Saturday, November 15, 2014

F.E.A.R.


Year: 2005
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Website: --


Shane:
  • Platform: PC
  • Hours logged: 13.0
  • Playthroughs: 1
  • Rating: 5/10


Notes and Discussions:
  • Shane (11/15/2014): I started playing this one months ago.  Well before I started back into school.  A lot of why I booted this game up was actually that, when I looked up playthrough times on the interblags, I saw reports that people finished it in 5 hours or so.  I thought, "Well, that will work just fine.  A quick playthrough on an old FPS and another blog entry soon to come!"  I started playing.

    Four hours of play time pass.  I am about half way into what I figure is the second level.  “Hmm...” I think to myself, “This is either a really short game, or I am really bad at this.”

    Or people on the internet are lying to me.

    I eventually played on and found more and more levels.  I found some new guns and met some new enemies. In short, the game refused to end. 

    There were some points to this game that I feel are noteworthy.  First, I don't really enjoy the action/horror genre.  It just isn't my thing.  When something pops up in front of me I expect to be able to shoot it or punch it or however the game would usually allow a player to process foes. In the horror style it is all too common to leave the player impotent, for no other reason than raising suspense.  I am a bit high strung these days anyway, so more stress isn't probably the best.  (There was an event in this game with a ladder that kind of rocked my world…as in it scared me enough that I either jumped, squealed or peed myself a little.  I was then paranoid about every other ladder I had to interact with in that way throughout the rest of the game.

    Having particles blow into the air when someone shoots a wall is cool.  Having a little sprite of a bullet hole or crater is a nice touch as well.  Letting the player look around corners instead of just strafe into oncoming fire is a cool thing that I used a lot.  As for the ability to slow down time…Max Payne did it better.  I probably just say that though, because I kept forgetting that I could do that.  Blah blah blah, good job on a cool game engine, blah blah blah.

    My next point is that I HATE when a game takes away my guns.  I was going to call this “pulling a Half-Life” but I didn't know if anyone else would remember the point in the original Half-Life, when at about 3/4 of the way through the game, they take all of your ammo.  I play most games with economy in mind.  I go out of my way to save bullets and grenades and pride myself on doing so.  I will even avoid using my fun guns, instead just use the boring things for which I have more rounds.  Imagine my vitriol when instead of being rewarded for this conservative play I am left naked and violated.  Interesting consideration for any game developers out there:  Before you steal the shit that I have spent the whole damn game collecting, would you please offer me a fun place to “blow my load”?  Or, crazy thought here, HOW ABOUT YOU DON’T STEAL MY SHIT YOU FLAMING FUCKWIT!?  Finishing a game with piles of ammo is one thing.  Having to work through the last 15 minutes of a game while pissed that you could be using the cool shit that you collected earlier just pisses me off.

    So yeah.  That is what I came away with after working this game.  The story was fine, the gameplay had some cool stuff that was new when they made it, the heroes were likable, and they fucked it up at the end.  Good job, folks.

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