F.E.A.R. 2 & F.E.A.R. 3 PC Game Review

judging from the success of the first fair game you'd expect there to be some sort of sequel and there was fear 2 was released in 2009 from Microsoft Windows PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 once again developed by monolith productions running on a yet again updated the lift tech engine fear 2 takes place around the time in the first game store alone where things were ending you play as a soldier named Beckett sent into the city with a Special Forces team to extract and protect Genevieve IRA steed a character referred to frequently in the first game right about this time is when the point man destroys the armored cam facility releasing Alma and setting off a chain reaction that decimates the nearby city shortly after this Genevieve ends up giving back at the same powers as the point man in a sin that can only be described to some pretty blatant retconning it could be be charged to 200 no no make that 300 from there things get a little bit muddled and you're just kind of on the move to do something it's never really too clear what is known is that Armour has an interest in Beckett from the outset and she wants to do much more than just holding hands if you catch my drift I mean there's nothing hotter than a psychopathic naked chick trying to jump your bones right anyone who's played the first game should feel right at home here and it's not long before things are in full motion with Beckett busting out of a hospital and killing platoons of ARMA camp soldiers in the process one of the first things you'll probably notice is that they've implemented proper iron sights and it was a highlighter during reflex time and you're now able to cook grenades combat is still highly enjoyable and environments can be torn apart in gun fights just as before on top of that they've also packed a lot more detail into the engine and things look a lot better overall as well as having a much greater variety of locations for each mission there's a couple of sections where you get to jump in a large max suit and cut your way through legions of soldiers with mini guns and rocket launchers this might seem a bit out of place at first but then again remember these are the guys who made Shogun most of the weapons are recycled from the first game though they have been entirely reskinned I am a little bit annoyed that they've practically ruined the shotgun making it much less effective but that I can live with what I can't deal with is the fact that the game just feels like it's on autopilot it borrows heavily from a lot of other games and doesn't really feel that original anymore it's got lots of those fast melee type enemies you know the cliched emaciated freaks that move super fast and latch on to you the type that's disturbing the first time you encounter them but then become extremely annoying and these are an enemy type that just seem to be packed into every single shooting game that was made at the time enemies also seen become in waves now as opposed to taking on squads at a time a concept which played a large part in why the first game is so enjoyable something that made fear one so memorable and really helped the gunfights was the fact that you were always in medium to close range with your enemies but in fear too you're often in much larger expansive areas where you just have to take a more traditional approach to shooting I guess it's good in the sense that it's more diverse in the first game but it just makes it feel so much more derivative I'm also a little bit miffed that melee attacks still have a tendency to miss enemies entirely it can really ruin your buzz when you take out a bunch of guys like a badass and then go in for a jumping karate kick to finish off the last enemy only to miss him entirely but aside from that it really is just as good a game as fear one for the most part and I have to say I've never quite understood why this game gets such a bad rap from the fans it is a very mature eyed dark storyline that is handled a lot better and it's got some downright spooky scripted sequences and jump scares that will really catch first-time players what does suck however is fear 3 released in 2010 phiiiy is fairly similar to fear - though it is not developed by monolith productions instead it's a team called day one studios who did a really good job of messing almost everything up the point man and Paxton fellow returned once again a few months after the events of the second game as they begin a search for Alma throughout the ruined environments of a fictional city called Fairport running into a few familiar faces along the way the idea is that the point man in paxton fettel are kind of working together for the moment to deal with the great earth red and it is actually a pretty cool concept you get a lot more information on their backstory as well in a cool twist you can also play through the single-player campaign as faddle himself or in a co-op mode with another player online though I've yet to find an active game going much like fear - the whole concept of taking on squads of enemies has also been thrown out the [ __ ] window and you just take on waves and waves of bad guys in different areas you know like every single other shooting game made in recent years quite often - just a stupid amount of enemies at once because apparently that's the only way to make it game difficult these days most of the weapons from the previous games return along with a few new additions including an overpowered riot shield which is good fun but breaks the game whenever you use it fear 3 has a lot more of a tactical approach to the shooting whenever you near a crate or a wall you can attach yourself to it and pop out to take shots at enemies now I'd be fine with this but not for the fact that enemies are still able to shoot you even when you're in cover this makes this feature new useless and also makes some of the later levels extremely tough it also completely changes the feel of the gameplay making things a lot slower go on other days of running into rooms and gunning down enemies at close range with the shotgun you try that here and you'll be rewarded with a very quick death and then there's the visuals hazy blurry lines and lots of smoke and utter obstructing visual effects it really looks like ass which is a shame because there is an incredible amount of detail in the environments with great textures and intricately modelled props but you probably might see half of it because it looks like the games being rendered through the bottom of a coke bottle something that does sharpen the visuals somewhat is running the game in DirectX 9 which gets rid of a lot of the so called atmospheric effects and if you are going to play this game I would suggest that as something to consider a new addition to the series is a leveling system of sorts where you earn points for doing certain actions like killing a bunch of people with a certain gun or spending a certain amount of time and slow motion but what could have been a really neat idea is ruined because they don't give you any control over what the points go into but the game's biggest problem is that it just doesn't feel like a fair game and it's so far removed from fear one that it's almost painful I just think the people who made this game just didn't understand what monolith we're originally going for and giving the point man a face and a personality if you can call it that is a testament to this I look at it this way the reason the point man didn't talk or show his face in fear one was because it's implied that you are the point man he's not a character he's the player's embodiment into the game that's why when you look down at the ground you see your own feet to help make you feel like the protagonist and get you immersed but in Fear 3 when they just turn him into a generic moody guy without any sense of charisma or character traits just makes him boring there's no reason to give a [ __ ] about in whatsoever and also reflex time something the series is most well known for is almost useless now as slow-motion is now much less effective at avoiding enemy fire and rushing their positions due to some really cheaply coded enemies that are going to force you to spend most of your time in cover judging off what I've said you might think that fear 3 is a waste of time but it's saved single-handedly by the fact that you're also able to play through the campaign as paxton fettel and playing as fettle is awesome as hell you can possess enemies and fire on their own teammates cause their bodies to explode in a shower of blood and guts or just fire psychic blasts from your hands knocking opponents over this is by far the highlight of the entire game not almost wish I had have just done away with the pointman entirely and focused on federal as a main character it's just so much fun and you have this real sense of power and control which the point man's campaign can't even begin to compete with I can't comment on the co-op mode because like I said I've never been able to get a match going but with or without a friend you're still going to run into issues throughout the five or six hour single-player mode Fear 3 on the whole isn't the type of game for everyone really the only reason to play it is if you played the first two games and want to see how the story all gets resolved but even then it doesn't really deliver where it needs to and the fact that it all looks like a muddy toilet bowl makes it really hard to enjoy I'd still probably recommend both of these games but just keep in mind like most trilogies their quality dwindles with each installment both games are available on Steam for dirt cheap and you shouldn't have any issues getting them running on modern operating systems I never doubted you in a second you

Channel: GmanLives

Views: 454,000

Rating: 4.901597 out of 5

Keywords: fear 2 review, monolith games, jupiter lithtech engine, jupiter ex engine, havok physics, monolith productions, wb games, day 1 studios, microsoft windows, playstation 3 games, xbox 360 games, steam powered, project origin, alma wade, despair engine, first person shooters, fps games, horror games, slow mo, bullet time, the point man, paxton fettel

Id: n-SJec-qaeM

Length: 8min 58sec (538 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 29 2014