F.E.A.R. Series

Feb 14, 2020
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I recently finished playing the entire F.E.A.R. series from start to finish, and thought I'd start a conversation here about it. Here's my brief rundown of the games:

F.E.A.R. - Still a 10 out of 10 classic. The combat is so visceral and well done, the enemy AI is still impressive in 2020 and the slo-mo is good fun without feeling like an easy button or constantly necessary. It also has one of the best shotguns of all time, loud, powerful and fun to use.

F.E.A.R. Extraction Point - A more of the same expansion, without much added. The subway level is neat and different, but most of the rest looks the same as the original. New laser gun is neat, but barely found. The story goes off the rails and makes no sense, with an enemy back alive out of nowhere and reused voice samples. Still, the combat shines like the first.

F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate - Reviews were worse, but I liked this one a lot more than EP. It has a better story closer in quality to the original, a cool new rifle and lightning gun, ruthless new mercenary soldier enemies and perhaps most importantly neat new environments that tend to be larger and look different. Engine doesn't handle these large areas well, causing a lack of detail and framedrops even on new hardware, but I appreciated the effort.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin - Surprisingly solid, given its reputation. All its problems are rooted in being designed for the Xbox 360, with a huge HUD, slower enemies who stay at range more, and slo-mo that lasts forever and seems designed more around (especially on hard, where enemy damage is insane, forcing you to avoid it as much as possible). Get past that though (and modify the FOV in the .ini file) and it's relatively good. Especially compared to other 360 port shooters of that time. Also, shout out to the rather colorful graphics and environments, a standout from so many brown and boring messes of the time.

F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn - Barely worth mentioning, as it's not an expansion but basically one added level. The story also doesn't seem to count for F.E.A.R. 3, and is rather pointless. It does have a neat section near the start where what you think is the setup completely changes after a horror sequence.

F.E.A.R. 3 - I want to bash this one a lot, but since it's a co-op game and I only play singleplayer, I can't speak to how good/bad it is in co-op. I will say in singleplayer it's pretty terrible. The action is suddenly very Call of Duty, where you pop in and out of cover shooting ranged enemies. Later levels have you fighting endless zombie dudes and dogs running straight at you, the only time slo-mo seemed useful, and lots of super soldiers who take forever to kill. Even on normal difficulty it seemed balanced for co-op, causing some frustration. The story seems perfunctory most of the time, jumping from one area to another without much connection (for example you finish a bridge level outside the city, fall off into the water, then the next level starts you on an airport runway). I didn't enjoy this one much at all.

All in all, I love the first game, liked the expansion packs, thought F.E.A.R. 2 was surprisingly okay and F.E.A.R. 3 was terrible. What are your thoughts on the F.E.A.R. series? When was the list time you played one? Any plans for a replay?
 
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I've replayed the first F.E.A.R. 3 or 4 times since 2005 release. Absolutely love that game, and both of its expansions. The atmosphere, soundtrack, voice acting, level design, all top notch. Graphics still hold up. The slo-mo is a lot of fun.

The game really takes off once you reach the Armacham Technology Corporate headquarters in downtown Fairport, can't say I've ever had that much fun in an office tower before, lol. Make sure you follow the bags of Cheezee Pooz , they lead you straight to the fat man.

Monolith knows how to create some pretty good atmosphere, Aliens vs Predator 2 (2001) and No One Lives Forever are other gems, though looking a little dated today.
 
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Being a Max Payne fan it was totally badass playing around with the bullet time in the first game. The combinations of excellent combat, destructible objects (at least some from what I can remember) cramp corridors and a VERY scary antagonist were quite satisfying. I might try it again in the future. As for the rest in the series, I have never tried those.
 
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F.E.A.R will be the only game from that franchise that officially exists. The others did have some supporting materials to make sense of what was happening but then the gameplay, combat and AI were worse as you progressed the order. Like I said, the first is the only one that existed and I do not want to remember the latter installments.
 
I just replayed the first game last week. It still got the shooting chops and Alma is still a good scare, but man that level design was terrible in some places. I did not care for for Extraction Point but Perseus Mandate was pretty good.

I really liked F.E.A.R. 2. I plan on playing it again here soon. I don't remember much on the story, but I remember it had some really cool set pieces and some great Alma sightings and that ending I thought was great.

F.E.A.R. 3 is mostly garbage. It had some great Alma scares, but they were mostly randomized so you could easily miss some. The fact that they added challenges to each level with score and all that really killed the immersion. I really don't know what they were going for. I guess to have some sort of measuring stick for coop? Anyway, I never played coop in it so I don't know if it was better. Still, it had a couple of neat areas and a couple of fun story beats but otherwise unremarkable.
 
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Feb 14, 2020
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F.E.A.R will be the only game from that franchise that officially exists. The others did have some supporting materials to make sense of what was happening but then the gameplay, combat and AI were worse as you progressed the order. Like I said, the first is the only one that existed and I do not want to remember the latter installments.

I remembered FEAR 2 being pretty bad as well, but replaying it recently I was surprised how decent it was. Like I said in the original post, it has a lot of 360 focused design decisions that weigh it down, but you get used to them over time and it plays a lot better than most other shooters from that era. It depends on how much you're into FPS games I guess, if you only want to play the best then FEAR 2 is too flawed, but it's far, far away from being the worst in the genre during its time.

FEAR 3 though... I kept fighting the urge to stop playing that one. It's as bad as people say.
 
I finished the game just to get closure of the story but the sad thing was it was in development hell after the first version. The recipe that made the first game such an amazing title weren't used and they got the alchemy wrong in pretty much every way.

True they wanted to get a pseudo Resident Evil approach with the story being told through different characters all converging to one point on the same map, albeit at different times.

Also, is it just me or does the other thread also seem like a tangent of this one? :) Relax I'm not going to merge them or cull the other. It just feels weird seeing nearly the same thing said on both threads.
 
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Also, is it just me or does the other thread also seem like a tangent of this one? Relax I'm not going to merge them or cull the other. It just feels weird seeing nearly the same thing said on both threads.

I looked through all the shooter topics and didn't see one on F.E.A.R. If there was one and I missed it then I apologize, feel free to merge them!
 
Jan 13, 2020
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The original is a masterpiece of a video game and one of the creepiest I've ever played. Not Silent Hill creepy but still pretty creepy.

I actually like to play that game with the cheats on. I give myself all weapons and unlimited ammo and it's a blast. I know, I know I'm a chump for cheating but those rare guns like the nail gun and that electric gun that vaporizes people is just so much fun to use but the ammo is so scarce that you rarely get a chance to use it.

As for the other games, I like 3 well enough. I played it all the way thru and even did a replay on it a few years later. I never cared much for 2 or the expansion packs tho. I tried Project Origin but never finished it.
 
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The original is a masterpiece of a video game and one of the creepiest I've ever played. Not Silent Hill creepy but still pretty creepy.

I actually like to play that game with the cheats on. I give myself all weapons and unlimited ammo and it's a blast. I know, I know I'm a chump for cheating but those rare guns like the nail gun and that electric gun that vaporizes people is just so much fun to use but the ammo is so scarce that you rarely get a chance to use it.

I like that it's usually creepy, but rarely revels in being horror, if that makes sense. I think creepy is better than constant jump scares and super gore.

And yeah, the lack of ammo for the cooler guns is one of the game's few problems in my opinion. Later on you start getting more ammo for the plasma gun, but it takes forever to get there and a lot of the others still go without. The expansions add a cool laser gun and lightning gun, but ammo for those is also rare. It's better when you're given more time with the cool stuff.
 
I remembered FEAR 2 being pretty bad as well, but replaying it recently I was surprised how decent it was. Like I said in the original post, it has a lot of 360 focused design decisions that weigh it down, but you get used to them over time and it plays a lot better than most other shooters from that era. It depends on how much you're into FPS games I guess, if you only want to play the best then FEAR 2 is too flawed, but it's far, far away from being the worst in the genre during its time.

FEAR 3 though... I kept fighting the urge to stop playing that one. It's as bad as people say.

That's interesting because I too remember FEAR 2 Project Origin being mediocre when I first played and finished it at release, but then I replayed it a few years ago and it was actually quite a good game. I'm actually ready go through it a third time very soon, but I will definitely start with another replay of the first.

So weird how my opinion had changed on it over time, I almost wonder if that Mandela Effect plays into here. Either that or one of the Monolith devs went back in time and made Project Origin a pretty darn good game.
 
Jan 16, 2020
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I've been reading a lot about F.E.A.R. lately and decided to give it another go as it's my favorite horror game. So I re-installed it and it would get past the title screen and then...nothing. How are you guys getting this to work? My main rig is a few years old, but certainly no slouch. It has an i75930K CPU, and a GTX1080. I tried installing it on my newer rig with a Ryzen 2700 something CPU and an RTX2080. The best I got was a very slow slide show. I'm sure some of you have better PCs than mine so what are you doing that makes it work for you? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I've been reading a lot about F.E.A.R. lately and decided to give it another go as it's my favorite horror game. So I re-installed it and it would get past the title screen and then...nothing. How are you guys getting this to work? My main rig is a few years old, but certainly no slouch. It has an i75930K CPU, and a GTX1080. I tried installing it on my newer rig with a Ryzen 2700 something CPU and an RTX2080. The best I got was a very slow slide show. I'm sure some of you have better PCs than mine so what are you doing that makes it work for you? Any suggestions would be appreciated.


Drop that into the game's main directory and you should be good to go.
 
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I agree fully agree with your opinions on the series StingingVelvet.
The original F.E.A.R. has a special place in my heart as it was one of my most anticipated games in a long time and I kept rewatching the long gameplay video that was released way ahead of release.

I had the luck of having a system that ran the final game well and I was not disappointed.
 
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Drop that into the game's main directory and you should be good to go.
Thanks for this! I have been playing throu Extraction Point recently and had some framerate issues. I thought I just had the settings too high for my rig, but now I'll try this. I should have known to check PC gaming wiki!

On the game, F.E.A.R. holds up, graphics and gameplay, without any nostalgia needed ( I don't have any as I didn't play it til recently). I can't imagine how mind blowing it must have been in 2005!
 
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