Comments on: Project Origin Puts F.E.A.R. In Our Eyes

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:36:08 +0000

Thanks, guys. I guess I should try to post here more often. Kudos to those responsible for this blog, it’s great.

I had mixed feelings about F.E.A.R. I liked the shooty bits, I liked the creepy bits… but it just became more of the same after a while. Walk on some rooftops, shoot some stuff. Walk through some offices, shoot some stuff. Walk through some labs, shoot some stuff. Some more puzzles/problems or some vehicles would have been a nice change.

OTOH, complaining that my game character has to walk too much might just mean I’m the laziest man on Earth.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:42:22 +0000

Condemned really seemed to be going for the “familiar places made scary” vibe with its school, library, metro station, and house levels. All brilliant. FEAR’s endless generic office building might have been aimed at that, but it could have used a bit more variety. (I still loved it, mind you.)

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:28:01 +0000

If you watch the previews for FEAR 2, it looks like some of the game takes place outside in wide-open spaces. So they’ve at least rectified one of the biggest complaints of the original FEAR.

Plus you get to command a Mech, ala Shogo. (albeit for brief periods of time).

FEAR was a potentially great game that was marred by critical problems, that have been outlined before. Everything I’ve read about the sequel tells me they’re aware of these problems, and there’s a good chance they’ll be non-existent in the sequel.

By: dhex

dhex — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:34:38 +0000

i kinda liked the name project origin. i say kinda because F.E.A.R. is a stupid name and makes “project origin” sound a lot better than it is.

just calling it “alma” would have been kinda neat. if only we could see the day when games have abstract titles like them fancy european type movies.

By: Optimaximal

Optimaximal — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:36:14 +0000

Plus the shooty was a bit naff. Every fight depended on the use of bullet time thanks to psychic super-accurate bastard-soldiers. Plus the melee moves were a bit over-fiddly.

Speak for yourself – I was often so engrossed in the shooty bits that I forgot about the slow-mo until the second or third time I died during a set-piece.

I’m one of the crowd that felt F.E.A.R. would have been so much superior without the convoluted reflex-time which a) made little or no sense in the context of the game itself and b) was badly implemented – why, if the character was such an enigma, would he be given a suit with a HUD that actually tracked his ‘reflex meter’?

By: Bobsy

Bobsy — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:29:09 +0000

Ugh. F.E.A.R was a bit of a downer for me. It had two settings: scary and shooty. If it was shooty, you knew there would be some scary coming up. If you were wading through scary, it’s okay! There’s a bit of shooty around the corner to break it up.

Plus the shooty was a bit naff. Every fight depended on the use of bullet time thanks to psychic super-accurate bastard-soldiers. Plus the melee moves were a bit over-fiddly.

By: NeonWraith

NeonWraith — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:16:31 +0000

I’m not saying I didn’t like F.E.A.R., as I played through it all and it was ok. I’m just saying that beyond the occasional freak out moments (Some of which, were, admittedly, very good) it was just incredibley repetitive, which, to me, doesn’t necessarily make for a good game.

By: ohnoabear

ohnoabear — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:26:38 +0000

Usually, I’d agree that offices and sewers are boring and overdone in FPS, but (I’d like to think) their presence in F.E.A.R. has more to do with the horror elements, which thrive on placing the unexpected or unnatural in places that seem mundane and everyday.

..and then giving up and having things jump out at you and things flash on the screen. F.E.A.R.’s horror scenes weren’t very well done, but you can tell some thought did go into most of them. Besides, I can think of worse ways to pad out the time between wonderfully tactile gunfights. Like cutscenes, which thankfully were kept to a bare minimum. I’m all for games that let me ignore their cruddy story if I want to.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:48:17 +0000

Well, yeah, offices and sewers are typically pretty boring…that’s why they’re bad choices for settings unless boring is the desired effect.

By: suchchoices

suchchoices — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:07:37 +0000

Bill does indeed win. Monolith should knock off all the rainbow6vegasN levels, replace clone-men with lizard-men and chuck in some bats.

edit: and perhaps switch medkits with ether

By: Phil H

Phil H — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:46:54 +0000

I think Bill wins.

F.E.A.R.’s gunplay was nice, and it had some decent freakout moments, getting to pilot the mecha has me in for the sequel.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:40:24 +0000

L.O.A.T.H.I.N.G.