Friday, August 22, 2008

F.E.A.R. of the dark...

I completed F.E.A.R. yesterday.

Things I liked.

Enemy AI: This was a bunch of smart fuckers. They'd often turn over couches or crates for cover, and fire with just a hand sticking over. Sneaky bastards. Plus they had good aim too.

Atmosphere: Quite creepy. Lotsa silent stretches where you keep expecting something to attack you or a creepy vision to appear. Plus those sighting of little Alma n Fettel walking around and suddenly disappearing were disorienting.

Music and Sound fx: Great sound effects all around. Engaging bg music when it came around, and at a few places some really good music kicked it. Stuff that I wouldn't mind listening to as stand-alone songs.

Weapons: The weapons were 30 different shades of fun. I love the HV Penetrator and the Particle Weapon. Too bad there weren't enough enemies in all to use them on.

No Crate Smashing: Good thing I didn't have to spend all my time breaking open crates to hunt for supplies n hidden items.

No Cheap Attacks or Triggers: In a lotta games, if you pick up a particular item or perform a task, it triggers off an enemy attack. None of that crap here.

Things I didn't like.

No sense of immersion: I didn't have a name, and was constantly referred to as "F.E.A.R. Pointman." Pretty stupid. Even during the pre-level mission displays, none of them read "You need to.." or "Your mission is.." but rather, the alienating "F.E.A.R. Pointman needs to.."

Enemy variety: Seemed like I spent the entire game basically fighting the same enemy, with a few helmet varities. The interesting, challenging enemies like the Power Armor n the Stealh Assasin were in way too much of a short supply.

Not enough action: For a first person shooter, I was doing remarkable less shooting than expected. I spent a lotta time just running around and getting from place to place. So less in fact, I didn't really get much of a chance to adequately use some of the better weapons found later in the game.

Storyline Reveal: I had to read a buncha online post to understand the plot completely. While I like the story, It unfolds in a very convulated manner, and isn't very clear within the game.

Drab, recycled Environments: Everything was gray, and I felt like I was basically spending all my time in a warehouse or office building. Could have used a whole lot more variety.

Sad-ass boss fight: One shot to kill Fettel n eleven shots to kill Alma. A major let-down.

A couple of random observations:

Linear Level Progression: The levels were ridiculously linear. I dunno if I like that or not, beacuse I don't really like dead ends, but even the few places which served as "puzzles" were embarassingly easy to figure out.

All in all, I'm more than a little surprised this game was so highly rated and won so many awards. I suppose that's more of a commentary on the state of the other games out there.

1 comment:

DeepakS said...

Hey nice review dude..
which games next?
and i thot u were suposed to be studyin.. :P

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