A quick one for the road: I'm honestly blown away by the attention to detail that's evident throughout FEAR. Craig Hubbard stated in an interview that he wanted "to make combat as intense as the tea house shootout at the beginning of John Woo's Hard Boiled" and it really shows; from the particle effects of the shrapnel to the visceral reactions of enemies upon being shot and the constant flash of gunfire that becomes even more pronounced upon the game's "Reflex Time" (slow motion distortion that lets you react in real time while the game's animations are slowed down), the devs definitely did their homework and I can't think of any other game that best captures the intensity of close quarters gun firefights than this.

It's also one of the most harrowing games I've ever played thanks to the moody lighting striking a contrast between your omnipresent shadow and the few eerie sources of light scattered in the darkness, not to mention the phenomenal sound design as you trudge your way through the urban landscape and its litter. Of course, the AI is definitely one of the big draws; it was such an unexpected shock when the enemies first shouted out "Flashlight spotted!" and the way the foes adapt to your different approaches, from trying to take cover if you rush them to trying to flush you out with grenades or plan flanks (even calling out your own flanks if you play evasive) absolutely kept me on the edge of my seat, terrified that they'd get the drop on me. There's no better shooter at making you feel like an absolute monster as you suddenly pounce upon them while the soldiers yell out "He's too fast!" or the classic "Oh shit!," yet carefully maneuvering your way through the shadows as enemies squads try to coordinate to pin you down is downright terrifying in its own way. It really speaks volumes that FEAR has no true bullet sponge bosses whatsoever; they kept the game focused on integrating fierce gunplay with unsettling atmospheric horror, and it's never been a more distilled and focused product. There are minor complaints, such as some environments/levels blurring together due to lack of distinctions (so I did get lost a few times) as well as a flurry of bugs & glitches that did force me to restart a couple of times (make sure you're not holding down your trigger as you fall through the level checkpoint triggers, I learned that the hard way!), and I do think the ending was a bit abrupt, perhaps to not give away too many details for future installments. Regardless, this was one of the biggest surprises, in more ways than one, from the last month or so, and I absolutely adore it.

By the way, I wouldn't recommend buying this on Steam, because for some reason you can't buy the original game separately and you have to spend $54.99 for a bundle valued at $34.98... what the actual fuck Monolith? Just buy the original on GOG, it works just as well there after some tweaks from PCGamingWiki.

like the studio took 5 different movie nights they had and mushed them together into this, bizarre how well the mix of genres works for me. there's a lot of flair here but you wouldn't think abt it that way when its also such a sterilized offices/sewer/laboratories romp in its level design. honestly love that juxtaposition tho, it's got an extremely serious mid aughts fps feel that somehow also synthesizes its gimmicks and style into itself without sacrificing the stark and direct "realism" its going for. and something abt the half lit office buildings rendered in this harsh lighting engine that makes them feel like abandoned but spotless spaceship interiors more than workplaces; sterile spaces have an eerieness to them that makes cobwebbed dilapidated ruins seem excessive.

playing on even the hardest difficulty is not a massive challenge most of the time, owing to giving you overpowered slo mo and ai that feels a little oversold on how smart it really is, but the game still nails its goal of making you look cool in firefights aesthetically, which i am more than fine with. in fact getting into the theatrics, setting the goal of making the action movie playing in my head translate to gameplay, was where half of the fun was for me. you do need do well enough to survive, and the options you are given do feel good, but cant tell you how many times i would just go with the shotgun for how it forces close quarters encounters that cause blood explosions, or how it helps incentivize me to do more slo mo karate kicks, and i was extremely satisfied making it work from there.

just hits so many good notes for me, ideal of fps. adorable scares and story i didnt pay any attn to as well.

𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐨𝐧

#𝟑: 𝐅.𝐄.𝐀.𝐑.

Where to even begin.

For starters I honestly don’t know what I was expecting going on. I knew that the game was taking homage from psychological Japanese horror movies and the action spectacle of John Woo movies, and I knew it was more shooter than horror but that was about it. But man I was not ready for the absolute blast that was FEAR.
Just wanna get the negative stuff out of the way first since I have very few complaints. For starters the horror isn’t very scary, hell I’d even say at times it’s honestly very laughable at times. Whenever Alma did her little spookie light trick it never failed to not scare me, and whenever it tried to pull a proto-Outlast 2 flashback scene it’s the funniest thing in the whole goddamn game.

Ok so if the horror of this “horror game” didn’t really work on me then why am I giving this game a 9? Well that’s because the FPS side of this “Horror Shooter” is quite possibly one of the best FPS’s of the 2000’s. For starters the visuals hold up extremely well, I sometimes forget that Lithtech’s Jupiter EX had the same abilities to make lighting and visual effects almost on par with IdTech4 and Source, which for a studio like Monolith who were just getting off titles like AVP2 and Tron 2.0 it’s really impressive that their in house engine was able to compete with IdTech 4 and a lot better than their stuff made on the Build engine. Everything from the really impressive lighting and reflective flashes from the muzzle of your gun really help give each area of the game such a cold and isolated atmosphere; which I think is the closest the game ever got to being “scary” and I mean that in a good way. The environments all look really well detailed (for 2005), all the areas feel really well designed both as levels and places in the game. It’s about as perfect a game could look for 2005.

The actual combat however thought, OOOOOOH BOY; that’s where the real fun begins. All of the guns feel and sound so satisfactory in a way I can’t properly describe through words. Everything from your basic assault rifle to your bone dissolving Type-7 Particle gun that sounds like a mix between a blender and a microwave. They just feel good I don’t know a better way of tying it out, you know when your just playing a game and the guns just click for you and they feel and sounds like you have the power of god in your hand, that’s what it felt like when I was playing the first level of FEAR. The crown jewel of the guns however would have to be the shotgun, my god the shotgun. Not only is it extremely overpowered and took the second gunspot in my arsenal for most of the game, but it just feel so fucking good to use I will gladly award it the “𝒮𝒯𝑅𝑀'𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝒮𝒽𝑜𝓉𝑔𝓊𝓃 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝒹𝟤𝟢𝟢𝟢'𝓈 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓇𝒹” for being just so fucking great, the power to just send enemies flaying away with their ragdolled dead body hitting walls to the way stray bullets will hit contrest walls and leave dents midfight, it’s just allaround a master piece in gun form.

That brings me to what is possibly my favorite part of the game, the reactive environments and the game’s AI. I will not pretend like I know what I’m talking about when discussing the game’s AI so I’ll just go with the very simplistic way of explaining it. So all of the enemies work on a system called ‘goal oriented action planning’. The AI is set with predetermined ways of executing their goal for said area they're placed in; in which the goal is to stop you from reaching the next area. The AI can achieve this goal by trying to bum rush you, flank you by running around your cover, they’ll take cover from your gunfire, and a lot more I’m probably forgetting. The AI takes all the predetermined points given to them depending on the area and forms a possible plan on the spot to try and kill you. If you enter a room and a bunch a enemies before the other AI’s can react their first response is to either go for cover or try to kill you, if the AI survives its first encounter it will survey the situation and determine whether or not it’s previous plan is still worth it and if the AI deems it’s not then I’ll try something else like throwing a grenade to get you out of cover to bum rush you or try to flank you to shot you from behind. The enemies also have callouts so you can determine what their gonna do next and to make it feel as if the squads of enemies are all working in sequential but if I’m remembering it correctly that’s not how it works, the call outs are just a simple trick to make the player think the AI are working together when in reality each enemy is it’s own AI making their own plan depending on the situation. Again I’m probably scraping the basic surface of how this AI works. If you want to learn more about it from someone who actually understands computer programming I’d suggest reading an article about it or watching a video. From my perspective however as the simple video game enjoyer everything I just described made for an amazing experience, with the AI basically making up their plan as they go along with the fight; making almost every fight in the game almost completely unique then the other.
The other part of the game that really solidifies the game’s combat as legendary is the reactive environments.
What I mean by reactive environments is that almost everything in arenas you shoot besides enemies have a real tangible outcome mid battle. Blood from your enemies will splatter the walls, glass from shot out windows will litter the ground, dust will get kicked up from explosions while bullets still fly through them, bullets will ricochet off metal walls and leave holes in the walls of concrete it hit, if a bullet hits an electric power boxes it will shoot out electrical sparks and smoke or when shooting explosive barrels will lead to enemies going flying along with items around it flying of or breaking apart. Now take all of this, and give the player the ability to go into slow motion, with this you can see the force coming off the bullets from your gun, you can see the particles and heat coming off of the explosion, when you fire your shotgun you can watch and see the spreading bullets send an enemy ragdolling away while also hitting the walls around it leave bullet holes in the wall. Take all of that, plus the well crafted AI and a really well done OST, and you have a full proof combat system that never got old even 8 hours into the game.

Go play FEAR. Do it now. It’s a little hard to get the game working on modern hardware and having WB lock the game behind a bundle of FEAR 2 and 3 is honestly really shitty but please go play it, it’s honestly one of the best FPS’s I’ve played in a while and I’m so glad I was able to get it working.

F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) é hoje um dos clássicos dos jogos de "terror" com ficção científica e um dos mais baratos que você pode encontrar nas lojas digitais que ainda o vendem, desde aquela época que o joguei pela primeira vez há muito tempo atrás, eu sempre gostei da ambientação e da temática desse game com essa vibe meio "O Chamado (2002)"/"O Grito (2004)" da própria vilã "Alma" e algumas adições a questões de ficção científica como os soldados "Replica", que são humanos clonados e manipulados psiquicamente pelo outro vilão tão ameaçador e interessante quanto, "Paxton Fettel", que ambos compartilham do mesmo tempo de tela e entregam bem a ameaça necessária de um vilão como esse nesse jogo.

  A dúvida é se dá para chamar esse game de um jogo de terror, porque de fato ele não dá medo e todo o progresso vai abordando maneiras que afastam a aproximação do "terror" que poderia ter tido, mas que não desagrada à experiência de certa forma por ter uma história legal e ainda com uma ambientação pesada/densa bem inserida, mas que é mais um jogo de tiro mesmo levado com uma outra pegada de ficção científica e de aventura que apenas adiciona essa base leve de terror, tanto que toda vez que aparecia a Alma ou qualquer "jumpscare" que poderia ser na tela, eu literalmente só passava tranquilamente depois disso e quase nenhum, com exceção de um, realmente me assustou. Toda a campanha também poderia ter sido mais curta, mas mesmo assim a trama e a construção compensa e os leveis são ótimos com uma variedade boa até o final do jogo que deixa você interessado e imerso nela.

  Único ponto que incomoda é o tamanho das legendas, que são minúsculas e que não encontrei alguma opção nas configurações para aumentá-las, fora que como se trata de um jogo antigo, não tem tradução oficial PT-BR. Porém, tirando isso, o porte desse game na Steam está ótimo hoje em dia, onde joguei em 144 FPS o jogo todo, e não tive nenhum problema ou gargalo/queda de FPS no meu PC. Além de que, para quem deseja saber, o jogo todo é divido em "Intervals" (Intervalos), que são 12 ao todo, se contar o epílogo final como um.

Em resumo, o jogo é bom se for levado como um game de tiro de ação/aventura com uma base leve de terror, que se for com a mentalidade de querer jogar um jogo que de fato irá te dar medo, então provavelmente você irá se frustrar, além de que, apesar da gameplay ter datado um pouco, ainda diverte e vale a pena, na minha visão, onde o destaque é todo na Inteligência Artificial de, por exemplo, o como os inimigos reagem até a uma simples lanterna ligada poder entregar sua posição. Outra coisa legal também é o tal "Slow Motion" do Max Payne ter sido inserido, que é muuuito divertido de usar e tem até que sutilmente uma explicação na história para ela existir dentro do game.

-> launches game
-> installs patches to play
-> "oh cool! For a game this old the AI sure is fairly smart (than most games nowadays) and the gunplay is good!"
-> make it to mid way point and game nearly gives up to throw anything new at you

-> "Horror sequence straight from a GMOD map
-> Encounter
-> "Horror Sequence again

The encounters were fun though, core combat is definitely ahead of its time. Too bad the horror got stale for me after a bit but I like in certain sections how it linked to the games encounters in darker areas. Cool

Jogado para o MASTER MANDOU volume 6, espécie de clube do livro de jogos que a pessoa não jogaria normalmente do servidor Game Design Hub do Discord. Fui sorteado pelo @sick_boi.

Eu já tinha ouvido falar desse jogo, mas não me lembrava muito bem. A única coisa que vinha na minha mente era o jumpscare de quando a menina aparece ao descer umas escadas, mas fora isso, nada. Me parecia um FPS maneiro, então aceitei a recomendação. Após muitos patches e mods de correção (o tamanho original da legenda deveria ser crime), comecei. Assim que as cenas terminaram e tomei controle do meu personagem, um soco cerebral me atingiu, e eu gritei:
RATO BORRACHUDO!
Reconheci imediatamente que esse era o jogo do nostálgico primeiro vídeo desse cara, que mais tarde, o nomeou. A nostalgia bateu forte, pois eu achava esse vídeo muito engraçado quando criança e já tinha o assistido mil vezes mesmo sem saber o que jogo era. Naturalmente, fui lá e assisti de novo, e também naturalmente, não achei mais tão engraçado.

Nosso protagonista mudo encara um exército de clones atrás do seu criador enquanto lida com uma fantasminha o assombrando, passando por uma campanha à la Half-Life furando todos no caminho.
Como no jogo citado, passamos a maior parte do tempo no mesmo local, mas temos capítulos com localidades mais variadas. Os cenários basicamente se reduzem a espaços pra se ambientar e se expor a história ou explorar por segredos e arenas de combate que podem ser acessadas de diversas posições.

Nessas arenas, somos agraciados com uma das melhores IAs que já vi num jogo: os esquadrões inimigos.
Enfrentar os soldados-clone passa uma sensação realista de enfrentar um esquadrão tático, onde cada um tem sua função e papel na coordenação de um plano de ataque. Eles se comunicam, entendem suas ações, se reorganizam e mudam seus planos, te forçando a pensar como enfrentá-los como um todo e não como inimigos singulares.
Pra isso, você saca uma das 12s mais gostosas que já saboreei e usa o bullet time pra passar atirando pelo meio deles, tendo uma explosão sensorial com os efeitos sonoros magníficos de tiros, impactos e cápsulas de bala caindo no chão em câmera lenta, e com os inimigos voando, explodindo e tentando escapar da morte num cenário que reage a cada bala com papéis voando, computadores fritando e fumaça.

Apesar de gostoso, não sei de qual sabor é esse doce. Ele parece ficar num meio-termo entre um jogo de movimento mais rápido e apoiado por quick-saves como Half-Life e um FPS mais "moderno" que se apoia em coberturas e ADS (mira). Você pode jogar de qualquer um dos dois jeitos e um pouco de tática será necessária de qualquer maneira, mas nenhum se expressa o bastante pra fazer parte da personalidade do jogo.
O ADS não é originalmente atribuído ao botão direito do mouse, e funciona como um zoom alternado de apoio de jogos antigos. Ao mesmo tempo, atirar com e sem mira tem uma diferença bastante significativa na precisão, ao ponto de fazer bastante falta ao atirar sem.
O bullet time e o fato das porradas serem insta-kill nos inimigos te influenciam a jogar agressivamente e se arriscar se movimentando entre os inimigos, mas mesmo com o clássico "sempre correr" ativado, o personagem é LENTO que dói.
A possibilidade de tentar não revelar sua posição e olhar pelos lados da parede, sendo cauteloso pra não perder sua pequena vida acrescenta no desafio e tática, pois ela não se recupera sozinha e ao invés de cinza, a tela ficará vermelha bem rapidamente. Então por quê lotar as fases de kits médicos e possibilitar o jogador de carregar até 10 ao mesmo tempo? Ah, e de todas as armas maneiras, criativas e escassas em munição, só podemos carregar 3 ao mesmo tempo?
O jogo ficar nessa ponte entre os dois estilos faz com que nenhum deles seja realizado com maestria. O jogo tem uma base excelente de cenários, inimigos, armas e habilidades, mas esquece de afinar um personagem de jogador que fique no mesmo tom.

É curioso criticar elementos de diferentes estilos misturados nesse jogo, pois isso é uma das grandes características dele, e já começa pelo nome de duplo sentido.
F.E.A.R. é o nome da sua organização militar, First Encounter Assault Recon, e obviamente também significa medo. Esse é o tal jogo que tenta misturar ação e terror, mas ao meu ver, falha. (PS: No jogo também tem uma organização chamada SFOD-D e você leu que nem eu né?)
Jogo, você me dá armas poderosas, a habilidade de desacelerar o tempo, e me põe pra lutar contra soldados coordenados e treinados. Você me faz sentir poderoso. Agora você quer me assustar com umas imagens piscantes de mortos e uma garotinha fantasma que aparece só pra ficar andando?
Pra sentir medo, preciso me sentir vulnerável. Tenho que temer pela minha vida ou algo do tipo. Ao perceber que ela só anda e fala um pouquinho, por quê visitas fantasmagóricas a um corredor de hospital com uns fantasminhas feios que somem com um tiro me assustariam? Há pouquíssimos momentos em que senti alguma coisa, até mesmo se colocássemos no âmbito de terror apenas psicológico. Os cenários são vazios e a aura sombria está sempre presente, mas o medo só fica no sentido militar.

Nosso esquadrão tem a missão de capturar o original dos soldados clones, assim desativando todo o exército, enquanto descobre mais sobre quem os assombra e os experimentos que levaram a isso tudo. Os personagens não são muito memoráveis tirando esses dois vilões, e alguns recorrentes dos áudios encontráveis são mais carismáticos que nossos colegas. Tem um NPC que se destaca por ser totalmente caricato e não combinar nem um pouco com o tom do jogo, mas pelo menos é marcante.

Em praticamente todas as fases estamos num jogo de gato e rato que se parece mais com Phineas e Pherb do que com Tom & Jerry. O vilão tá no mesmo lugar que você, e ao quaaase pegar ele o sinal some e vai pro local da próxima fase. Repete e repete. Em pouco tempo perde a graça, e seria muito melhor se a tensão de o alcançar fosse construída durante todo o jogo ao invés de ser inexistente por fazer desse jeito ruim. Mas de qualquer jeito não ia adiantar de muita coisa, pois a conclusão disso é mega anticlimática.

Esse ainda não é o pior problema da história. Ela tenta fazer um plot twist. Sem saber disso, na primeira cena eu já tinha um palpite de que ele existiria e o que seria. Com menos de uma hora, fica ÓBVIO o que é e o mistério que é uma parte grande da história é perdido antes mesmo de começar. Com algumas falas alteradas, acho que eu nem pensaria muito sobre, e pelo menos funcionaria um pouco.

Após zerar, comecei a primeira expansão, mas desisti. Esse é um dos jogos véios exclusivos de PC que são quebrados em máquinas modernas e precisam de um monte de correções. Eu fiz todas elas, mas mesmo assim, minha campanha foi recheada de crashes, e praticamente a cada reload metade do cenário ficava invisível. Eu tinha que recarregar sem parar até que tudo voltasse ao normal, mas a cada recarregada rolava um dado pra saber se o jogo ia crashar. Esse dado tava viciado. Na expansão tava crashando tanto que eu desisti, mesmo estando gostando.

Crashes e bugs permearam minha experiência inteira, mas mesmo assim F.E.A.R. é um FPS brabo que se destaca pelos seus inimigos inteligentes até hoje, mas falha em assustar e decidir qual identidade do gênero abraçar. Foi uma ótima recomendação de um jogo que realmente tava fora do meu radar e que supriu perfeitamente minha fome de ação no mouse e teclado após dois meses de Tears of the Kingdom, e também recomendo pra todos os que curtem o gênero.
Vi que as sequências sofrem da "consolização" e se entregam ao militarismo-moderno-ADS, o que me tira um pouco de vontade de jogar, mas a faísca pedindo mais continua acesa.

I counted four accounts of grenade suicide by the incredible republic clone trooper AI but only one instance of them yelling out SNIPER!!! as I shoOtgun someone next to one of them (both right infront of me naturally) this time. Keeps on impressing me and more importantly making me laugh very hard to this day, but obviously not as much as when the very Gabe Newell circa 2003 proportioned man is stuck trying to crawl into the vent while a silly tune plays, which I Of Course screenshot out of delight on every replay (Dont Believ Me my fellow insincere ironists...?). that bit along with him trying to hide behind a potted cactus in vain is objectivly funnier than evrything in No One Lives Forever 1&2, I'll Have U Know... thanX for reading my latest tumblr post, full spectrum gamers!

F.E.A.R. earns its 4.5/5 on the combat alone. The physics engine and particle effects combined with the intelligent AI makes this easily one of the best games i've ever played purely from a gameplay standpoint. I played this game, ps3 version streamed on PS Now. The absolute least optimal way to play this with not the most intuitive controls and goddamn was it still awesome as fuck.

Unfortunately, not everything about this game is up to par. The biggest problems are two that go hand in hand and kind of exacerbate the problem. Now im pretty good at shooters for the most part, so my playtime being around 12-13 hours seems to be about the standard. For me, a game like this. Thats just too long. If it was just a couple hours shorter I think this game would of been a lot stronger overall. But the other issue is the location variety. There are a few moments where the game gets creative, but you're basically in the industrial building/abandoned building setting the entire game. That means 90% of the game is just grey and brown. Its a common issue with games from this era and it really hurts this one. The playtime doesnt seem like much of a big deal and I know most people prefer their games to be long, but when you see the same asset reused a million times or go down a corridor that is like 10% different from the one you just went down, it makes the game feel even longer than it is and in turn makes it feel like its dragging on. Thankfully the combat still remains fun throughout, so its not too much of a detriment but its the biggest flaw.

On to a few more minor complaints. Im not sure if this is an issue with the PS3 version but the audio is just terrible. The sound design itself is good but a lot of the guns sound muted, even with the volume settings turned up. This is even worse with the dialogue. Full settings and I could not make out more than one sentence total from the character thats speaking in your ear most of the game and, yknow, giving you your objective. And there isnt an option for subtitles either so you're shit out of luck. This in turn made navigating the very dull environment a little difficult at times but it also made it so I genuinely could not tell you anything about the story. Thankfully for this game it doesnt really matter but It was pretty dissapointing to not be able to hear what was happening without assaulting my ears by cranking up the tv volume to egregious levels. Also, the game really just isnt that scary. A good jumpscare or two got me and the atmosphere is really good, but the only time i was close to scared was during the most intense fights. Those were awesome and left me on the edge of my seat, but the actual moments where the game goes into "scary mode" didnt do a whole lot for me.

Now in what seems to be a common occurence in my reviews, despite all the shit i talked this game was still goddamn great. The combat absolutely 100% trumps all of the negatives and Im ashamed no game has come close to something as stellar as the shooting in this one.

Time Played - 12 hours 25 minutes
Nancymeter - 88/100
Game Completion #68 of 2022
June Completion #3

I've actually started FEAR about 4 times before - including this session - but this is the first time I've actually finished it. Always had a bad habit of putting things I'm going through, especially if I'm enjoying it, in a limbo state, but I figured now's as good as time as any to settle this since it's October. There's no beating around the bush for this one, I know it, you know it, your long distance family member you probably had no idea existed knows it, FEAR kicks a lot of ass even today.

Actually quite surreal how this game's sound design is still top of the line when it came out in 2005, to the point even some modern shooters sound rather pitiful by comparison. No more is this evident, than the famous shotgun. Just listen as to how this thing reverbs and echoes around the area as it lays waste to mooks in 1-3 shots, sometimes dismembering or even gibbing them into nothing but red mist. or the Type-7 Particle Weapon as it whirrs and deliciously evaporates any enemy you aim it towards. I could go on and on, especially with the pistol of all shooter weapons, but you get the point: The sound design is excellent even nowadays, topped off with a great, atmospheric OST that knows how to create the mood and tension.

That's another thing I really like about FEAR, the tension. I would definitely be lying if I said it was a consistently scary game, but the way the cramped, almost claustrophobic design of offices, warehouses, and factories create such memorable and integral experiences within the gunfights and even walking around doing the objectives, makes it so that some of the haunts have some amount of impact like when enemies pop out of nowhere or catching a glimmer of Alma from the corner of your eye, even amongst the really silly and cheap jumpscares like "OOOOOOOOOO SPOOKY SKELLY JUMPING OUT OF THE BLOOD POOL" or Alma's spider walk. People say that the marketing focused more on the horror than the action bits, and while there's some truth to that considering well, the boxart, as well as a laundry list of East Asian Horror influences the team at Monolith have talked about before (there is quite a number, but let's stick with the obvious ones being The Grudge and Ringu), I also feel like they very much wanted emphasize the very clear Matrix and John Woo action setpieces and particle detail being the main draw here.

Well, they aren't wrong, it's pretty much the main spotlight of this game. Despite the majority of enemies being the same looking Replicas, the way their AI and, again, level design of the environments make it so that each encounter can become distinct from one another, is the stuff of legends. I'd be repeating a lot of what's been said, but the main point is that the AI isn't that advanced truthfully, but with how they interact with each other, you, and move and bob around during the firefights gives them an edge not many shooters these days have. Just quicksaving before the start of an encounter - of which I did A LOT - can have so many different variations and outcomes depending on what happens. Maybe a Replica will create cover by shoving objects down. Maybe one will just dive through a window to flank you. Maybe the squad will lay down suppressing fire, requiring you to time the grenade and slo-mo just right to create an explosive distraction. So on and so forth. It's by and large a game I heavily urge people to play on the higher difficulties (Hard or Extreme) to get the full benefit, cause without it you lose out on all sense of appeal and satisfaction the game has going for you.

Really, my only issues is that the pacing, while great, can slow to a crawl on occasion. Sometimes it's just hard to not know where you're going, and some levels just drag on (the offices mainly). Also, like I said, some of the scares can just be lame and cheap, which do admittedly hamper the enjoyment just a fair bit. I haven't even mentioned the story just now cause like, it isn't BAD and has some neat stuff in it, but I also can't really say I care that much about what's happening (which, to be clear, isn't necessarily a bad thing, this is far from the first game I love that I care more about the gameplay than the storytelling). Above all else though, FEAR is still an essential FPS experience, and if you haven't played it yet for whatever reason, you're pretty much doing a disservice. It even has an Easter egg of one of Monolith's previous titles that's one of the greatest 7/10s in existence for crying out loud!

Also uh, if you're gonna buy this for the first time, get it on GOG. Steam STILL has the game and its expansions locked behind a complete pack that goes for 55 USD which is just, insane. Over at GOG, you get just the game and its two expansions for 10 USD, which is more than fair. Then go over to the PCGamingWiki page for some touchups on modern systems, and you're good to go.

Damn, this video game adaptation of The Ring (2002) + The Grudge (2004) is pretty sick!

F.E.A.R. is a game that has slipped my attention many years despite me knowing of its existence, but playing it has given me one of the most fun and satisfying experiences I've had with a FPS on a purely mechanical level. It can't be overstated how much effort was spent polishing environmental details along with the enemy AI, which runs circles around many games today to a terrifying degree. The "bullet time" mechanic meant to improve your reflexes by slowing down in-game time rewards a level of hyper aggression that makes fights fast and exciting and gives all weapons a chance to shine. I'm used to shotguns being outclassed on higher difficulties since getting up close and personal with enemies is usually a death sentence that will have you instantly sniped (cough HALO 2 cough), but I played on the second highest difficulty and this shotgun FUCKS HARD AND DIRTY! A.I. is great at navigating the labyrinthian hallways and deploys solid tactics when trying to bring you down. I almost couldn't imagine the difficulty without the ability to slow down time.

What also really impresses me is that it takes the two seemingly contradictory sensations, that of being in a kickass power-fantasy and the vulnerability of being hunted down by an unknown being, and perfectly incorporates the two. It's easy to get caught up ragdolling and drop-kicking dozens of enemies in the moment, but when everything quiets down and you're left wandering the lonely industrial facilities, this game pulls some creepy shit. It blurs the line between hallucinations and paranormal anomalies so well that you'll question whether that shadow you saw from the corner of your eye was something you should be concerned about or not.

TLDR; Adrenaline "Point" Man vs Psychic was a kick-ass dynamic and I have no idea why an atmospheric horror game has such dynamic combat. But it's entirely welcome :)

When I was younger I used to be in the "why even bother with the horror elements" camp, but now? That's probably the best call they could have made, because that bit of idiosyncratic design gives this game something that separates it from the bunch. It gives the game this sense of having a very unique vision behind it, that Monolith had many, many, MANY ideas for this game and were not interested in cutting any.

There are legions of tactical first-person shooter games, most of them come across as tech demos, but there is one "science fiction j-horror karate kicking tactical shooter" and it's fucking F.E.A.R, and it is the best fucking shooter ever.

The only review that could ever do justice for F.E.A.R is just a clip that showcases any firefight in the game. That's the review. If you see that and aren't curious about playing it it's not the game for you. Any words waxing poetic on how good it feels to shoot guys in F.E.A.R is the classic "dancing about architecture" bit, words just fail to convey anything.

Anyway, I'm done talking about F.E.A.R now. Why? because I know you've played it. Why do I know that? Because you like good video games, of course you've played F.E.A.R.

For a shooter with some very clear action oriented decisions FEAR is quite calm paced. The encounters tend to be short and spaced between minutes of just moving around the place. In this exploration segments it could be guessed that the focus is on the scary part of the title and, while it partially is, it’s not as much in the horror stuff (that works better when it's goofy than when it’s trying to be serious in any sense, especially with the overall bad taste of the narrative) but more of creating an ambience.

I have the feeling that for quite some years shooters are generally conceived as fast paced action games. And while it’s not a bad approach at all, there is some underestimation in what some FPS have done since the very beginning. It’s demonstrative that the Doom reboots seek for “an action packed game as you remember from the original, but that never was” ignoring that the first Doom always had a very different approach to action. I think it’s not casualty that FPS games focused so much on the ambience, a custom that is still present in First Person Walkers. It’s not so weird thinking that they were one of the first genres to get 3D right, and in first person moreover, before anyone cared about the word “immersive”. If the first Doom already played with the lightning, setted up traps and overall played with tension and horror as part of the action, a FPS called FEAR is nothing but a logical conclusion.

As I said in the beginning, there is a lot in between the shootings. Your Point Man is not that powerful. Sure, super reflexes and kicks in the air, but he has to squeeze through the ventilation shafts, prefers to see the shadows of his enemies before taking his first shot, he even takes fall damage quite easily… Thanks to this methodical approach to action it’s easy to sink in the office building, a monotonous place in normal circumstances but inexplicably unsettling when abandoned, and its “elegiac auras”. This tension alone helps to build the actual fights as sort of a climax, but they are even better when some surprises come in. There is this one where you have to meet some of your partners in an elevator, so you go there, and ding, of course in one of the elevators there is one of the bad guys. But then ding ding ding ding and while you are still thinking how to get away from that, one of the heavy armored guys comes in. Even though I would like for the number of this kind of surprises to be higher, I cannot deny that I wish I would be this interested in the in-between segments in many more action titles. Maybe we are missing something in conceiving the action only with haste.

Ótimo jogo que provavelmente era melhor em sua época. F.E.A.R. acerta em vários aspectos e ainda que tenha envelhecido mal em alguns outros, é bem divertido quase 20 anos após ter sido lançado.

A IA dos inimigos é definitivamente seu ponto mais comentado e prestigiado, esse jogo é de 2005 e os inimigos podem: Dar comandos um pro outro baseado no que você esta fazendo, criar coberturas usando objetos do cenário (empurrando mesas e armários) atirar granadas atrás de você te obrigando a sair do seu cover, detectar sua lanterna, usar fogo de supressão pra trocar de cover e se esconder nas sombras pra se tornarem mais difíceis de se enxergar, fora isso os malditos estão sempre trocando de cover pra nunca te deixar confortável com seu posicionamento e pra te flanquear, eu diria que meu único e maior problema com os inimigos é a capacidade surreal de só ficarem cientes da sua presença sem nenhum motivo aparente (que tira o fator de estratégia) a mira impecável (combinado com o dano absurdo deles) e o tanto de vida que eles tem, se esse jogo tivesse um Remake, ele devia beber das fontes de Tactical Shooters, por que combinaria demais com ele.

Agora sobre os inimigos mesmo, é um saco enfrentar todos fora os soldados básicos, os blindados são OK até, mas os Drones e os Soldados-Aranhas-Camuflados são um completo cu de se enfrentar, não tem tática alguma contra eles, é só rezar que você tenha mais poder de fogo e vida sobrando pra matar eles antes que eles te matem, os malditos "ED-209" até são justos, mas demoram muito pra morrer se você não tiver uma arma realmente boa, além de atirarem foguetes. Apesar dos inimigos não serem muito divertidos de se combater, o combate é até que maneiro, sendo sua mecânica principal o "Slow-Mo" que é bem brega, mas bem divertido de se usar e ajuda muito contra inimigos que simplesmente não erram bala por nada, você também pode virar a mira pra esquerda e direita quando quiser atirar mas sem sair do cover (como em Rainbow Six e outros Tactical Shooters) os recursos são até que bem posicionados, tendo upgrades de vida e Slow Mo permanentes escondidos pelo mapa, mas as vezes o jogo te enche de vida e munição, e outras vezes não te da nada.

Os gráficos e as animações são toscas, mas eu meio que vejo o charme do jogo nisso, a trilha sonora é bem meh/ruim e não ajuda muito os momentos de terror ou sequer de ação, os personagens são ok em sua maior parte e o VA é bem feito (principalmente dos inimigos.)

Mas o brilho mesmo é a história do jogo que é realmente muito boa e interessante, sempre sendo o ponto que me chama a atenção em F.E.A.R, é bem legal e divertido ir hackeando os Laptops e ouvindo mensagens pre-gravadas em telefones pra ir descobrindo mais da história e personagens, a vilã do jogo é muito bem feita e com certeza a Capcom se inspirou nela pra fazer a Eveline do RE7 (ainda que a desse jogo provavelmente tenha sido inspirada na Samara/Sadako)

Em conclusão, F.E.A.R. envelheceu meio mal e não foi perfeito em ser um jogo de terror e nem de tiro, mas sua IA e história são interessantes até hoje e carregam os pontos negativos do jogo, ele não é tão longo e nem tão curto, mas pode ser cansativo já que o núcleo de gameplay não é tão inovado com o tempo.

What happens when you put all your eggs into one basket, but don't flesh out the basics? Lots of games have dealt with this problem (particularly Eurojank titles) and it causes a general issue with accessibility while usually making them extremely rewarding for those into the core concept. The important thing about this is that F.E.AR. is the opposite. You cannot feasibly be more attentive to the feel and mechanical fidelity of gunplay than F.E.A.R. The technical detail of the firefights and the way the level design folds around you during them is unmatched and, in a perfect world, would have set the new standard for how shooters would look and feel. F.E.A.R. relies on a lot of scripted set-pieces and audial cues to mask above-average artificial intelligence into looking downright genius, as the Replicas often are perfectly placed to land in a shot and catch you off-guard. The issue with F.E.A.R., is that it only cared about making the basics refined. The game rolls with plenty of gimmicks, from horror segments to slow-mo to karate kicking enemies, and absolutely none of them work well with the pre-established game design. The melee attacks are useless without the slow-mo to get close enough to enemies, but the slow-mo only exists to trivialize any encounter. Enabling bullet-time makes it extremely clear when something is scripted and makes enemies decisions retrospectively seem terrible, and bullet-time naturally regenerates too so it never feels like a tactical tool, effectively making the game completely mindless when you're using it. The horror? Completely detached segments where a little girl or flying skeletons chase you around a building before you go back to shooting. It's a complete hodgepodge mess, but for fans of shooters; it's a must-play.

In spite of all the problems and the repetitiveness the game begins to face, F.E.A.R. set a standard for gunplay that was never matched again. F.E.A.R. is the only game with shoot-offs this good and nothing else comes close to its level of technicality on this front; even the worst elements of the game only exist to strengthen that cinematic edge and personality it has, as there's nothing else that tries to have something as batshit as fighting ghosts and psychic soldiers with fucking martial arts. TL;DR: Mediocre horror game, questionable shooting fidelity if you're playing with all the gimmicks it slaps on, but an absolutely rock solid action-movie, and the combat is as good as it gets without any space marines or scientists if you ignore the bullet-time.

I've heard someone describe this game as "if Matrix and John Woo films had a baby with The Ring and Ju-on". I personally would describe this as supernatural Die Hard on crack, and I cannot stress enough how true these statements are. This is the most badass action movie made videogame ever, in the best way possible. But I won’t lie, this game isn’t scary. It sometimes feels like a cheap TV movie from the late 90s. The scares (if you can even call them that) are so constant and repetitious that it never scared me, in fact, I missed some of them because I sometimes moved past scripts I didn’t even noticed, so if you’re looking for something scary, there’s nothing to be scared of here, just a few unexpected moments but nothing more. The contrast in lightning is extremely exaggerated to create a more creepy atmosphere but fails due to it being an action game first, a horror game later. And the flashlight doesn’t help either, since it loses power with time (lasting between 10 and 20 seconds) and it needs to be deactivated for it to recharge. Something similar to Half-Life 2 but more annoying, since this game is full of shadows and dark places, you can’t see nothing without the flashlight. Which, may I add, obliterates the spectacle of dynamic lights and cool effects. I would look past this if it was somehow scary, but as I already said, it isn’t.

BUT, in exchange you get one of the most refined action spectacles possible. Every gunfight is spectacular in its own way. The sandbox the combat offers, while not the most profound and elaborate one, has enough stuff to keep the combat engaging: grenades, mines, shotguns, laser weapons, explosive barrels, karate kicks, bullet time, you name it. Even the enemy soldiers apply actual combat tactics and strategize to kill the player, taking covers, flanking the player, suppressive fire and throwing grenades while you're on cover among other tricks, and their radio chatter is the cherry on top to make them feel threatening. Every single element comes together in consonance to turn, what would be a boring shootout in any other game, into a unique moment. The level design adds a lot too. Full of nooks and crannies for the player to navigate, flank the enemies and approach the situation in different ways. BUT the game throws a stupid amount of enemies at you, sometimes you can’t predict the encounters and cross a door to find three or so soldiers behind a cover that spot you on the moment, sometimes you’ll cross a hallway with the flashlight on and the enemies will go “I see a flashlight!” without being able to predict this. some other times the game will put you in very clear combat arenas where the fight cannot be approached from any angle. And the use of the bullet time mode that emphasizes direct action make the enemies less of a threat in the end and more like an obstacle to get through. What I’m getting to is: this game births and dies in its combat system, which is sustained only by its spectacle and player expression. This game is one of those who put player agency over scripts that take the control from the player and cutscenes (which are a just a handful), which is something that unfortunately has been showing up and improved upon less and less in shoothers since then, advocating for a more movie-like approach (you know, mash X to do this, press Y to do that, hold the walking button while a glorified cutscene plays out). It might sound stupid, but I don’t see many shooters released after F.E.A.R. with stuff like meleeing wood planks or running away from an incoming vehicle that aren't scripts with little to no room for the player to fail. But unfortunately, these details don’t save the game and it sadly peaks in the Armacham offices and it’s downhill from there onwards, concluding with a really lame last third. And even if the story was somewhat interesting or anything, but no, it’s a mixture of horror and action movies clichés, with a plot twist at the end (I think it was a plot twist?) so uninspired and unnecessary it could have been cut off the game and it wouldn’t have made much difference. Ending off with a cliffhanger to continue the meh story in the sequels. Maybe I'm being too negative, but I like it a lot when it works, which isn't most of the time.

puts max payne to shame with how explosive 9mm bullets are in this game. bullets leave craters in walls, bodies turn into red mist, the least powerful electronics burst into miniature lightning storms. that's f.e.a.r. for you, baby, slow-mo destructive theatrics accompanied by some fantastic horror atmosphere. for a game with such a reputation, what else can i say about its cathartically obliterating combat and the gorgeous lighting? as many a f.e.a.r. fan will tell you: the lighting still holds up. it's better indoors, where it can showcase great dramatic shadows to not only make rooms visually impressive but also heighten tension. outdoors the lighting can be pretty flat, f.e.a.r.'s engine wasn't made for large outdoor environments. the other selling point of the lighting is how dynamic it is. there are so many hanging lights in this game that the room will turn into a dance floor when they get shot or shaken by explosions. the hanging lights become strobe lights with how they flicker from combat, making the scenes more hectic. one of my favorite instances of the lighting was a working projector that would have the image it's projecting move if you slapped the thing. replaying f.e.a.r. had me thinking about one thing: how the hell do AAA games today not manage to have good lighting? somehow the industry nailed good lighting already with f.e.a.r., obviously, and doom 3. the only recent AAA game i can think of where the lighting was insanely good (and wasnt some rtx gimmick farce) was alien isolation.

tangent aside: it's f.e.a.r. it's awesome. it's REALLY awesome. go play it if you havent and if youre into fps games, especially ones that are similar to half-life.

At a basic level, I can summarise a good shooter as one that makes the immediate objective of moving from point-a to point-b exciting; enticing; entertaining. It can achieve this through story/narrative, character/dialogue, environment/traversal, gameplay/action.

F.E.A.R. fails at the first two. It's eight hours of game stretched from a single A4 sheet of paper. The dialogue is all expository. But none of that really matters because it succeeds so well as a balls-to-the-wall Hong Kong action inspired shooter, told through levels that evoke the sparse liminality of Half-Life and the seedy, grimy domesticity of Max Payne (with a hint of tactical gunplay and enemies that feel drawn from like a Tom Clancy shooter).

I only played Doom and Quake for the first time less than 9 months ago, but I find myself turning back to them as the essential shooters. The skeleton for what a shooter can be is all there. The guns are bomb; the levels evoke a very specific atmosphere, and are compact and pushing you forward on instinct; movement is swift; there's nothing to think about other than shooting bad guys and maybe using a health pack. FEAR is all that plus it lets you blast dudes in slowmo across an office cubicle with a combat shotgun (and can still switch it up on a dime making you feel like you're playing through The Matrix lobby scene).

Forced walking sections through stale environments that overstay their welcome, an "ahead of it's time" A.I. that will always fall for your proximity mines no matter how blatant, and gameplay that literally just boils down to slo-mo abuse for free kills; when its down you hide behind cover until its back up. That's the entire game: a mindless cover-shooter.

I wouldn't have minded the lulls in gameplay if the horror angle was effectual in the slightest. No game that hands you a shotgun and assault rifle, slomo powers at the touch of a button, and throws waves of soldiers at you is still walking the path of horror. The game never takes these opportunities to create interesting platforming for the player to engage with, the furthest off the beaten path you'll go is through a vent into an elevator shaft to leisurely go up a ladder or two.

After going through the trouble of getting the game's EAX support to work on modern Windows, I'm happy to say that I found the positional audio pretty impressive. Unfortunately you lumber through the world like an elephant in a chinashop, jostling every single little can and cardboard box within a 3 yard radius. I can't count the amount of times I was caught off guard by a stray soda can tickling the back of my eardrums. Outside of that, the scariest thing about F.E.A.R. is that people in 202X still prop up this dreck like it has anything insightful to impart.

+.5 Star for first-person roundhouse kicking. That never got old.