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3 months ago
Feature: The worthiest reticules of all time
The best shooters endure. While other genres warp beyond recognition, there is something solid about the first-person shooter that makes it as dependable as a nice big AK-47. Maybe it’s the gung-ho simplicity - look down a barrel and pull the trigger. It's as fun to fire a double-barrelled shotgun from an early 90s FPS as the slick shotties of today. For that reason, this…
2 years ago
Feature: The worthiest reticules of all time
The best shooters endure. While the state of the art moves on in other genres and leaves old designs in the dust, it's as fun to fire a well-made shotgun from an early 90s FPS as from one released today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There's bound to be something for you…
Disco Elysium is my secret side infatuation in 2018. First the game was operating under the name "No Truce With The Furies" which the devs didn't think stood out enough (!!) and then each new look I get at the game reveals a more complicated and exciting RPG about crime solving and I just want to be playing it now. Not even for first play-though;…
Feature: Is #1 A Jump Scare?
To compile a list of the 25 best horror games on PC is to look into the void for so long that the void not only starts to look back, but shakes you by the hand and takes you out for coffee. It is to fight with monsters until you become a monster and then go on a European railtrip with the other monsters, and…
3 years ago
Feature: Flank, cover and run away
Why F.E.A.R.’s AI is still the best in first-person shooters
The shadows on the wall tell me they’re coming. Two of them, both with assault rifles swinging idly at their hips. If I’m quick enough, I’m sure I can take them both out in one go. I peek out of cover as they round the corner, and let my stake gun sing, pinning the first enemy to the wall with 10mm steel projectiles. But at…
Feature: Alma rater
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. I’m still annoyed at F.E.A.R. 2. The first F.E.A.R probably has the best shotgun in any game ever. It’s a masterpiece of virtual ballistics, a simple black tube that, when fired, has the force of a punch from Mars himself. All F.E.A.R 2…
4 years ago
Feature: Have You Played
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. F.E.A.R. may not be the best first-person shooter of all time but it has the best shooting of any first-person game.
5 years ago
Feature: Finally learning to play that which I fear
As we’ve all learned the hard way, the longer you leave something you’re anxious about, the more terrifying it becomes. (I really must get that thing on my foot looked at). (And the car in for its MOT). (And oh God all those emails to people who wrote nice things whenever I mentioned difficult times). Case in point: Dota 2.
F.E.A.R. Online's open beta test begins on October 7th, ahead of full launch on the 17th, and signups are now active. Go! Run! Register! It's free! Or perhaps not. The original F.E.A.R. takes place almost entirely in a succession of rather ordinary office buildings but that doesn't matter because the combat is absolutely splendid. Bullets have tremendous impact and slow motion slides across debris-strewn rooms,…
6 years ago
Once upon a time Monolith made the candy/1970s-colored No One Lives Forever, but then the years passed and the colors drained away. The result? F.E.A.R., which traded NOLF's yuck-yuck-yucks for some spooky, splattery "oh... yucks." Flash forward to today: all of the color is gone, with six Monolith vets producing the gloomily black-and-white Betrayer. It's got scares in spades and thick cobwebs of dread lingering in…
Feature: The Art Technology of FEAR
Update: A second conversation with Craig Hubbard revealed a few more details, so I've added them where appropriate. The section 'Mergers And Executions' now talks more about cut villain Conrad Krige and the game's improbable original opening (a car chase), while a new section on its famous radio chatter has been added to the end. In this second of three conversations with the Monolith veterans…
10 years ago
I awake at 6 am, fully-clothed, drool-covered hands on drool-covered laptop keyboard, nonsense half-sentences on the screen. I brush the sleeping cat off my feet, I rub my agonisingly cricked neck, and I cursecursecurse my decision to go drinking with Kieron and his comics friends rather than cook myself a sensible supper. I also realise I am at least six hours late for Thursday's posts…
Fans of increasingly unadventurous corridor shooters, rejoice! It appears Monolith's horror-FPS F.E.A.R. is due another sequel, and it is to be known as Effthreearrr. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? I have a dream. The dream is that Effthreearr and Thifourf are released on the same day, and the resulting shop displays look so ridiculous that no publisher ever attempts to bring about game…
12 years ago
A new Project Origin trailer appears, in what appears to be a series attempting to put us off the game as much as possible. This time with 34 seconds of company logos! We'd show you far more of ourselves, Gametrailers. More floating down dingy corridors, more sudden cuts to a monster, and then some game footage that could come from any shooter ever. (Although Mr…
While we've previously talked about how weren't exactly impressed with the name they settled on - though we do like the list of close-but-no-cigars, including the immortal Little Miss Bloodshine - the actual whole story behind the change itself remains perhaps the most fascinating of recent times. Publisher keeping the name while the Developer keeps the engine has happened before, of course (with the separate…
As if the terrible name wasn't enough, the Perseus Mandate demo turns out to be a shambolic outing for the ailing FEAR series. You can download the 734.82MB sampler from here. Once installed and playing, you'll probably find yourself saying: "woooOOOooo" in that sarcastic way that you do when things just aren't scary. It's still trying to deliver the proven FEAR formula (there's some cryptic…
