FEAR 2 seems like it’s been in development for over a hundred years, but at last you can play it, for at least a short while. The demo has been released today, and gives you a good 20 to 30 minutes (so long as you don’t rush like an idiot) of the spooksome world. You can get the demo here. Impressions below.
The most striking thing about the portion of the game on display here is quite how traditional a shooter FEAR 2 is looking to be. Tight corridors, health packs, armour packs, and some bullet time. There’s not even a left/right choice throughout the demo, so constricted are you in its funnel. But you know what? It’s a pretty fine funnel to be in.
The horror tropes are also extremely traditional, but what’s known to be effective is damned effective. The familiar split-second flashing of alternate worlds, spooky figures, and horrific displays are in full force. It almost strobes with the effects at points. The appearances of the little girl, Alma, are all well timed, and often surprising. There’s also some extremely effective use of music, with the score ripping and changing to match your actions, even offering orchestral stabs at the conclusion of your firing.
The sound is used in an exemplary fashion throughout. At one point a shadow appears on the wall in front of you, encouraging you to turn around and see some awful figure for just a fragment of a second, which is a great moment. But at another it’s simply a sound effect that has you check behind you, to disturbing effect. It’s smart, and it’s obviously the reason for the funnel.
Lots more fun comes from swinging doors, slamming furniture, and all-out frenzy in some of the corridors of the elementary school that makes up the first half of the level. Then things focus more on the run-and-gunplay, finishing with a ludicrous sequence in a giant, stomping robo-suit. I think I like the idea of a shameless corridor shooter, with everything from dropped data messages, in-HUD messages from unseen compatriots, and daft old health packs. Especially if it can maintain the momentum and spookiness on show here.
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I agree about the HUD being shite (excuse my tongue). In fact most reviews I have read state as much. Be gone stupid HUD. Is there an online petition for this ? If not let’s create one.
Yup, the HUD is damn annoying. I really hate it and was not very kind in description of it to others. There really needs to be an option to get rid of it, along with the annoying pop-up “hint” type things too. They distract way to much from what already is a rather bland experience. Lose the HUD, and I might find the game a little more enjoyable. Only a little mind.
This is one of the best games I’ve played, albeit briefly, not to mention it being a demo. I really, really enjoyed playing through this — especially tipping over different items to see if I could do specific things (I.e. killing a guy with a vending machine). And the start, good lord was that pretty.
The HUD would be just about bareable if it wasn’t squeezed into letterbox AND didn’t obscure everything with its annoying popups when you are trying to see the enemies against the background. Hell I had to use Slow-mo just to see the bastards half the time as it provides a shiney outline (nice touch but I wish it wasn’t so hard to see them without it – I don’t recall this being hard to see the enemies in FEAR and it was usually equally dark).
My hate list:
Wide screen
HUD
Weak weapons
The use of sudden shock fear compared to the more psychological fear in the original. And frankly, I must be jaded, because noisy rooms with blood, corpses and almost invisible ghosts isn’t really scary to me.
Film grain………
Maybe I should just sum it up as the console-to-pc-conversion feeling. Everything felt “kiddiefied” to me.
“qrter says:
1.76Gb.. I wish companies would officially put their demos out on torrentsites, but then the ad-funded download sites would probably get their knickers in a twist etc”
There is a pretty fast torrent here:
http://www.gameupdates.org/details.php?id=3234
Just finished playing the demo for the third time. Needed to finalize my opinion before writing anything down, and now I have to say how relieved I am to find that I haven’t lost my mind. You folks see it, too: this game looks to be in bad shape.
As someone who simply wanted the original game, but with better writing and art direction, I’m appalled at how thoroughly this sequel seems to have abandoned everything that made F.E.A.R. worthwhile.
Indeed. I’m reminded of Call of Duty 2, to be honest. As ugly as it sounds, it’s been dumbed down for release on consoles. Prettier, but without the minor but unique gameplay elements that made the original so fun. It’s not a bad game, but it can’t compare to the original.
Widescreen vs letterboxing probably isn’t analogous to movies when it’s a first person game. Technically it could be, like in Metroid Prime. 2D games is a different story. Knytt is meant for its resolution and Braid would be frustrating if you couldn’t see all of the puzzle at once because you used a different resolution. A certain amount is always meant to be visible at once in a 2D game and it is designed around that set amount.
i like this demo cant wait til it comes out, and the geometry seems to be better then farcry2 and crysis..well imo though
Letterboxing stinks, and I don’t want to use a lowsy blurry slow LCD!
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