1 Studios have done a heck of a job tidying up the ways the Fear games have been dopey, focusing the design on the gunplay, and making one fine corridor shooter in the process. I’ve previously been dismissive about Fear 3 because the other Fears were so uneven. And Day 1′s last title, a dirt-based shooter called Fracture published by LucasArts, didn’t inspire much confidence that their next title would be any good. But I couldn’t be happier to eat my words! I’ll have a full review next week, but in the meantime, consider Fear 3 a clear and present danger to your wallet.

I'm glad it seems to hold up. I only got to try the first level.

I guess I have to buy it, now. Anyone feel like helping a Euroman out? Gift/paypal, I'm sure you know the deal.

I've only played the first 45 minutes, but I have to say I'm kind of enjoying this. It's not blowing me away or anything, but I didn't expect to. I'll post more thoughts once I get a little further.

Puce Moose: While it still does that annoying modern shooter thing where it reminds you in the centre of the screen what button to press to interact with everything you come across, the HUD is pretty minimal.

Okay! Darkness has settled, it's a rainy evening, and the lights are flickering in the house every now and then for some reason (seriously). Cold vodka drink at the ready. That sounds like a perfect environment to FEAR 3!

Pretty visceral intro cinematic.

Quick troubleshooting: Anyone else playing this on PC? I'm on a Radeon 5850, Cat 11.4, 1920x1080 monitor, and the game is running in a window full screen; black box all the way around the game screen. It doesn't seem to do this in windowed mode.

EDIT: Okay, I was able to fix it. Not sure if it's a 'clean' fix, but it seems to be working so far. For anyone else affected by the issue (if you're running a Radeon):

CCC->My Digital Flat-Panels->Properties (Digital Flat-Panel)->Tick 'Enable GPU scaling->Scale Image to full panel size

Scratched wrote:

Day one seem to be plugged as the main developer. I assume Monolith are mentioned as it's their baby, and from the looks of it, seems like the FEAR2 engine.

Long and tortured history, Day 1 began working on the follow up to the original for Vivendi when WB Games (including Monolith) split off taking the characters with them, but left the rights to the name behind. When Vivendi -> Activision -> Activision-Blizzard and they had their IP firesale, WB grabbed the name back and the Day 1 work along with it, allowing Project Origin to be retitled as F.E.A.R. 2 : Project Origin. Add a few years of large scale redesigning, and some serious insane head scratching to redo the Day 1 fiction to tie with the F2 ending, and voila.

The engine is Day 1's own, latest iteration on the tech that was used on Fracture ( ... yeah, lets not dwell ).

I thought I'd leave a running collection of impressions in case others are on the fence about this one. For reference, I'm a big fan of story/character/atmosphere driven shooters like Bioshock, System Shock 2, Singularity, etc.. If there are audiologs/messages to listen to or notes to find I'm a happy guy. I'm willing to forgive a lot of sloppy design as long as the atmosphere is engaging.

Impressions so far (~ an hour played)

GOOD THINGS:
+ HUD is no longer a glowing intrusive mess like in FEAR 2. GONE! are the glowing enemies in slow-mo. GONE! are the intrusive glowing blue glasses line around the screen. The HUD is reminiscent of the first FEAR. The crosshair and the weapon icons are about 100% larger than they need to be (I'd love to see a scaling option for the PC; this large size is likely a console-friendly implementation), but it's not rage-inducing.
Amusingly, the developers seem to be aware of the previous HUD issues; found this magazine on the floor in one of the rooms.
IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/hud1.jpg)

+ NO MORE DUAL WIELDING PISTOLS! I don't like automatic weapons, and love pistols. So, I spent most of my time in FEAR 1 and 2 using the pistol when possible. However, grabbing additional pistols in those games would force you to wield two pistols at once, which always looked ridiculous to me. You could drop your pistols, then inch forward to pick up only one pistol to avoid having to dual wield (I think this may not have been the case across all of the expansions; I just remember it being an issue in at least one of the games.) So far, I can grab all of the ammo I want for the pistols and not be forced into going all akimbo style. Whether this courtesy extends to other weapons remains to be seen.
+ Lots of enemy chatter! It pays to delay engagements to listen to the enemy. We'll see if there's anything as awesome as the panicky 'He wasted the whole squad' from the first FEAR.
+ SO FAR I've not been forced to battle alongside anyone. I was afraid I'd have an AI-controlled partner racing around and shrieking in my ear to 'hurry up' when I'm trying to stand on a bucket instead of racing for the exit. This may change, but for now is blissful single player hall crawling.

NOT SO GOOD THINGS:
- Irritating challenge/achievement progress notifications. 'Congratulations! You were able to press the Q key and stay still for 100 seconds! Have a cookie!' I've always hated crap like that, and it's worse in a horror-themed single-player environment. Thankfully the notifications fade fairly rapidly. With any luck, they'll actually serve some sort of useful purpose (character advancement/combat bonuses/lore unlocking, etc.) instead of just being penis points.
- REGENERATING HEALTH. In some games, this is acceptable. In a survival horror environment, where resource conservation is (generally) an important aspect of gameplay, it's sucky. It's sapping a lot of the tension out of the fights so far, and encourages sloppy play. Yuck.
- Some crazy low-resolution textures here and there. The game looks pretty good (some nice lighting in certain rooms) but some of the textures are PS2-era-bad. This may be a relic of the somewhat tumultuous development cycle, as some of the textures look quite excellent.

- OH CRUEL TRICK! I thought I had found one of my beloved chunky voice-mail phones (found in the first FEAR)

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/nophone.jpg)

Curses! I shall keep my eyes open. Perhaps a different audio log vector awaits.

Hey.. I think I'm learning some Spanish! Doesn't that mean 'Eat sh*t'? (Assuming those h looking letters are actually m letters)

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/comer1.jpg)

Also: Gun people. Isn't that a crappy way to hold a pistol? I thought the teacup/saucer grip (assuming that's what it is) was considered passe and lacking in control. I recently took my carry course and the instructor became visibly angry over someone talking about the relevance of the teacup/saucer. He advocated a .. err.. thumbs near thumbs grip? Can't remember what it was called.

So far the game gets a thumbs-up from the Moose!

ShynDarkly wrote:

Long and tortured history, Day 1 began working on the follow up to the original for Vivendi when WB Games (including Monolith) split off taking the characters with them, but left the rights to the name behind. When Vivendi -> Activision -> Activision-Blizzard and they had their IP firesale, WB grabbed the name back and the Day 1 work along with it, allowing Project Origin to be retitled as F.E.A.R. 2 : Project Origin. Add a few years of large scale redesigning, and some serious insane head scratching to redo the Day 1 fiction to tie with the F2 ending, and voila.

The engine is Day 1's own, latest iteration on the tech that was used on Fracture ( ... yeah, lets not dwell ).

Thanks for weighing in, Shyn.

Puce Moose wrote:

Isn't that a crappy way to hold a pistol? I thought the teacup/saucer grip (assuming that's what it is) was considered passe and lacking in control.

The last person to correct Point Man's stance got a bullet to the face. Point Man don't take no guff from nobody.

Oh yeah, that's spanish for "to eat sh*t" alright. Graffitied no doubt by the GooglerTranslaterZ, terrible gang that goes around writting nasty things in "infinitive" tense over the dilapidated walls of the city.

Longer thoughts on this game now that I finished the single player.

Pros:
- Action is entertaining and exciting. Level designs, while linear, have enough variety, density and open paths that combat is really dynamic. A lot of times, whether you want to go in guns blazing, slide kicking and liberally using slow-mo or just strategically using cover and hanging back is up to you. After this game, Bulletstorm and Crysis 2, I'm a little relieved that people are still making games that aren't leading you by the nose COD-style during every combat situation.
- Excellent pacing. They seem to mix things up on a regular basis.
- They nailed the feeling of the guns, which is essential for a FEAR game.
- I usually don't care for multiplayer, but it's actually tons of fun. Nice to play something that isn't yet another team deathmatch.
- There are some creative enemy types that help mix it up from fighting soldiers all the time.
- While it's not as spooky as I had hoped, it certainly has some great moments and clever lighting. There's an area where you're walking through an area completely made up of large screen televisions that creates a great atmosphere.
- Sound design is great. Effects are top notch and music is a mix of homage to the first two games and some surprisingly great original stuff.

Cons:
- While some of the effects look nice, it's clear they were operating on a limited budget. A lot of textures look pretty bad up close and the skyboxes in particular look almost like a cardboard cutout at times. At other times, the art design is pretty good, though.
- I actually don't mind it usually when enemies are "bullet sponges". I'm playing a video game and would rather have fun, especially since the character you control in FPS titles is always a bullet sponge himself. But I think there could have been a little more tweaking to get it right. When I shoot a guy in the chest with the shotgun five feet away, he shouldn't stumble and then get right back up.
- Some people seem to go crazy for this sort of stuff, but I hate notifications of various collectables and points and achievements cluttering up the screen constantly. It pissed me off in Batman: AA as well and I wish there was an option to turn that kind of stuff off.
- Overall story and atmosphere are somewhat lacking. You might say story was never the strength of these games in the first place, but in the first two games you were almost always in-game and crazy sh*t was happening in the first person. Here all the crazy sh*t happens in pre-rendered cutscenes that look nothing like the game itself and has you in the third person view. Kind of jarring. This probably seems nitpicky but I guess the game just makes me wonder how Monolith would have ended this trilogy.

Puce Moose wrote:

Also: Gun people. Isn't that a crappy way to hold a pistol? I thought the teacup/saucer grip (assuming that's what it is) was considered passe and lacking in control. I recently took my carry course and the instructor became visibly angry over someone talking about the relevance of the teacup/saucer. He advocated a .. err.. thumbs near thumbs grip? Can't remember what it was called.

Yeah, I don't know if it has a name, but modern grip technique is to have your off-hand fingers wrap around the strong-hand. When shooting a semi-auto, you need to keep both thumbs on the same side so that the slide & hammer don't injure you.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Puce Moose wrote:

Also: Gun people. Isn't that a crappy way to hold a pistol? I thought the teacup/saucer grip (assuming that's what it is) was considered passe and lacking in control. I recently took my carry course and the instructor became visibly angry over someone talking about the relevance of the teacup/saucer. He advocated a .. err.. thumbs near thumbs grip? Can't remember what it was called.

Yeah, I don't know if it has a name, but modern grip technique is to have your off-hand fingers wrap around the strong-hand. When shooting a semi-auto, you need to keep both thumbs on the same side so that the slide & hammer don't injure you.

+1

My thumbs end up sitting next to each other, one about one joint farther forward than the other with both extending out towards the front of the gun.

But so many games fail on this stuff I often don't even notice anymore. Still drives me crazy in movies though

How cute is the alma baby?

Feeank wrote:

Oh yeah, that's spanish for "to eat sh*t" alright. Graffitied no doubt by the GooglerTranslaterZ, terrible gang that goes around writting nasty things in "infinitive" tense over the dilapidated walls of the city.

:LOL: