F. E. A. R
I know I've been talking about this game alot, well that's because I've been waiting for it for over a year. Possibly gonna be the best shooter released this year, it's certainly stirring up great reviews and if you've watched the 320MB gameplay movie off Gamespot and read the PC Gamer and Gamespot reviews (92% & 91% respectively), you'd no doubt agree.
In a nutshell, it's basically a very nicely done horror first-person shooter experience.
Here are some highlights of the GS review:
"When you get down to it, the gun is the heart and soul of a first-person shooter. Even the genre's name alludes to this fact. Yet while shooters have been around for more than a decade, very few of them have actually captured the visceral experience of firing a gun. It's an intense and violent act, not to mention loud. Enter F.E.A.R., the highly anticipated action game from Vivendi Universal Games and developer Monolith. F.E.A.R. is a shooter that captures the sensation of being in wild and desperate firefights like no other game before it, and it's an incredible, kinetic, almost exhausting experience from start to finish. More than that, though, is the fact that it's also one of the most atmospheric and creepy games ever made, as well as one of the most intense shooters that you'll play this year."
"F.E.A.R. works because it elevates first-person shooter combat to cinematic levels. And while we've certainly seen games with movie-quality combat before, you've never seen anything quite like this."
"Playing F.E.A.R. is like battling through a John Woo movie like Face/Off, because when firefights happen in this game, they're downright glorious to behold. Bullets tear chunks out of concrete and wood; blinding clouds of dust and debris fill the air; bodies are torn apart or slump on the ground; and the deathly silence of the aftermath contrasts so sharply with the sheer chaos that erupted only moments before. Gunfights in F.E.A.R. just feel right."
"Part of the reason why it feels so right is because the weapons that you have in the game feel powerful, like weapons should."
"Put simply, these [the enemies] are the smartest, most aggressive, most tactically oriented AI opponents that we've ever encountered in a shooter, and they're downright impressive. The AI is incredibly sharp, and they'll do things that you don't expect, like pin you down while one of them flanks you. Or they'll pin you down and plop a grenade down next to you. These guys move around from cover to cover; they communicate with one another; they'll react to any sound or sight of you; and they'll also react if they see the beam of your flashlight approaching. They've got the same weapons that you do, and their guns do the same amount of damage to you as it does to them. So you've got to use cover and lean around corners as much as possible, because it doesn't take much to shred your armor and health to zero. This can create situations in which you're pinned down, firing desperately to keep their heads down while trying to figure a way out of your current situation. The AI can also take advantage of the game's physics system, and they can knock over objects to create cover."
"There are stretches in F.E.A.R. when you don't battle anything, and it's unsettling to search abandoned office buildings, finding nothing more than pools of blood or the voicemails left by family members trying to contact their loved ones. Then there are areas where you expect some kind of gargantuan throw-down and you brace yourself for battle, but nothing happens. You certainly feel like you're being watched the whole time, though, as there's always some kind of noise or rattling of objects to greet you, or the fleeting image of someone in the corner of your eye."
"This omnipresent tension combined with the outstanding combat make F.E.A.R. a superb game"
"Meanwhile, the audio in F.E.A.R. is outstanding, and the sounds go a long way to establishing the mood. In a game that's all about making you afraid of the dark, it's often the little noises that can send you spinning around, ready to blast whatever it is that created the sound. F.E.A.R. will mess with your sense of hearing a lot this way, particularly if you have any kind of surround sound system. Combat also sounds glorious, and you can hear almost every single noise in a firefight, from glass shattering apart, spent brass cartridges hitting the floor, and the thud of explosions. The voice acting is generally good, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to overhear the cloned soldiers discussing the latest happenings, or listening to a news report over the radio describing the escalating situation in the city. That's one of the cooler aspects of the game, in fact, because there's a palpable sense that events are spiraling out of control."
"F.E.A.R. is quite easily one of the most intense and atmospheric games that you'll play, and it's a spectacular blend of horror and action. You can't help but get the feeling that this is a game that's the spiritual successor to the original Half-Life, because it's so obviously inspired by that classic game. Indeed, some of the locations and enemies are highly reminiscent of those in Half-Life. This is a game that will thrill you one moment and scare you the next. F.E.A.R. features some of the greatest gunplay available in a first-person shooter, and it elevates the art of firing a gun to whole new levels. This alone makes it an incredibly intense game that must be experienced. The fact that it's also one of the creepiest games ever made is just icing on the cake."
I know I've been talking about this game alot, well that's because I've been waiting for it for over a year. Possibly gonna be the best shooter released this year, it's certainly stirring up great reviews and if you've watched the 320MB gameplay movie off Gamespot and read the PC Gamer and Gamespot reviews (92% & 91% respectively), you'd no doubt agree.
In a nutshell, it's basically a very nicely done horror first-person shooter experience.
Here are some highlights of the GS review:
"When you get down to it, the gun is the heart and soul of a first-person shooter. Even the genre's name alludes to this fact. Yet while shooters have been around for more than a decade, very few of them have actually captured the visceral experience of firing a gun. It's an intense and violent act, not to mention loud. Enter F.E.A.R., the highly anticipated action game from Vivendi Universal Games and developer Monolith. F.E.A.R. is a shooter that captures the sensation of being in wild and desperate firefights like no other game before it, and it's an incredible, kinetic, almost exhausting experience from start to finish. More than that, though, is the fact that it's also one of the most atmospheric and creepy games ever made, as well as one of the most intense shooters that you'll play this year."
"F.E.A.R. works because it elevates first-person shooter combat to cinematic levels. And while we've certainly seen games with movie-quality combat before, you've never seen anything quite like this."
"Playing F.E.A.R. is like battling through a John Woo movie like Face/Off, because when firefights happen in this game, they're downright glorious to behold. Bullets tear chunks out of concrete and wood; blinding clouds of dust and debris fill the air; bodies are torn apart or slump on the ground; and the deathly silence of the aftermath contrasts so sharply with the sheer chaos that erupted only moments before. Gunfights in F.E.A.R. just feel right."
"Part of the reason why it feels so right is because the weapons that you have in the game feel powerful, like weapons should."
"Put simply, these [the enemies] are the smartest, most aggressive, most tactically oriented AI opponents that we've ever encountered in a shooter, and they're downright impressive. The AI is incredibly sharp, and they'll do things that you don't expect, like pin you down while one of them flanks you. Or they'll pin you down and plop a grenade down next to you. These guys move around from cover to cover; they communicate with one another; they'll react to any sound or sight of you; and they'll also react if they see the beam of your flashlight approaching. They've got the same weapons that you do, and their guns do the same amount of damage to you as it does to them. So you've got to use cover and lean around corners as much as possible, because it doesn't take much to shred your armor and health to zero. This can create situations in which you're pinned down, firing desperately to keep their heads down while trying to figure a way out of your current situation. The AI can also take advantage of the game's physics system, and they can knock over objects to create cover."
"There are stretches in F.E.A.R. when you don't battle anything, and it's unsettling to search abandoned office buildings, finding nothing more than pools of blood or the voicemails left by family members trying to contact their loved ones. Then there are areas where you expect some kind of gargantuan throw-down and you brace yourself for battle, but nothing happens. You certainly feel like you're being watched the whole time, though, as there's always some kind of noise or rattling of objects to greet you, or the fleeting image of someone in the corner of your eye."
"This omnipresent tension combined with the outstanding combat make F.E.A.R. a superb game"
"Meanwhile, the audio in F.E.A.R. is outstanding, and the sounds go a long way to establishing the mood. In a game that's all about making you afraid of the dark, it's often the little noises that can send you spinning around, ready to blast whatever it is that created the sound. F.E.A.R. will mess with your sense of hearing a lot this way, particularly if you have any kind of surround sound system. Combat also sounds glorious, and you can hear almost every single noise in a firefight, from glass shattering apart, spent brass cartridges hitting the floor, and the thud of explosions. The voice acting is generally good, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to overhear the cloned soldiers discussing the latest happenings, or listening to a news report over the radio describing the escalating situation in the city. That's one of the cooler aspects of the game, in fact, because there's a palpable sense that events are spiraling out of control."
"F.E.A.R. is quite easily one of the most intense and atmospheric games that you'll play, and it's a spectacular blend of horror and action. You can't help but get the feeling that this is a game that's the spiritual successor to the original Half-Life, because it's so obviously inspired by that classic game. Indeed, some of the locations and enemies are highly reminiscent of those in Half-Life. This is a game that will thrill you one moment and scare you the next. F.E.A.R. features some of the greatest gunplay available in a first-person shooter, and it elevates the art of firing a gun to whole new levels. This alone makes it an incredibly intense game that must be experienced. The fact that it's also one of the creepiest games ever made is just icing on the cake."
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