The Video Game Revue

F.E.A.R.

After a seven hour Alterac Valley (double-honour this weekend) battle that just wouldn't end, Sunny finally burnt out and decided to get some sleep. I've been helping her play battlegrounds a bit to earn extra honor, but I generally don't know what I'm doing--my highest level WoW character is only at level 14. At any rate, Sunny's decision to pack it in left the computer open long enough for me to finish off F.E.A.R. I was really impressed with the ending.

I've got pretty mixed feelings about F.E.A.R., and I think that they can accurately be summed up by saying that F.E.A.R. is a solid, worthwhile game that seems somewhat overrated. Now I'm going to have to write several paragraphs to explain myself--or try to, that is.

F.E.A.R. is hands-down the best single player FPS that I've played since Half-Life 2, so in that sense, it's a big deal. On the other hand, Half-Life 2 wasn't released that long ago, and I didn't get half as much out of F.E.A.R. as I did out of Battlefield 2, which doesn't qualify as a single player FPS. Basically, F.E.A.R. doesn't have a lot of serious competition within its own genre at the moment. For whatever reason, Id Software has fallen short with Doom 3 and Quake 4--neither of which I've yet played, but both of which I've heard pretty bad things about. (I'll probably get around to playing them sometime next year, maybe.) I think that everybody has come down from the high that Half-Life 2 provided, and we're all itching for the next truly great single player FPS experience. F.E.A.R. is the best thing that's come along so far.

I don't want to come across as sounding too harsh on F.E.A.R. because it is a great game for FPS enthusiasts who get into the horror genre thing. I just don't think that F.E.A.R. qualifies as a classic, mostly because it's neither deep enough nor cutting edge enough. F.E.A.R. is basically a creative exercise in ripping good ideas off from Half-Life, Max Payne, The Ring, and various other sources; it is not going to throw much at you that you haven't seen before (unless, of course, you're unfamiliar with those sources.) This can be a very good thing, however--the same setup worked very well for The Matrix, by which I mean to say that The Matrix didn't actually contain many new ideas (very few, in fact), but it combined classic ideas in a bold new way that stood out and became very influential. I wholeheartedly support that kind of creative work, and to me, that's what F.E.A.R. is doing as well.

Unlike The Matrix, I just don't think that F.E.A.R. carved out enough of a space for itself. I'm talking about the kind of differences that would have made it an ageless classic rather than the flavour of the month (or perhaps the flavour of the fiscal quarter--something like that.) Certain elements of F.E.A.R. such as the enemy A.I. and squad-tactical combat are very fresh and exciting. The mood and the artwork are both excellent, and the gameplay works very well. Other elements of F.E.A.R. such as the environments, level design, and parts of the story are stale.

I mention environments, and I'd like to distinguish this from setting in a little side rant here. I think that F.E.A.R. has a fine setting in that there is nothing wrong with the ideas behind where the game is taking place. I am not suggesting that the overall premise of each level of the game needs to change. By environments and level design, I'm talking more about the execution of said ideas. The problem with F.E.A.R. is that the corporate offices, the run-down industrial buildings, the concrete corridors lined with pipes, and even the big tech facility reactors were all done in such a typical fashion. Generally when one plays an FPS, one wants to see either fresh new level designs, or level designs that are so good that they revive excitement in classic ideas from other FPS games. F.E.A.R. accomplishes neither of these things at all. This was one of the few aspects of the game that made me feel like I was playing Max Payne 2 or some kind of cheap Half-Life rip-off, and that simply doesn't cut it.

As for the story, I found it to be really hit and miss. There's some good intrigue in there, and I like that they didn't spell things out in too obvious of a way, as that would have spoiled it. With the intra-office phone messages motif, I felt that a lot of them were fairly repetitive and were slapping me over the head with the idea that a big, nasty corporation is involved and bad shit is happening because incompetent managers were ignoring the warnings of scientists, etc. Also, the idea that you're an elite operative fighting an army of psychically controlled soldiers was a bit much to take. Something a little less cheesy would have grabbed me better, although I'll admit that the corporate/government army executing a dirty coverup idea--a reasonable alternative to the psychic stuff--has been done to death already anyway. F.E.A.R.'s plot was a reasonable yarn overall.

One thing I wish had been done better was to setup situations that really showcase that nifty enemy A.I. and radio chatter. It would have been awesome for there to be a large warehouse level where you play cat and mouse amoung crates, or something. It would also have been satisfying to have more situations in which stealth could be employed as a strategy, since I found that a lot of the game got reduced quickly to epic, but generally straight-forward firefights. I figure that F.E.A.R. could have benefitted from some heavy Metal Gear Solid influence.

I definitely prefer the original Max Payne to F.E.A.R. because it had that candy-like John Woo influence. And it goes without saying that Half-Life 2 has a better storyline, much better environments and level design, and a more interesting sci-fi background to it. If you enjoyed those games, though, and you'd like to try something with a creepy bent that is along the same lines, F.E.A.R. is worth your time. I do feel that any game publications giving F.E.A.R. scores of 9 out of 10 or higher are being generous, but the game isn't completely undeserving of the attention. (And, of course, game publications have a tendancy to overrate just about everything these days anyway.)

I also played a couple of hours of Mario Kart DS tonight, and I'm still loving it. I haven't been this immediately addicted to a Mario Kart game since the original. My record on the Delfino course Time Trials so far is 2:01:148, which I feel pretty good about, although I know I can do better.

Tomorrow I'd like to get some RPG gaming done.

posted by Parappa @ 12:25 AM