F.E.A.R review

[Beirut]

Just got it yesterday and it's a rain-out day today. Gotta love it.

Comes on 5 CDs. The DVD version was $10 more. I got the CD version.

Installs cleanly and quickly. Requires CD key but no Steam sort of weirdness or Web authentication.

Long load times to get into the game and long loads to play first time around. Replays load much quicker.

The eye candy is gorgeous. We're talking Doom 3 graphics at least. But it costs - my AMD64-3000/512/9800Pro runs this thing at 800x600x32 with the options at 50% or less of max with decent FPS (not great though). At 1024x768, which is what I play everything else at, it's unplayable. (I can run Far Cry at 1024x768 with most things maxed. Don't even think of doing that here.) But even with the settings lowered and at 800x600 it's pure Haagen-Dazs. Can't imagine what it would look like at 1600x1200 with full settings. It would take an FX-57 with twin GF7800s and bucket load of RAM.

Standard shooter fare. You see them - they see you - you shoot each other. Great firefights though. Good AI, great sound, and really thumpy feeling weapons fire. Has a nice edge to it. The bulllet time feature is nice, though not original. Makes for some incredible scenes though with arms and legs and heads flying through the air, dust and debris, smoke and fire everywhere, all in slo-mo, very cool.

Some neat scenes with the little Ring girl. The story seems good enough so far. Nothing too special. But there are a few good chills and weird moments to make you sit back and . Things just... happen, sometimes. Gives the whole thing a nice freaky quality. This is a game for nightime and headphones. Also, the language is seriously nasty.

Pros: Insane graphics. Great sound. Thumpy guns. Very explicit in sight and sound. Freaky. Nice small details here and there. Easy install.

Cons: Huge CPU and video card demands. Max settings are unrealistic for now. Some long load times. Standard shoot 'em up - jump and run - collect health packs and guns kind of game.

All in all: If you've got the hardware, it's a lot of fun.

[Bob the Insane]

Cool, now i am all excited...

I have the DVD version sat here on my desk at work ready to go...

Only another 5 hours before the working day is done...

My AMD64 3200 and 6800GT could handle the demo at 1024x768 with settings on medium without any trouble so I am hopeful the game will be like that too...

When I put it to max setttings it looked soooo sweet, but every time something affected the dynamic lighting the machine would lose it for a few seconds!! and was generally choppy, but medium looked cool too!

[Geoffrey S]

That demo killed my computer.
I've heard the full game is real cool to start off with, but doesn't really evolve; it just plays the same throughout, rather like Doom 3. Any truth to those statements?

[Beirut]

Haven't gotten that far yet. Still in the early stages.

Like I said, it seems to be a standard shooter, but it's a really cool standard shooter.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Okay, now the big question should I buy Quake IV or FEAR? I have the money to buy both, but since HOI2 is already eating my time, along with my AP's and I am going to get BI soon I only want to get one. FEAR looks awesome but so does Quake IV, anyone have an opinion?

I'll probably end up comparing the PCGamer reviews of the two games to decide, but your input would be appreciated.

Have you faced one of the really big powered armors yet Beriut? (like the one at the end of the demo). If so what was it like?

[Beirut]

I'll probably end up comparing the PCGamer reviews of the two games to decide, but your input would be appreciated.

PC Gamer, who I have come to trust as far as reviews go, gave FEAR 92%. They gave Q4 70%. They said Q4 is Doom 3 graphics and no play value really.

Have you faced one of the really big powered armors yet Beriut? (like the one at the end of the demo). If so what was it like?

Not yet - not yet. Maybe soon though.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Hmmm maybe I'll have to look closely at that article, I only skimmed it today. Thanks for pointing that out. It might be FEAR then, damn my friends I won't spend $50 just because all of them are for LAN's. Besides I can probably convince them otherwise.

Well keep me posted on those things! That first one had a great entrance!

[Taurus]

Sounds awesome. My comp should be able to handle it no probs in theory 'cos I can run Far Cry, Doom 3, Battlefield 2 etc. full settings on 1024x768.

Definatly gonna get this (don't really fancy 5 discs so the DVD version is in my sights.)

So Beirut would you say it was better than Far Cry? because FarCry is one of my all time favourite games and if it is better then .

Cheers

[Beirut]

So Beirut would you say it was better than Far Cry? because FarCry is one of my all time favourite games and if it is better then .

Cheers

Not yet.

Far Cry had that great open structure. This doesn't.

[Taurus]

Thanks,

I jsut got FEAR (DVD version) while at college today and I must say it is truly amazing. The FMV sequences are great and it runs like a dream. There are some occasions where it makes you jump out of your seat (but don't want to give too much away ).

Overall this is a brilliant game and I strongly reccomend this to anyone. Trust me it's worth it.

I personally give it 94%, awesome.

[Bob the Insane]

I got the DVD edition too and have now played through a fair chunk of the SP game...

Settings, you have to take a deep breath and jump in... I tried playing with the setting and while the "test" ran okay the game itself ran slower and slower... So finally I just hit auto detect and boom everything started running great and still looks pretty... But with my rig I normally play anything and everything on 1280x1024 with max gfx details. Here it is 1024x768 with quite a few items on medium. With a AMD64 3200 and 1GB RAM I found the the the computer setting to medium worked best. Note you can set it to max in the "test" and it seems to make no differences but it does make a huge difference in game.

The mechanics the of FPS are excellent... Loud, explosive and dynamic with mucho collateral damage. The rooms and corridors you have firefights in will never be the same again!!

The melee combat is a nice feature but for the way I play not really intergal to the gameplay and personally I think it will be like leaning in FPSs is now. You don't notice it until a new game leaves it out...

The weapons are all effective and how you fight is really more a matter of personal choice (and available ammo) rather than dictated by the game...

Given that the concept is fighting you way through various warhouses and office building the maps are pretty good (though constrained by the limited number of locations). While pretty linear the level design is pretty good with loads of detail. Just stop to look around once in a while, even the office you are spending 2 seconds passing through and will not see again is very detailed...

The story seems okay so far, and as others say is pretty intense at the start and then turns into a drip feed during the action.

The scariness is pretty good, much like the original half-life the tension level is pretty high and only rarely is it broken with an actual scare...

The next bit us a bit spoiler..ish (but not much really)!!
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I don't want to give too much away but the ghostly stuff is handled well and become less scary (but never any less creepy) as the story unfolds... Mind you I have no idea how near the finish I am so that could all change...

So far it has been a great shooter in the style of half-life. The horror in it is not overwhelming but is it builds tension and is pretty creepy. There is a definite lack of variety in the enemies. The clone soldier's uniforms do change a little between levels and you get to fight some regular guards too. You tend to come acorss a more heavily armoured guy in the set pieces but never more than one at a time so far and pretty much the same guy.

The invisible ninja's where fun but only in one small section so far and the reality of fighting them was nowhere near as bad the the tension built up while searching the darkened offices and waiting for them to appear...

Final note, I am playing on Moderate difficulty (the default). It appears the difficulty only effects how accurate the enemy are and how much damage they do.

Overall it is good fun in the half-life style...

[Phatose]

My thoughts so far:

Weapons: There are some cool weapons in this game. That said, anything cooler then an assault rifle has Resident Evil ammo problems - not enough. Much like I hear half life 2 did, they give you a cool weapon and enough ammo for one boss, then you don't get any more ammo for a long long time, and in the case of 1 weapon, I haven't found any more ammo for it since.

Combat: Combat is cool, because the enemy squad AI is pretty good. Which is really good, since 95% of the game is you and your assault rifle versus squads of grunts. There are occasional varieties - light armor, the occasional power armor or bot, but those tend to be short bursts, then right back to squads again.

That said, it's actually quite fun. The AI is fun, slomo makes things very interesting, and blowing peoples heads off with a shotgun never gets old.

Melee...well, it's hard to find time for a bicycle kick when 6 guys are shooting at you, no matter how cool it is.

Graphics: Pretty good. Not bad at all. But certainly not good enough to merit the requirements. I've got a pretty good system (3200+AMD@2.5Ghz, 6800gt, 1 Gb RAM) and I'm still stuck turning most options down and playing at 12x10. It really does seem like the game should look a lot better for how much power it's demanding.

As for the horror elements, I don't find it scary at all...but then, I don't think I've ever found a video game scary save for a few moments in the original silent hill.

It's not a bad game at all - like I said, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. But it really could've used a bit more variety, maybe some system shock style freeform +RPG elements, and definitely needed some heavy optimization or to show what it's using all that power for.

I don't feel ripped for $40, but I'd be hesistant to recommend it till it drops in price some.

[Alrowan]

dont know about you, but im running everything on max settings on my rig, seems RAM and Vid card are the main needs in this game, lots of textures etc..

im running
AMD 2600
X800 pro
1.5gig RAM

running the game in 1280x960 all settings maxed, perfect FPS rate etc, i guess an extra half gig of ram on most high end machines will be the trick


anyway, to the game... well what can i say, ive played the first 4 scenario bits so far, and im loving it, its intense, creepy and just well balanced between areas where nothing happens and areas where it all happens, one thing i love in this FPS is the lack of enemies in the levels, i mean each new area you keep wondering if something is going to shoot you or if your gonna have one of those wierd psycho bits.

Definatly a late night game, but i dont think i could sit playing more than an hour or thereabouts just because of the level of intensity of the game, but that said, after youve had some cool off time, you remember how awesome it was, and want to head back, but always with some caution till an hour or two later.

As for the slow mo and melee combat, i think its really well implemented, just once you figure out how best to use them in combo. One fight i charged a group of three enemies in slow mo, shot the first one to bits, seccond one was a nice roundhouse followed by a gun butt bash, the last one i turned and swapped to dual pistols and just blew the guy away, was real intense, but the fact i have flashbacks of it really show how much the elements stand out


As for MP has anyone tried it out yet?

[Taurus]

I havn't tried MP yet as I am too far engrossed in SP. It is utterly amazing. As you say the Slow Motion and melee features are well done and offer brilliant variety to the already fantastic game.

I don't really want to go into too much detail about the levels as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants a nice surprise but the detail on the level design is awesome and overall it is brilliant.

[Bob the Insane]

Finished it last night...

Ending is very good if a little weird!!!

I still think is it like a scary version of half-life...

Tried the MP, hectic, loud and fast with some pretty good maps...

The SlowMo games are great... MP is just as fast, bloody and destructive as combat in SP...

[Taurus]

If I finish it as quick I'm going back for a refund.

[Fragony]

Oh how I want it. It sounds awesome, I love creepy shooters. I guess I will have to wait for the x360

[Uesugi Kenshin]

It is for the PC.....

And yes it looks great, I'm not getting Quake IV. Too bad, it looked really good, but the review was far too negative for me to choose it over FEAR.

[Voigtkampf]

I have found out what fear is... Oh, dear...

Played for a 15 minutes so far, but already scared and impressed. Very, very nice.

[Navaros]

I have three questions:

1. How long is it? Is it like a 8 - 10 hours long kind of deal?

2. How is the multiplayer gameplay?

3. How many people are online playing multiplayer right now?

[Fragony]

I have found out what fear is... Oh, dear...

Played for a 15 minutes so far, but already scared and impressed. Very, very nice.

Could we press you for a review dear sir

[Taurus]

Completed it yesterday. And I must say it's a sort of wierd ending but I don't wanna give anything away.

The only negative aspect of this game in my opinion is it's replayability. Sure I guess multiplayer would be fun but the singleplayer just finishes too quick for my liking.

[Voigtkampf]

Could we press you for a review dear sir

Unfortunately, I don't think I will find the time; I am currently finishing my Barbarian Invasion review, and I am also doing an EVE Online review. I might get to do the review of F.E.A.R. in next week, but others will have enough reports by then. Thank you for your expressed confidence in my humble skills, though.

[Kekvit Irae]

Even at minimum settings, it still runs like a turtle. The scares are few an inbetween, if ever. The graphics are about on par with Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 without being as smooth. The gameplay leaves something to be desired (nothing really new was added except the slo-mo).
My opinion: I should have gotten Quake 4 instead.

[Beirut]

Just finished it.

One thing that is very important as far as I saw, is to let the game auto-decide the settings. Made for a much smoother game and it still looked great.

Some levels near the end are lacking a bit, but others are dynamite. Style and graphics are fantastic, though the combat sometimes is less than stellar and devolves into whack-a-mole style shooting at times.

All in all the game is quite linear but still a very, very cool shooter. Unique in many ways, run of the mill in others. Replay value is low IMHO, but the multiplay (which I don't) could be very good.

Maybe it's just me, but with the headphones on and the lights off, there are some seriously freaky moments near the end. Cinematic and immersive. I've never experienced that level of apprehension in a game before.

The ending is... neat.

[Bob the Insane]

Playing through on extreme difficulty and so far things aren't so bad... Maybe it is all the practice going through on Regular and playing MP but the AI don;t seem to be too much harder. They are more accurate in firing back at you but that is about it... Maybe I will have to wait until the ATC offices to really see the game getting much harder...

Second time through the scares aren't really there anymore as you know what is coming though the sound can still be creepy...

[Viking]

Maybe it's just me, but with the headphones on and the lights off, there are some seriously freaky moments near the end. Cinematic and immersive. I've never experienced that level of apprehension in a game before.

The ending is... neat.

Headphones is a must-have for FPS, makes the game much more intense.
So far I`ve only played the demo, and it`s damned good! l`ll have to get this game for sure.

Thanks for not giving the ending away.

[Butcher]

Just a quick note on this, if you are unlucky you can have some graphical glitches (like black dots appearing on the surface of polygons) with some ati cards. Seems it's a problem with the Doom 3 engine's compatability.

Pity really, cos otherwise it runs great. :(

[Xiahou]

One thing that is very important as far as I saw, is to let the game auto-decide the settings. Made for a much smoother game and it still looked great.

I set mine to max and found it would chug badly in parts, but the biggest problem seems to be stuttering caused by drive churning- even with 1gig of RAM. Taking the textures down to medium from max seemed to cure that and then just to keep a consistent framerate I turned off smooth shadows and scaled back AA and AF by 1 increment from their max settings. So far, it seems to run pretty good.

I think the textures are far and away the biggest resource hog.

[TosaInu]

Just a quick note on this, if you are unlucky you can have some graphical glitches (like black dots appearing on the surface of polygons) with some ati cards. Seems it's a problem with the Doom 3 engine's compatability.

Pity really, cos otherwise it runs great. :(

It may pay to sit down and experiment with drivers for a while.

I've had several experiences with different Nvidia drivers for different Nvidia cards and some with ATI.

A newer driver does not always improve things, it may only speed up one game (because of some arms race to obtain the best FPS in some popular game or benchmark, thereby compromising something else), it can even display graphics wrong in some game that worked great with the older driver. Try other drivers or a tweaktool.

Since it is a software problem and not hardware, it's possible that it can/will be fixed (even a hardware 'fault' could be fixed to some extent by software). Both ATI cards, F.E.A.R and the Doom3 engine are popular enough.

Are the dots on about every polygon Butcher?