F.E.A.R is a very overrated video game trilogy

[Dubbag]

I don't know about you but the whole "Little ghost girl with hair in her face" trope has never been scary.

[Rudolph]

I admit, after seeing the movie "Hanna", I did imagine a hypothetical fourth F.E.A.R. game ("FE4R"?) with a similar premise: you would play as Alma's daughter raised in isolation and mentored by both the Pointman and Paxton Fettel's ghost for the purpose of tracking down and exacting revenge on Genevieve Aristide, who is still at large following the events of F.E.A.R. 2. The gameplay would be a mix between F.E.A.R.'s traditional gameplay (Pointman's style) and psychic warfare (Paxton Fettel's style).

[roadworx]

nobody said fear is genuinely scary, cuz...well. it's not lmao. it's primarily an action game, and an absolutely fantastic one at that

 

and if they did, they must be easily scared i guess

 

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

The first F.E.A.R. is very repetitive and visually dull, the plot is frustrating (you are conveniently always too late and your actual contribution to the plot is so small that you might as well have not bothered) and the game's structure gets predictable fast. The two expansions try their best to vary the experience a bit, but they are for the most part worse-looking, very forgettable and not very fun to play. The gameplay itself, the music and the lore are nice, though, and both Alma and Paxton Fettel are memorable characters.

 

tf you say about fear 1 😡😡😡😡

[Bridgeburner56]

FEAR is by far and away my favourite FPS as a base game (Doom wins with custom content). Still the best enemy AI I've seen and the atmosphere is second to none. Exquisite sound design, kinetic feedback and encounters that are never the same twice mean that I've probably played FEAR ..... 30 times all the way through? Even got a saveless, deathless extreme run under the belt. Every weapon is fun to use and powerful enough to carry through the entire game, even the pistols. Probably the only game I've played that does limited weapon slots well. The shot gun is unparalleled in any FPS and then mix in the perfect amount of physics jank? Yeah FEAR is good
Extraction Point is as good as the base game, ratcheting up the difficulty massively and cranking the horror dial so hard it falls off (especially THAT scene, my goodness). 
Perseus Mandate is ok. Still worth playing but the introduction of the super soldier dudes is a bit eh, and the horror elements are a bit lacking (with a couple of exceptions near the end).
FEAR 2 is pretty mediocre. Worth playing once but just doesn't feel the same. It's too damn bright for a start. One of the beauties of FEAR is the genuine vantablack darkness. Realistic? No. Fucking awesome? Yes.
There is no FEAR 3

Oh yeah FEAR is genuinely scary. Lights down, sound up, bottles of wine at hand. No better way to pass a Friday night

[CBM]

perhaps greg russo havent tried that many video games so he does not have any remotely adequate basis to crown fear as one of the best fps games?

[Maggle]

FEAR 1 is one of the best FPS games in my opinion. The weapon design, the sound design, the incredible AI, the bullet time. Everything just clicks and it's so satisfying to me. Definitely the best "modern-ish" fps. Maybe Titanfall 2 beats it barely. Maybe. It's certainly better than HL2 IMO. 

It's not really scary, I know. People around the time FEAR was new liked to hype it up as some bone-chilling intense horror game. It's really not. It is creepy though, but it's mostly just an action game with a horror backdrop.

 

And of course it's not going to be anything mind-blowing nowadays. It came out 15 years ago. One would think people wouldn't make these arguments on a Doom Forum because of the blatant hypocrisy, but I guess I was wrong. At the time it came out you needed a really powerful machine to run it, and it used a lot of techniques that games didn't use back then. Like being able to look down and see your lower body. That's just not a thing that was done very often back then.

 

Also, the sequels are ass. You should have been warned not to bother with them.

[deus-ex]

1 hour ago, BoxY said:

Monolith ditching all of the already mature technology, mechanics, sound design and game feel that made FEAR so excellent when making the sequels honestly ranks in my mind as one of the most idiotic game direction decisions of all time.

 

Monolith created only one sequel, F.E.A.R. 2. I explained that in my previous post above, and that the development of the second game didn't go as smooth as planned. That's why we didn't get to play the sequel to F.E.A.R. that Monolith originally had envisioned.

[Spooner5020]

3 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

Some expected responses.

Although i have the entire trilogy, Fear 1 and 2 strike me most. The former remains a pillar of brilliance for yes, its AI (Which is just a gigantic hack relying on level design), but first and formost for having the most satisfying shotgun ever in a video game. Yes, it even outbeats Doom's.

 

FEAR's Shotty is the ultimate giving zero fucks weapon and for that alone it will always remain relevant.

If they are so standard, then why are there still games coming out that revolve around the concept of breaking into a room and slowmo killing things in sight (Rico/Rico London)? Simple: The concept works. Greg has a point here - FEAR's visual design might be bland, but its the sum of its parts that makes it shine through. Broken down by its individual limbs, and it will fall flat.

 

And i don't think that was ever Fear's intent anyway.

 

Okay, what do you think are some of the best FPS's out there?

See I think Trepang2 was a much better version of what FEAR was trying to get at as a game. It doesn't try to be something it's not. FEAR wants to be a survival horror game, but ends up being an action shooter with horror elements. Trepang2 is not that (at least I don't think it is.) FEAR 3 further proves my point that that's all it is. I'm only on the 2nd mission of FEAR 3 and I'm already not liking the changes. Why they decided to make it a Call Of Duty like game was a very stupid design choice and makes it feel even less like a FEAR game. If it had not been called FEAR 3 I'd have no idea it was supposed to be connected it was supposed to be connected to the first 2.

 

The best FPS'S are Doom from 1993, Wolfenstein 3d, Blood, Quake, Half Life, 007 Goldeneye, 007 Nightfire, Duke Nukem 3d, The Original CALL OF DUTY (the first one), Shadow Warrior (original), Ion Fury and too many more to count. I was born in 93.

 

Again I never said I disliked FEAR. My issue with it was it was promoted as a shooter/horror game which is not what it is. It's not even that scary. Heck I find Doom 3 way more terrifying. If anyone thought I downright disliked FEAR, then I apologize for that assumption.

[Spooner5020]

3 hours ago, Dubbag said:

I don't know about you but the whole "Little ghost girl with hair in her face" trope has never been scary.

It wasn’t. Wasn’t scary the first 10 times either.

[Spooner5020]

1 hour ago, deus-ex said:

 

Monolith created only one sequel, F.E.A.R. 2. I explained that in my previous post above, and that the development of the second game didn't go as smooth as planned. That's why we didn't get to play the sequel to F.E.A.R. that Monolith originally had envisioned.

I KNEW IT!!! The fact that Monolith was not involved in 3 explains so much!!!

[Spooner5020]

2 hours ago, Maggle said:

FEAR 1 is one of the best FPS games in my opinion. The weapon design, the sound design, the incredible AI, the bullet time. Everything just clicks and it's so satisfying to me. Definitely the best "modern-ish" fps. Maybe Titanfall 2 beats it barely. Maybe. It's certainly better than HL2 IMO. 

It's not really scary, I know. People around the time FEAR was new liked to hype it up as some bone-chilling intense horror game. It's really not. It is creepy though, but it's mostly just an action game with a horror backdrop.

 

And of course it's not going to be anything mind-blowing nowadays. It came out 15 years ago. One would think people wouldn't make these arguments on a Doom Forum because of the blatant hypocrisy, but I guess I was wrong. At the time it came out you needed a really powerful machine to run it, and it used a lot of techniques that games didn't use back then. Like being able to look down and see your lower body. That's just not a thing that was done very often back then.

 

Also, the sequels are ass. You should have been warned not to bother with them.

People criticize Doom 3 all the time. Let’s not act like everything Doom related was a success (looks at Doom movie and Doom:Annihilation). I remembered when FEAR first came out. It worked, but played like ass on the computer I first played it on cause I didn’t meet the requirements at the time. It was pretty impressive back then.

 

I didn’t mind FEAR 2. Mainly cause I knew exactly what to expect. FEAR 3 is just BULLSHIT!!!

[Spooner5020]

3 hours ago, roadworx said:

nobody said fear is genuinely scary, cuz...well. it's not lmao. it's primarily an action game, and an absolutely fantastic one at that

 

and if they did, they must be easily scared i guess

 

 

tf you say about fear 1 😡😡😡😡

See it’s funny you say that about FEAR, cause monolith kinda tricked people thinking that FEAR was gonna be a horror game. I feel like they did this with BLOOD as well. Blood freaking terrified me as a kid where Doom didn’t scare me at all. I feel like Blood was never meant to be a horror game. Yeah it’s got some horror elements, but it’s basically a send up of Horror movies. I feel if I had waited years later to play Blood I’d have appreciated it a lot more than I do now cause I’ve seen all the movies it references.

[Maggle]

4 minutes ago, Spooner5020 said:

People criticize Doom 3 all the time. Let’s not act like everything Doom related was a success (looks at Doom movie and Doom:Annihilation). I remembered when FEAR first came out. It worked, but played like ass on the computer I first played it on cause I didn’t meet the requirements at the time. It was pretty impressive back then.

It's more so that saying "It may have been cool for the time, but now it's nothing special" and using that as a criticism against the game. It's hypocritical not just on a Doom forum, but in any retro gaming spaces whatsoever. You can make that criticism of any game. Doom has a lot of stuff we take for granted nowadays. Like existing in a semi-3d space, with walls and ceilings of varying heights. Being able to look outside and see the sky. Having pits you can jump into and stairs you can climb. Exploding barrels. Having dudes that fly, and if they shoot a fireball and it goes over your head it doesn't damage you. Back then it was extremely impressive, but that's all basic shit nowadays that every game can now do effortlessly. 

 

Plus it's an unreasonable standard. No game that is 15-20 years old or even older is still going to be impressive by today's standards. That's unheard of. Nobody who only plays modern games and just got done playing a shitload of The Last of Us, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Resident Evil 8 is going to go back to Quake 1 and be like DAAAAAMN! That's not possible.

[Pirx]

11 hours ago, NoXion said:

 

One could say the same thing about Doom.

 

 

lol.

 

the first fear game was genius. the first mission pack was good, the second one just ok.

unfortunately, things went downhill from here.

[[McD] James]

17 minutes ago, Maggle said:

Plus it's an unreasonable standard. No game that is 15-20 years old or even older is still going to be impressive by today's standards. That's unheard of. Nobody who only plays modern games and just got done playing a shitload of The Last of Us, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Resident Evil 8 is going to go back to Quake 1 and be like DAAAAAMN! That's not possible.

 

No.

[Chopkinsca]

I love the game, but kind of always thought I loved it because I haven't played enough FPS games. That FEAR was subpar, and by chance I didn't play any of the better FPS games. With that, I still love the first game. I can't say anything new that hasn't been said about it.

 

I have to admit, I pirated FEAR at first. Once I had a way to buy things online, it was one of the first things I bought.

[Spooner5020]

8 minutes ago, [McD]James said:

 

No.

Yeah I was gonna say kids today are still pretty impressed by Doom. If I’m totally honest though I think the last game to have ever “WOWED” me was Spider-Man for ps4 cause it really “made me feel like Spider-Man.”

 

Someone mentioned the movie writer Greg Russo. Yeah Greg seems like the guy who’d play Mortal Kombat for like 10 minutes and be like “yeah it’s the best fighting game ever” without ever playing ones like Street Fighter or Tekken.

[[McD] James]

One of the most impressive games I've ever played was Ultima 4, and that came out in 1985.

[Chezza]

Seems like an odd time to create this thread haha. I mean, is anyone really talking about it right now beyond from youtubers retro reviewing?

 

Game almost falls as a classic for me but not quite there. Gunplay and visuals were hella fun and listening to the A.I. talk tactics or react to your actions is cool. It's a shame we don't see that be used to that level today.

 

I hear the A.I. wasn't that impressive but rather well designed set pieces to take full advantage of them to create interesting scenarios.

 

Want impressive A.I.? Half Life 2 combine soldiers are more tactical than you may realise, giving cover fire while others advance etc. And Stalker A.I. is great. Very glitchy yes, but ambitious for open worldish game using smart terrain.

 

But we're talking more about scary little girls? Was unique at the time. Now overdone so didn't age well.

[Murdoch]

12 hours ago, Spooner5020 said:

If Greg really thinks F.E.A.R is one of the best FPS’s out there, he needs to play more video games.

 

There are plenty of fans of this series. They are not wrong. You dislike it. You are not wrong. Because whether something is good enough to enjoy is subjective. Not objective.

 

There's two movies that illustrate this point better than any other creative works I can think of. - The Room and Avatar. No one is going to ever say The Room is a well made movie in any conceivable way. It is objectively quite awful. But if you are of a certain persuasion, it's one of the funniest movies released in recent memory. Now Avatar is a largely very well made movie, the money is definitely on the screen. But I think once you scrape past the wow factor, it's a pretty predictable retread of already done ideas. Objectively well made, but subjectively I think most people now realise it's not really that great. But some people may still enjoy it and well great.

 

So yes, please don't say something is overrated. It makes you look like a douchebag. Just say "it's not for me" and move on. A slight shift in wording can stop a bunch of pointless disagreements.

[OniriA]

Quote

F.E.A.R is very overrated 

 

F.E.A.R. is awesome.

 

You don't know what you're talking about.

[7Mahonin]

I always felt that these games were quite underrated and deserved more exposure. 

[[McD] James]

I don't see anything wrong with calling something overrated. 

[Murdoch]

7 minutes ago, [McD]James said:

I don't see anything wrong with calling something overrated. 

 

Because it's an objective statement about something that isn't objective.

 

[[McD] James]

I believe there are such things as objectively good and bad games.

[Spooner5020]

1 hour ago, Chezza said:

Seems like an odd time to create this thread haha. I mean, is anyone really talking about it right now beyond from youtubers retro reviewing?

 

Game almost falls as a classic for me but not quite there. Gunplay and visuals were hella fun and listening to the A.I. talk tactics or react to your actions is cool. It's a shame we don't see that be used to that level today.

 

I hear the A.I. wasn't that impressive but rather well designed set pieces to take full advantage of them to create interesting scenarios.

 

Want impressive A.I.? Half Life 2 combine soldiers are more tactical than you may realise, giving cover fire while others advance etc. And Stalker A.I. is great. Very glitchy yes, but ambitious for open worldish game using smart terrain.

 

But we're talking more about scary little girls? Was unique at the time. Now overdone so didn't age well.

I only brought it up because a movie adaption is in the works and I wanted to see why Greg thinks it’s one of the best FPS games ever.

[Murdoch]

15 minutes ago, [McD]James said:

I believe there are such things as objectively good and bad games.

 

There are some things which you can generally call objectively bad or good based on how well they are made. F.E.A.R is on the whole well built for the time periods they were released in. And they have their fans. Corridor 7 is objectively quite awfully put together, but some people still enjoy it. There's any number of examples you could name to differentiate between objective assessments (how it looks for the time period of release, how buggy it is or isn't) versus the subjective - whether you actually enjoy it. For example, I dislike Plutonia Experiment and Doom 64, two things generally quite well regarded on these forums. I think Plutonia's dickish gameplay design is the height of tedium, and Doom 64's map design is much the same. I played Plutonia once and never again, and tried to play Doom 64 twice and got fed up both times and never finished it. But do I consider them actually objectively bad? No. That would be arrogant as hell. They are just not for me.

 

You cannot really objectively state that any given game is good from a gameplay perspective. All you can say is you personally didn't enjoy it. Yes the overwhelming majority of people might say ET on the Atari 2600 had bad gameplay for example, but even some of the most legendarily enjoyable games you could point at are still going to have people who didn't find them enjoyable.

 

Making statements like "I’m not sure what he and everyone else saw, but it’s nothing really too special." and "If Greg really thinks F.E.A.R is one of the best FPS’s out there, he needs to play more video games." that really does make you look arrogant and douchey, like only your opinion is correct and everyone else's is wrong.

 

 

[P41R47]

23 minutes ago, [McD]James said:

I believe there are such things as objectively good and bad games.

I believe there are subjective objectivity on most tried out objective opinions.

I played an ''objectively'' bad game like Duke Nukem Time To Kill on two player mode with friends back then, and we knew the game was meh, but even so, we have a blast, and started playing the campaing one map each other. Completed it with a good smile after a few hours.

Even the usual ''objective'' bad games are good for someone, so yeah, you subjectively understand what my objective subjective point is with this.

As for FEAR, i come to know it on a very not direct way.

There is a mod for Amnesia called FEAR Amnesia, that uses sound effects and even some tropes from Fear on Amnesia, and i remember really enjoying it.

Now, when i first played Fear, i went into it seeking the same or somehow an experience akin to FEAR Amnesia.

Nothing like it.

But i have a really fun time, and the story was interesting enough to have me hooked.

 

Extraction Point is way better than the proper sequel on every damn moment.
Perseus Mandate is ok, those super soldiers are surelly annoying.

 

Fear 2 i bought it... and never played it completely yet.

I run out of memory space when i bough, so i uninstalled it to play another games, and dind't make space to play it yet.

 

But hey, now i'm playing Deus Ex and having a real blast!!!
Next one will be The Nameless Mod.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

For the record, FEAR 3 is pretty much nothing like the first two, try it out of curiosity if nothing else. It was a sign that the series had truly abandoned its roots, but it had some satisfying gore, and to be honest, I thought it was pretty damn fun regardless of its stupidity or the cynical nature of it being a shallow action FPS with a heavily marketed bandwagon co-op mode.

 

The fact that you expected the games to be focused on horror first and foremost kind of tells me you didn't do much research before playing them though. Sometimes when going into a game for the first time, it can help to at least have some idea of what to expect. I'm also not sure why you care what Greg thinks.

[hybridial]

14 hours ago, Maggle said:

Plus it's an unreasonable standard. No game that is 15-20 years old or even older is still going to be impressive by today's standards. That's unheard of. Nobody who only plays modern games and just got done playing a shitload of The Last of Us, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Resident Evil 8 is going to go back to Quake 1 and be like DAAAAAMN! That's not possible.

 

 

And there's so much else to say about this claim, It's not shocking @[McD]James just said no to it given it would involve unpacking so many things. I have lived through the past 15-20 years of games, and your examples of modern gaming are so horribly unimpressive to me. Modern gaming is horribly unimpressive to me. 15-20 years ago more games were being made with far more creative variety in the mainstream market. You have to go with the indy market now for that sort of thing. The only people that would fit what you describe are shallow people who only care about graphical fidelity and cinematics, and nothing else. I went back to Quake and Doom because those games are so much more fun.