Blog FeedFear the F.E.A.R demo
I played through the F.E.A.R demo (henceforth FEAR) just a few minutes ago and I’m only going to play the demo just once. Not because it was bad, au contraire, because I’m not bored and it’s so good that I don’t want to spoil the finished product any more than I have to. The demo hints at a game that is graphically stunning, a treat to listen to and extremely fun to play.
The graphics for this game are really top notch. The folks at Monolith have never been quite as good at stretching their engine as well as Epic, Valve or Id but they’ve always made up for it with some first class art direction. And the trend from older games continues here. Everything looks pretty darn good in the game even though it’s mostly just hall ways and shelves, that sort of thing. There is a wonderful scene with soldiers doing an airborne insertion that’s quite good to watch. While it may not unseat Half-Life 2 and Doom as the reigning kings this game deserves respect in it’s own right. Some people have complained about their performance with the game but I ran it on medium detail at 1024*768 with no real problem getting a very playable rate.
As good as the graphics are the sound effects are just as good. The guns sound really good and it’s got plenty of quality sound effects. It especially sounds good in slow motion. Further you here lots of chatter from enemy soldiers and ambient sound that’ll really get you into the experience and scare the hell out of you at times. The music and voice acting were somewhat forgettable but being that this was just a single stage demo I’m not surprised in the least there. Not that there is anything wrong with them per se it’s just too early to say.
The gameplay is of course the important part and here you get a really nice mix of scares and shooting. I don’t want to give anything away because this is worth playing for yourself so let me just say that the level is pretty good, with a few surprises for you in store. You’ll never be quite sure what’s around the next turn and that makes for some tense moments. Monolith appears to be in top form again.
After playing this I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the final game this fall. I highly recommend that you download FEAR. You can download this anywhere you download gaming files and it’s well worth the time it takes to download 600+ megabytes.
11th August | Reply
I like how they’ve gone for a slight Half-Life 2 approach to talking with other characters, but they’ve also kept non-first person perspective in the game. The graphics are stunning, although I’m not happy about the fact I had to manually set the resolution in the config since it doesn’t seem to support 1280×1024. Hell, I don’t think I saw 1280×960 either.
I don’t find it as scary as other people have said, but it is definately freaky with that little girl wondering around. The bullet-time stuff is really useful in this, since you can and probably will get killed by 3 soldiers without it. Unlike Max Payne 2, where you could beat the game without using it.
It’s good enough to warrant a purchase, I’ll give you that. I just hope they fix the resolution problems. Having recently got an LCD monitor, I can understand most people’s woes about 1280×1024 not being supported by some games; namely EA’s BF2, which I find ridiculous not to include.
11th August | Reply
Kudos to the game for its ability to scare me. Unfortunately the scares were only limited to a few simple shocks. Admitably well done shocks, however.
I guess my standards are a bit high after that Haunted Mansion Level in Vampire Bloodlines. To really amplify the shocks, one must create a sense of unease. That worked in Bloodlines since you couldn’t do much to the ghosts themselves. In FEAR, however, walking around with a nail gun tends to subdue any vulnerability. Still, it’s only the first level, I look forward to seeing the rest of the game.
11th August | Reply
Well, another game that I’m most likely to miss out on (DirectX-powered implies no Mac version and my old PC is, well, old). But, do I care? No. Why? Because it isn’t Shogo: Mobile Armor Division 2. Come on, Monolith, make a sequel to the best game you guys made!
In other news, what the hell is with the “supply your age” form at the front of some gaming web sites now? I had to do this recently at a site I can’t remember and now the F.E.A.R. website wants it to. Why? Has the US introduced another stupid law that incourages children to lie or something? Answers on a postcard to …
12th August | Reply
Oh Kelmon I have to burn you at the stake now. I mean seriously you did NOT just call Shogo better than the NOLF series. Puh-leez amateur hour is over.
12th August | Reply
Let me put it this way, in NOLF, could you stamp on enemy soldier in many tons of mecha death? No? Case closed.
Any game that involves big robots blowing shit up gets my vote. Shogo gets a bigger vote than most from me because the guns on foot were so loud and dual-pistols was just a great starting weapon.
It’s also one of the very few games that I enjoyed enough that I played it through to the end. Fantastic stuff. Quake 2 is the only other game that I can think of like this. NOLF was interesting but never really did it for me.
12th August | Reply
I put my rather verbose thoughts here. That said, I’m a huge Monolith fan, having finished Shogo, Nolf, Nolf 2, AvP 2 and Tron 2.0 all multiple times.
So I’m going to defend Lith a little. This game runs fine on my system, and I know people saying it runs (and looks) better than Doom 3 does on their systems. NOLF 2 ran like a charm on any PC I put it on, and looked it too. With that title, my opinion of their engine writing abilities altered, although, technically, they didn’t write that engine.
They were originally like Epic, a company that has an engine department, and a game design department. That was up until around the time NOLF came out. then they split into two seperate companies, Monolith and Lithtech (now Touchdown). What’s interesting about F.E.A.R. is that Monolith made the engine, not Touchdown.
So really, it has no relation to their old technologies, and easily looks better than any other PC game out there. So I have to run it at a lower resolution than Half Life 2 and Doom 3, it still looks a load better at that resolution.
Sorry to any 1280 x 1024 monitor owners, but you have to realise that it’s a different aspect ratio and therefore is going to take more work to support it’s native mode. You bought a monitor with a funky aspect, you should have realised that any game you ran out of native would look extra worse by being in the wrong aspect, and if your pc can handle F.E.A.R. in that resolution and high detail, daymn it’s a good pc.
seriously, this is a game where you want to lower your resolution and keep it in high detail. if you lose all the smoke and the shadows you’re losing a lot more than just pretty effects… you’re losing gameplay and swathes of atmosphere too. i’m running it in 800 x 600 so that i can have everything (but texture detail on high and soft shadows) turned up, and the game looks awesome.
that resolution looks decent on my LCD 19″ because it’s exactly half of my native resolution of 1600 x 1200. yeah my 19″ has 1600 x 1200 native. no, they don’t still make them that way. i still can’t believe that no one else has started making 19″ that offer anything better than 1280 x 1024. I got mine 3 years ago.