F.E.A.R. 3: 7 Years Later

here we are the end fear 3 this game was released in 2011 developed by day 1 studios not monolith and published by Warner Brothers Interactive day 1 is now a branch of wargaming and fear is dead with practically no hope of return fear was a horror action FPS blend it was unique that way your player character was either the point man sergeant person eater or Michael Beckett both of whom can slow down time with reflex mode and have access to a variety of cool melee attacks but fear was known for its AI above all enemies would challenge the player with what seemed like fully coordinated maneuvers making the combat experience something unmatched 13 years later fear too decided that it didn't like its USP and decided not to have one anymore instead it tried to fix aspects of the game lacking in 2005 the story the horror and he did that fairly well fair to left off with Michael Beckett having been brutally raped Almer is pregnant and that's probably not a good thing this is the premise for fair free Elmas giving birth you should probably have a say in that this game follows the point man and Paxton working as brothers for the first time in their quest to find Alma that's it that's your premise it's simple and the game sure as hell doesn't honor that with an interesting well thought-out story let's just get this out of the way theories combat is good but it's horror and story are not they're barely even there so depending on what is e value about the franchise fear 3 could feel anywhere from a return to form to a kick in the nuts this complete lack of a worthwhile narrative is disguised about the games no [ __ ] around attitude interval one doesn't spend long before you're playing fair again and this confused me because fear 3 has one of the worst reputations I've ever seen from an otherwise adored franchise I expected it to be utter bollocks and it is if you don't turn down the mouse sensitivity massively coming off fair - I thought I might have developed a brain tumor or something but no this game starts you on max sensitivity and has mount acceleration without fixed fear threes combat is a surprise it's immediately superior to fear twos monotonous lock and it doesn't take much effort to figure out why a threes gameplay feels much closer to fair ones appropriate given the player character guns feel much weightier and connections feel impactful reflex mode looks absolutely amazing this time around the slide kick returns the jump kick actually knocks enemies back instead of just phasing through them and giving them a cardiac arrest melee feels strong once more you don't have to wait long between blows and each blow in the combo has a different animation making the simple Mele is even superior to fair one you can actually bind controls to the mouse keys meaning you don't have to play keyboard twister anytime you want to pull off something complex deal wielding is back blood splatter looks better than fair to at least shotguns blow enemies away appropriately relates detonate on impact all of these changes combines great gameplay closer to fair one more aggressive more action focused it's odd then that with the game's more aggressive gameplay it would do everything in its [ __ ] power to stop you from acting that way or enjoying it it might be better than fair - but it sure as hell isn't perfect the guns might feel good to use but they're all amazingly boring the SMG is best - everything all the time the shotgun is hilariously less powerful and the SMG at close range despite it being far more fun the pistol is better than ever but you can't you'll wield it only the use ease the assault rifle is a burst rifle with this horrible sight and it's also not much better than the SMG anyway the laser carbine returns but it's not really a power weapon anymore because it takes so long to kill anyone it chains and sets people on fire so that's cool but given it shows up about twice and it's not that good anyway it's a light blaster portrayal the sniper rifle is fun but it's not an air of satisfying a spare twos version which baffles me the rocket launcher is boring because again it only fires one rocket where 2005 sphere 1 fire for the napalm is gone the nail gun is alright and that's that there's one power weapon and it's boring what the [ __ ] the only worthwhile new tool was the riot shield which creates a very different attitude to combat when using it it allows you to completely turn the times of the battle but it's not completely foolproof because you have to expose yourself to reload which can be a death on fearless so guns are bad but we've yet to address the elephant in the room in my fair one video I stated that a way to improve on the combat would be some manner of reliably avoiding damage complemented with regenerating health as this removes the reflex over-reliance problem this was an issue where the player would be wasting their limited medkit supply if they attempted anything aggressive which essentially forced the player into using reflex mode all the time if they wanted to play efficiently the best way to play was not always the most fun wait and I felt that was an issue via two used shields to solve this problem now you can play aggressively without having to worry about your three med kits being wasted only problem was it was fair to fear 3 has regenerating health no mate kids it's got part 1 to complement that you're supposed to have a way of reliably avoiding damage I suggested an improved movement system something like Max Payne there's tons of options but day 1 thought a cover system would be most appropriate which on my list of things fair needs is just under QuickTime events and a soundtrack by Taylor Swift I doubt I need to explain how a cover system works but I will say it works very well snapping is flawless aiming to the sides and over cover is easy but because this is an extremely linear game with relatively open sight lines reflex mode can only do so much in the reliably avoiding damage area if you want to survive you have to use the cover there's no question about it on your first playthrough you will be torn to shreds if you try to play aggressive for more than 5 seconds 5 seconds isn't an exaggeration and in a quick FPS like this it's longer than I would make it seem it's enough to pull off some cool plays but being punished for going for anything long golf flash sure seems about as counterintuitive as you could get this is a problem hugely exacerbated by level design intrinsically levels and fear 1 served as a way of reliable avoiding damage by themselves not all of them but the vast majority and because you and the AI could use them so well it was the final piece of the puzzle that made fez combat legend this is missing in fear 3 an interval 1 you're in an armored kam prison Jin tells point man over the radio that some way to arm a demon which nonsense is going down paxton shows up and the pair of you try to escape being a prison it lends itself to FPS rather well in fact most of the space is an interval one adhere to the holy trinity of FPS arena design varied clustered cover check circular navigability mostly check observability that's all 3 thing is with prison breaks though you do end up having to leave the prison and then play the rest of the game there's a intervals in fear 3 making it fairly short one of which is purely story so the six other real intervals and every one of them is almost entirely linear design like vr-2 except it looks better ad s is necessitated by the long and relatively thin linear design which slows down movement there's no circular navigability the cover isn't varied it's boring and in a very rare few arenas they even like observability that is the gameplays biggest problem that isn't to say there aren't a few standout exceptions the end of interval 2 was a lot of fun an interval 7 well nowhere near interval 1 at least had varied clustered cover and a degree of synaptic ability day 1 also get creative on occasion within interval 3 having a battle with suicide bombers on these thin wooden bridges and a cool last stand left4dead type fight in interval 7 against hordes of Diamond Dogs as the door behind you opens and closes a snail's pace it's a return to fear ones clever use of its environments fear 3 has the widest range of environments I've seen in the franchise and I'm happy to say that it uses them the best - you go from a prison to a run-down slum to a shopping warehouse to a middle-class suburb to a post-apocalyptic city centre to a massive bridge over the sea to an airport and finally to haunted house every one of them looks great and almost every one of them uses their environment to enhance the experience interval 3 shopping centre is used to amplify the horror experience through the cultists and blinking TVs interval to slump provides all sorts of nooks and crannies within houses and without especially in the last few arenas interval 5 s collapsing city has the ground giving out beneath you creating new ways to traverse the level and often taking out a few enemies for you but most impressively interval sixes bridge creates a sense of entrapment and suspension you're hung over this extremely small bridge and you can only traverse the underside through these stacked up train cars you don't want to fall but you don't want to be trapped with a Diamond Dogs either it's great these impressive environments all give fair threes intervals something memorable but with regards to combat they can only do so much and then not always perfect those sync holds an interval 5 even being remotely near one when they collapse as an insta death creating an extremely frustrating sequence an interval 7 you're somehow supposed to know that this black cover on the conveyor belt is the actual way to go an interval for you get some power on and the only way to get through these buildings is to shoot specific parts of the walls but you're not going to be looking at the environment in combat so it just slows everything down either say that you have to do that or don't have it then a met comes in and it's make V mech but it just comes down to mindless weapon spam then there's more [ __ ] he met combat and then you have to get out because you're met can't smash through a gate for some reason despite the fact that we've just been waltzing through concrete creativity is one thing but I'd much rather have high quality direction through the level than a poorly executed cool idea the environments here of topped fear too but at the end of the day the level design is no better and as such the same issues arise castrated AI and so a week of combat experience the cover system services an in-game way for you to avoid damage but make no mistake fear too did the same thing you still had to hide behind walls and objects to avoid large damage it's just that you barely ever did because normal difficulty was so easy in fear 3 commando difficulty as it's called is far more punishing probably due to the cover system being fully realized so enemy damage and frequency is adjusted accordingly thankfully fear 3 has a nice and it's home it starts with a P and it rhymes of Craxton it's Paxton this is the first game in which you can play as Paxton and it's a completely different experience Paxton can fire energy blasts which don't have the most impressive DPS their low rpm and also pretty hard to aim with no sites however Paxton can also suspend enemies giving a much easier shot on their heads and allowing him to instantaneously blow them up if he's close enough but it really comes into its own when he pressed control to possess whoever you have suspended you essentially instantly snap into the body no matter how far you are away if you possess a soldier you have point man's abilities but without reflex cultists give you access to their knives because this body is just a rental you can afford to go as reckless as you want go Rambo no matter how much damage you take as soon as you're near death you just press the possess button again to burst free and then you can move on to the next target you're not very fast and fairly squishy as Paxton so it's the best idea to be possessing as aggressively as possible and that completely negates the need to ever use cover that's not the only thing Paxton the gates via threes enemy design is pretty standard you've got snipers shot Gunners basic shooting men but also some big guys with riot shields who you take out with a shot to the hand much like halo cultists worship Alma Wade and they show up in interval three one-type claws at you the other type runs out you with a bomb best and then you've got the boss type enemy the phase commanders big guys walk little guys run about place but both spawn enemies from these weird arc bolts you've got to kill the commanders to stop the spawning that's much easier said than done they've not got much health but their shields are extremely hard it takes about seven sniper shots to the head to take down the shield in summary Nazz they regularly teleport by walking through these wall portals they could come out of any wall which creates an enjoyable cat-and-mouse game especially when you're up against two of them with Paxton though much of this experience is lesson the grunts are easily dispatched with possession and all you need to do to the commander is take down the shields at which point it becomes helpless to possession then you can turn that body on the other phase commander even using the self-destruct to deal more damage Paxton can't use any of the phase abilities but the body is still a massive bath and that's the thing Paxton is unbelievably unbalanced the game wasn't designed for him it was assigned for pond man he's a hell of a lot of fun but there's no challenge at all to playing him Paxton's fearless feels like point man's commando and the problem is worsened by this game's idea of a progression system essentially you do challenges which you can play just by playing you can also get points by pressing F on certain dead people which for some reason is a psychic link the points you get from challenges and links raises your rank and you get permanent in-game busts for doing so more reflex capacity more speed more health more ammo these are significant boosts and you're vastly more powerful as a rank twenty-one fearless than a rank 1 pleb it's a glorified version of the Boosters from the first game but unlike there you carry over the boost from one playthrough to another it's a count bound and Paxton isn't playable until you've completed the levels on point man for whatever reason so most players will use Paxton on the second run at which point not only are you stronger as Paxton but you're also stronger because you have a significantly higher rank and you can never actually return to the same difficulty level that you had on your first playthrough because you'll always be stronger first playthrough fearless is the hardest the game can get why they thought this progression system was a good idea is beyond me it maxes out at 21 which is about three playthroughs that's not a huge task because with eight intervals fire three is only four to six hours long and with three playthroughs each one with a slightly different combat system it attempts to keep yourself fresh you might be wondering what the third playthrough would be there's only two characters but this games campaign can be played in coop [ __ ] around with friends is a natural enjoyable experience in most games in fare three my coop playthrough was significantly worse than my solo playthrough the person with the highest rank will always be the favorite son because they're naturally going to be more powerful and Paxton is always going to be more powerful at the base anyway the revive mechanic looks ridiculous but worse whoever you're reviving will not get up if you complete the green bar you need to wait an extra second which leads to perceived inconsistency and mistakes at no fault of the player some encounters are harder because there seems to be more enemies but some encounters are easier because you can gang up on a single target so there's no consistency if one player dies - a sinkhole everyone dies and you have to restart at a checkpoint and because there's two players who will routinely make mistakes you actually have a harder time getting through interval files traversal sections and co-op than you do in solo level design is completely bollixed by co-op because for doors that leads you down the correct path to become unlocked both players need to be close so you pretty much can't split up if you do you're significantly less likely to find the correct path if one player strays too far from another that player has their screen turned to black and white so they can't see and have been teleported to the other player I only saw this happening to Paxton but I can't be sure if it's exclusive the problem with this is it's completely inconsistent you can be fifty meters apart one arena but if you put ten metres between you on either side of some random door you're teleported the peer-to-peer networking sucks unbelievably hard even when both internet connections were top-notch sometimes you can die so hard that you're disconnected and it's definitely tied to death because 9 out of 10 times it happened one or both of us had died this can also result in rare crashes the horror aspect of the game doesn't work because the horror is not very good to begin with and two players almost always diminishes the experience of the game wasn't designed from the ground up to handle it every cutscene is from the point man's perspective even if you play paxton breaking the immersion of one of the players every time point man's reflex mode slows down time for Paxton - which is performance enhancing but obnoxious nonetheless but you kept rating point man if you've asked his player to not use it because he has no other powers and finally there's no way to switch characters the host is always point man the joiner is always Paxton all of this combined creates an experience that was significantly worse than when I did it in fact the only good thing that Carl brings to the table is choosing whether to share or steal psychic links because it is a factor in who's ending gets picked [ __ ] around with friends is one thing but this game has so many problems that doing so was just extending the amount of time we would play the game a fate considerably worse than death theories of fence of options make a successful return to form mechanically but they're betrayed by an awful cover system bad co-op and linear level design that once again completely misses what made the AI successful nevertheless it's better than fear two's meager offering and that's where its advantages nv3 also attempts a story and I really really wish it didn't the direct story is delivered through cutscenes they end the previous mission and transition into the next almost always focusing on the brothers Paxton and point man Paxton does pretty much all of the speaking for obvious reasons but point man's voice wasn't the only thing missing in previous games his face was too but here he is looking like Keanu Reeves this makes sense given his heritage and it's pretty important to the game story because you regularly see the brothers as children as a sacrifice a face could give point mates for character in fact everything that made him special to begin with is gone silent protagonist smug because you can easily identify with the story using them as the vessel it doesn't work here because the player isn't necessarily point man and the point man can't represent the player this is a game about both Paxton and point man and their relationship yet point man is still a blank slate the players perspective isn't always Point Man but most importantly as possible motivations are now completely unrelated until the ending the player never knows if he's doing everything to stop Armour or because he's her son and it's important to it Alcatraz and Master Chief assembly heroes who want to save the day of their own sacrifice no questions asked they embody the player but point man is ambiguous and with no quality as the player vessel he becomes a boring flat character he's got no agency of his own he's completely incapable of making his own decisions in fact gin is the only one who decides what the brothers do or where they go apart from one decision in one ending he's a mindless brute archetype with no charisma which makes his character completely on compelling this leaves only Paxton to prop up the main characters Paxton is Baxton for fair free but not in the way you'd expect in fear to reborn Paxton used a specific special replica to imprint himself onto he was just Paxton again and that was that in fear three he's a ghost Paxton always had the ability to come out of nowhere but there is portrayed as some kind of spooky psychic magic here he can walk through walls float about the place and he's covered in his weird red aura like a monster of a children's book he's not the same powers it's just portrayed in a different way through this red stuff which removes a lot of the mystery from his character Paxton's appearance also raises major questions in reborn he came back as a 45 year old drunk of Rhodesia I'd be fine if they wreak on that and make him look like he did in the first game again because that's still clearly the superior design but instead Paxton works about a decade younger which is fair enough but with a slender frame and no bulk in his jacket he also has a bullet hole in his forehead despite not having one in fair - you've gone from a great design to an awful design to a completely illogical awful design the only thing and I mean the only redeeming quality of these two plums is the direction of the cutscenes themselves John Carpenter the American filmmaker helped out on these and I really think it pays off the directing is flawless smooth transitions great character placement and camerawork the action is also pretty gripping Paxton calmly throwing point man out of harm's way and into North I've been saving him from falling down a sewer or two particularly impressive moments there always a pleasure to watch not so much to listen to but we'll get onto that shortly for now we've got a plot to talk about well sort of Elmer is giving birth and both brothers want to be there to see it Paxton wants to do it for family and PowerPoint man through Jin wants to do it to stop Perlman but again that's ambiguous pretty much the entire game is about getting to Marla geographically FERPA is a bit [ __ ] but thankfully fair three is an extremely visually varied game so you've got a wide color palette in some very good-looking backdrops for the narrative to play in each mission is pretty much chasing after something you need to get to armor with very little to no story development whatsoever an interval for its escape in interval two words get a helicopter there's nothing in interval three or four except simply progressing River City but gin shows up soon after gin is back in fear this game is in the monolith timeline so it's of course disregards Jen being torn to shreds by shades and extraction point and instead assumes that she got out of his demon infested nuclear wasteland just fine she gives you a much more interesting motivation Michael Beckett he's still alive and he's being held by Alma kam at Fairport Airport which is the greatest name ever you got to get to him because um I don't know it's literally never explained why you need to speak to Beckett to find or stop Alma not even the wiki knows Paxton is fine with meeting him but only to find out if he is the real father when Beckett starts going on ullas case Paxton paints the walls with him and that's the end of that I know this is fear and everything but what a [ __ ] ending for a protagonist it's nice that they tied the game so closely to fear - but Beckett's betrayal here is just pathetic and massive waste of time for the final interval eight your motivation is slightly more personal you've been hunted by the scary-looking stranger things demon called a creep apparently this is an embodiment of your bad memories of Harlan Wade you're regularly shown cut scenes narrated by Paxton of the pair of yours children you both seem how people Harlan was always there to pit you against one another he watched you play and unbalanced it to create conflict he beat you and upon realizing Paxton was stronger than Point Man he was ready to completely reject him these are pre heartbreaking stories of sibling innocence being twisted and childhood innocence being taken away poisoned by the evils of someone inspired only by power they were to be gods among men and pack stand directly blames Harlan for making him a killer you frequently get transported to this wood where you walk a bit in Harlan says stuff the creep shows up regularly throughout the game but it's only any good early on interval fires and pretty special stuff in a house where the game is reluctant to show you the creep and sells most of the horror through the cultists so you're never quite sure which is going to pop out for the rest of the game it just randomly pops up a couple of times and you shoot it to make it go away now it grabs you and looks at you funny an interval eight you head to the ridiculous cliche haunted house at which you were raised as brothers to destroy memories of Harlan you're haunted by the creep in the house but it's incredibly formulaic watching the memories is a lot more interesting Paxton being forced to kill pointman being forced to become a fighter once you've destroyed all three memories you take on the creep once and for all this is also the final boss of Fear 3 and therefore the most recent fair combat arena to date if we discount online which we are very much going to do that makes it the last ever it's a shame then that this is one of the worst boss fights I've ever played in my life here's the mechanics shoot the creep when a telegram samu run to the other end of the arena rinse repeat it has three moves smash the ground with one hand smash the ground with two hands and breathe fire which just requires moving out of the way like the other two attacks each time you do sufficient damage he goes away and some guys spawn who you shoot next time he pops up he's got a bit of his face missing this lasts for about 10 minutes on solo he's got a glowing spot in his throw which acts as a weak point but you can kill it by shooting it anywhere on the head only the final blow needs to be to the weak point it's quite possibly the least spectacular and most boring finales of a franchise I've ever seen this spice is a [ __ ] tragedy and with Harlan dead the brothers find ol noir at last there are two endings to peer free what happens depends on who did the best during the game the ratings make no sense and they're all so pointless if he didn't play co-op which is most people because he'll only have accumulated points for one character if he played point man he wins and everyone plays point man the first time through essentially Paxton says to gain unlimited power they just need to consume the body point man just wants to shoot it which sparks a fight if point man wins he shoots Paxton even though he's a ghost Alma doesn't feel so good but then for some reason he takes the baby with him if Paxton wins he possessed his point man takes the baby and then eats Alma so the only thing that actually changes is who raises the kid let's just get this straight Paxton states in his ending that the point man was shaped to serve his needs this means convincing him that Oliver is alright and she was on their side all along but then at the end Paxton means to father the child and he kills Alma anyway so why exactly didn't he just say that instead of fighting point man because he wanted to kill the baby and Alma why didn't he just simply suggest they raise the baby that's what point man does as well at no point does Paxton imply he doesn't want point man around a no point the Paxton and point man's motivations all like there've ever actually conflict in fact the only time they might have disagreed is what to do with Alma Paxton just wants to eat her but in point man's ending she just dies for no reason in both endings Alma dies and in both endings they raised the child so Paxson's masterplan is a complete waste of time and had he actually come clean none of them would have had to die did anyone read the script and I've yet to talk about Alma's betrayal so she's the big bad affair right yet in this ending Elmer is completely defenseless despite having the psychic power to turn the city into hell she's completely numb against one tough guy and one ghost yeah they're her son so maybe she doesn't want to fight but when Paxton decides to eat her and she doesn't defend herself I have to wonder pointman didn't even try to kill her she just turned to dust why maybe because they wanted to wrap up her character for impact or for a planned fourth installment or maybe it's just bad writing we'll never know Alma has always been a character of her own well and having a baby is no exception the entire second game was setting this our Alma being hugely weakened by giving birth makes sense and our motivations for having a baby also perfectly solid so maybe she just didn't realize what would happened to us and she's never given birth in our current power level before it's a tragic ending because I do believe she wanted another child is the one member of her family that hasn't betrayed her hasn't tried to kill her multiple times you have to remember that this is more than likely at the alternate timeline where Paxton in the first game was initially plotting to eat Alma so that's him included she's lived a completely loveless life and that doesn't justify her raping Becket or motor and countless innocents or just being a demon witch in general but there is a level of real tragedy to the ending the game doesn't seem to realize or sell at all perhaps her turning to dust in point man's ending was because she was happy enough to have him raise the child instead of Paxton she clearly no she's brown bread no matter what and I do think that Alma needs to die maybe this game was the best one to do it because she's passing on the mantle to our child but Franz would want to see a hell of a lot more from an Alma death scene and I doubt that any writer was genuinely happy with this it's such a whimper of an ending for characters for story for gameplay there's no horror unless you can't Pakistan easing Alma which is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in gaming every paler affair is not down like dominoes to their lowest levels we've seen so far it's depressing this is usually where I talk about the horror but we've already done that I've gone through every horror element worth noting the cultists in interval for the environment in interval three and the creep that's it the creep is just a Tesco value replica assassin Percy is [ __ ] Monday and a better horror than this funnily the game actually advertised degenerative horror system but in reality this just means slightly altered Creek placements which does absolutely nothing for the game creep is annoying not scary I don't want a half-assed jumpscares from fair I want lighting the sound design and AI to come together so the elements of horror and action are actually blended not just glued on to one another fear to an extraction point did this regularly fear 3 doesn't have a remarkable lighting system and he doesn't use it for horror once the sound design is nothing special and the AI is never used to its potential the cultists and Diamond Dogs just rush you it's a pathetic offering and there's nothing more to say on it this game failed miserably at two of the three core aspects of fear but at least the combat system was put to good use within the campaign and without fear three is the first game in the series that didn't have deathmatch but it's also the first game that did have an excellently fleshed out multiplayer component two modes are co-op to a competitive contractions is probably the most familiar four players are set into an arena and you have to defend the fort against waves of enemies you can repair broken barricades like Call of Duty zombies but instead of spending points on new weapons you have to go out into the thick of it and bring back supply crates which is probably quite fun when your friends are covering you Alma can also show up and the first person to piss her off gets bamboozled which is a fun addition but it's a simple and appropriate for player co-op mode sole survivor is wave survival but in a much more sprawling arena almost reminiscent of fair one you have to make it to the exit after five minutes of fighting to progress onto the next wave where the enemies get harder at the start one of the four players will become the spectre they have to possess AI soldiers and take down the fair team if the spectre revives a fair team member they become a Spectre - it's called sole survivor because it's unlikely they'll be many of you left by the end Soul King on the other hand is a competitive mode all four players are specters and you possess AI soldiers trying to kill other AI soldiers to RUP their souls the person with the most Souls is soul king you can also kill other players and their possess bodies to make them lose half their souls oh my well occasionally spawn and if you irritate her she spawns in a powerful demon donk this is probably the most creative mode and it can only work in a game like this the final mode is called [ __ ] run basically being chased by a big wall of death and if you get touched is game over for everyone you also have to fight through numbers of enemies while doing so if someone goes down you've got to pick them up and you're all screwed so it's a deeply cooperative game mode some drunks have short cuts and others have power arm there's a lot to it it makes perfect sense for a game called fear and once again it's creative and enjoyable concept but as good as these amazing multiplayer modes are you're not going to be able to enjoy them to their fullest anymore not without three other friends were also mental enough to play fair free with you as you might expect matchmaking is barren you can't find a game for any mode at any time but this game did more than I expect to at least keep the experience on life support it actually has a solo practice mode for all maps and modes this is a great way of preventing a game from ever truly dying no mode can be experienced to its fullest and fair three anymore but I have to congratulate it on creating four excellent multiplayer modes that couldn't affect the game any better it has been argued that the reason for three was considered such a letdown is because its story was garbage and its horror was on lunch break these are two of the three pillars of a fair game but every person is going to value those three differently I personally valued combat above all else which is why fare 3 had me relatively impressed on first inspection I also think there since fare to a prioritize story and I perfected the horror when it felt like using it the next game in this areas was expected to be more like that so when ferry released the shift was jarring fear free had a one late to stand on combat gameplay its multiplayer could deliver fresh and enjoyable experiences its single-player was kept just about sufficiently entertaining by combat there was at least better than fair - and providing two combat experiences for the price of one the graphics were alright it's not all bad and because it's at least competent in one respect I can recommend it to some people who unquestioningly like gameplay above all in fear people who don't care about the franchise and just want a relatively fun fps but this is no fear of mine fear like crisis almost appropriately ends on a sour note I'm already getting tired of having to say that and with its poor sales the series was damned they will probably never be another fair game and there will never be another fair video from me eight months later the series is now over and it really does feel special my channel has grown exponentially since the first fare video they did the same for me the crisis did and for that I couldn't be more thankful to both the games and the viewers and to honor the end of the series I'm going to do what I did at the end of the first video because there's some other creators in the community that absolutely deserve your time core ideas is a video essayist focusing on all aspects of media but mainly games kotor halo reach mass effect half-life his videos are consistently well presented and insightful he's also one of the nicest people I've met doing YouTube to sneak her off for the vast majority of time my channel has been around was significantly bigger than me but now I get a good opportunity to show him out his critique style playing series is extremely unique and shockingly insightful how he can make a two-hour video filled with excellent criticism and no waffle on watchdogs to is beyond me Elle Hudson makes video essay similar to mine he's kind of like a northern Noah Gervaise but without the campervan aesthetic he's actually got a one hour long haul of juicy zombies for our respective who on earth has time for that we do and finally your leonardo de city this is a man who has 15,000 more subscribers than me so probably doesn't need this but I believe his videos are deserving all the same Syd has made a few of the best video essays I've ever seen on YouTube his hell-blade and psychosis video is pretty much the best video I've ever watched on the platform essays don't usually give a motion beyond distaste and satisfaction but this made me feel something much more than that his thumbnails are low and a borderline apotheosis please go subscribe to these guys if any of that interests you and squid the seared aporia and red bowl new gaming is still among my recommendations thank you all for watching any one of the six videos in the series and if you're new please do subscribe for more content because this channel is just beginning I have a patreon the Twitter discord and a recently opened PayPal all for anyone who would like to interact or donate thanks again now go play some fear [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Whitelight

Views: 170,111

Rating: 4.9274993 out of 5

Keywords: f.e.a.r 3, f.e.a.r, f.e.a.r 2, f.e.a.r perseus mandate, f.e.a.r extraction point, f.e.a.r ai, f.e.a.r alma, f.e.a.r online, alma wade, f.e.a.r 3 co op, pointman, fear game, f.e.a.r. 3, paxton fettel, fear, fear 2, fear 3, fear review, fear game review, fear ai, fear gameplay, fear horror, f.e.a.r trailer, action game, co op game, f.e.a.r 3 gameplay

Id: wx-jSqb8wuM

Length: 32min 54sec (1974 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/szthesquid]

This was a fun arcade-horror shooter, especially in co-op with an actually really different gameplay style as the ghost, and some great multiplayer modes.

However it was a shit F.E.A.R. game and I wish they'd continue the series in name and original concept - military first response team for paranormal threats.

[u/FillionMyMind]

Man, this game.

On one hand, it was nothing like the other games, the campaign wasn’t scary at all, the story wasn’t great, and changing the game so dramatically for the last entry in the trilogy was probably a bad idea.

On the other, the game was an absolute blast in co-op, it’s incredibly replayable, MP actually managed to be decently scary for an online game, it had a sweet variety of modes to play, and it was awesome that you could do everything in the game in same screen co-op or MP. It’s easy to be disappointed if you wanted the style of the older games, and I think that’s a fair criticism of it, but this was one of my most played games on the 360, and my group spent countless nights facing off in Soul King and working together in Contractions and Fucking Run. It’s a sadly overlooked game, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anybody who wants to play something that goes against the grain of so many other shooters.

[u/69Milfs]

I've never seen a series fall off so hard, it was like The Matrix or something. The first F.E.A.R is a classic: but the sequels? Haha! The art design declined, they stopped focusing on paying extreme attention to individual encounters to make them unique, the atmosphere became more generic, etc. What a disappointment. I seriously hope we get a FEAR remastered.

[u/GorillaGravy]

The Fucking Run co-op mode was the best part of the game.

Shocked no other game has really tried to copy it.

[u/ZeroThePenguin]

I hate this game so much. I was QA for it so I have played it more than probably anyone and fuckin' hell do I hate it so very much. I was excited to work on it but the new devs just fucked up everything good about the series. For fuck sake they can't even be internally consistent. Fettel is invisible in all cutscenes and bullets pass through him yet as soon as you play him in co-op he can be seen, shot, melee'd, downed (for a fuckin' ghost). Such insanely stupid choices resulting in a total lack of in-game consistency.

[u/A_of]

I played the first one and it was amazing.
Never played the sequels because all comments I heard where meh.
I even got them in a package somewhere, sometime in Steam but still haven't tried them.

[u/PaulAllens_Card]

7 Years later its complete shit like it was when it was released. F.E.A.R still stands today compared to the dumb downed sequels.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/han_fisto]

Am I crazy or are the graphics and artstyle of Fear 3 way worse than Fear 2?