F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin Comments by Kieron Gillen

@spudsbuckley

Que? GTA IV? Left 4 Dead?

@derFeef:
I do have my own opinion, but I also had my share of bad experiences when buying a full game after playing the demo. And with FEAR2 my biggest fear was (is) that the parts I couldn't stand about the first one - endless corridors after corridors - would be back with a vengeance. The demo was different, but I can't tell if after this level there wouldn't be 20 or more hours of the same corridor ;-)

So I guess I wait for some more reviews to roll in before buying.

given how everyone seems to have preconceived ideas about how EG and indeed KG respond to games like this, isn't the review therefore a success? if he finds it all well-trodden and generic FPS fare, yet you lap that stuff up, then clearly this is game is for you. job done.

i miss the early days of OPSM when the score really did reflect the text, like in this one.

I fully expected Lou to hate the demo with a passion regardless of the franchise's history, because as you said it's a console game, not a PC game ported to a console.

Says more about your attitude to games than mine. Hint: Mass Effect and Fallout 3 were two of my favourite games last year.

That the FEAR2 demo is a bit shit has nothing to do with it being a multiplatform game, and a lot with it being too easy and not really showing the level design and AI goodness the first had. For all I care, it could be a PSP port if it had that.

edit: That said, the demo of the original FEAR wasn't great, either, but the reviews (not just this here, also a couple of printmag reviews I've read) don't exactly fill me with confidence.

"O_o


Replace Halo 3 with Killzone 2=(y) "

Errr, no, not if the demo is anything to go by.

It's amazing how the reviewer punches the game for not having flying kicks because he was too lazy to find them. Can the game punch him back?

Reading through this thread, it's good to know that the halo haters are still so bitter about how awesome H3 is. Very entertaining. :D

@the_mtfr

"It's amazing how the reviewer punches the game for not having flying kicks because he was too lazy to find them. Can the game punch him back?"

I suggest EG invite the game to write a review of the reviewer, and be forced to publish the 5/10 or below he gets rated at.

@JayKwon

That's certainly true. I'm currently playing Resistance 2 and it is one of the most uninspired shooters ever. If the difference (between a 5 and a 9) is to be found in multiplayer then there is really no excuse for this:

'Multiplayer exists, featuring four modes and six maps, but I wasn't able to find any games pre-release to play, and there are no bots to just get a sense of the levels. Eurogamer will look at this area again following release if it proves to offer anything more than other shooters'

So you didn't even bother to wait so you could try one game's possible saving grace before slapping it a 5?

I think Kieron makes some very valid points about the terrible lack of fresh content in FEAR 2, but it's also apparent that he wasn't ready to appreciate a very well made and potentially enjoyable fps. He could have done this to a number of recent games including but not limited to Resistance 2, Gears of War 2 and Killzone 2. And he probably would have. Was it fate that Kieron got assigned this game instead of the guy who gave the first FEAR a 9?

Eurogamer needs very badly to start providing different points of view in each review, each with its own score ala Famitsu to have some consistency. Because yes, it's only a number, and it's subjective and all that, but we obviously care about it as this thread alone shows. Having four different opinions for each major release would be way better than this 'Euro lottery'.

FEAR was upgraded to a "blockbuster action game" ? Damn, I missed that episode...

This'll sound wanky but I'm good at that. This feels like a watershed review. A big budget, well marketed game that is definitely not bad but is conservative all the same is given a 5/10 review that reflects a certain subjectivity on the part of the author when a more conservative 7 or 8/10 would be the norm for almost any video game journalist. This is a fantastic thing. Diversity of opinion is sorely lacking in video game journalism, compared to say film, where movie's like doubt can we given 1 star by peter bradshaw and 4/4 (out of four! imagine!) by Roger Ebert.

That's not to say any of these people are right, but jesus, isn't it more interesting, broadly speaking and in terms of this medium, reading a review that goes a bit against the grain and shows a bit of dissent to broadly accepted convention than playing another by the numbers first person shooter or reading another by the numbers review of a by the numbers first person shooter?

I'm not trying to brown nose Gillen, I'm sure he's a wanker in some capacity, but semantic arguing over scoring, like a score means something, is more irritating than ever but I hope that more people will grow out of it. If you think 5/10 is harsh for some inexplicable reason pertaining to someone relating their subjective opinion to an arbitrary numeric scale, think about it like this for a moment: If FEAR 2 was a movie in a sea of similar movies, no matter how excellent its technical values, would any reviewer who thought about it the same way as Gillen did about this (different media I know but try and transpose the two to humour me) hesitate for a second in giving it a 2.5/5

In terms of the actual content of the review, well I related to this most of all:

"But for anyone who's been running down corridors with shotguns for most of their adult life, this is so uninspired that you worry for the spark of Monolith's soul. You guys made No One Lives Forever, remember? You're smart. You're better than this."

Amen, it's been a little bit dispiriting to go from games as wonderful as nolf 1 and 2 and then seeing the utterly witless approach they've taken to these games. Not to say they're not compelling at some level or that they don't work, points which Gillen mentions, but they're just uninspired. Especially relative to those two minor classics. I was watching some clips from the two games the other day and while the humour is a bit dated and not especially ingenious, to have been experiencing it in a game at the time it was released was a breath of fresh air. The other humourous flourishes in the game outside of the cutscenes were fantastic as well. I desperately hope for a third No One Lives Forever game. Or if the current iteration of Monolith can't create that for legal/rights reasons, a game of that ilk.

FEAR was upgraded to a "blockbuster action game" ? Damn, I missed that episode...

That's not very astonishing, you seem to miss everything that's not spoon-fed to you as THE NEXT BIG THING by the hype machinery of platform holders.

" we live in a post- KILLZONE2 "
oh man... KZ2 is already "post" ? This is going way too fast...~

edit: anyway, I think the only shooter that stood the test of time is Halo. It still messes with a lot of heads.

Fuck all this shit, Monolith. I remember when you used to make interesting FPSes instead of recycled horror-junk bullshit.

Where *THE FUCK* is NOLF3 and Tron 3.0?

:(

I'm currently playing Resistance 2 and it is one of the most uninspired shooters ever.

So what would you give it? a 5? The internets would condemn you more than they have the author of this review. Likewise with those that call Halo or Killzone shit but complain about this review.

Surely if you think either of those games are "shit" they would get a score less than 5 if you reviewed it, so why complain about this review just because it gets an average score?

edit:@ gaselite, you are right, but the ironic thing is most of those complaining would agree with you. These are people who regularly give their opinions on how crappy they think games like Gears of War or LittleBigPlanet are, but then complain that's EG's review is 3 points away from the Metacritic score. It is senseless.

Stop fixating on the score number. According to the EG scoring scheme, a 5 means:

"Five is where you really start to fear (ho ho!) for a game's quality. It's the score that says "don't buy it unless you're the sort of person who has to have all the games in a particular genre". It's a game that had the potential to be good, but simply ended up saddled with a catalogue of issues that the majority of gamers will not put up with. It's still playable, but the chances are it's so generic and uninspired that you begin to question how it was released in the first place."

Kieron has played it through and finds it playable but generic and uninspired. So a EG 5 it is. That's the scoring scheme.

Is it me, or does this read like the review for KZ2?

Pretty game that does all that is asked for it, but is a corridor shooter through-and-through.

@TheComedian

"Is it me, or does this read like the review for KZ2?

Pretty game that does all that is asked for it, but is a corridor shooter through-and-through."

Yes, it does. It reads very similar indeed, which is why there is an uproar over the score. Not because of the score-vs-actual-quality, but becasue of the randomness of scores between similar games.

ANGRY NERDS ARE ANGRY

If you like a game like this go buy it, it's old school and allright. How the original got a 9 was a mystery to me, it was fun for 2-3 levels, that nailgun and the zapper was fun. Still i finished the game because I'm a cheap bastard, played in on hardest to make it last longer :P Slow-mo made it easy though, but of course I died lots of times.

Statements like that always amuse me. Is there a really a site or mag where you agree with every review? If that's the case, that would be worrying in itself.

I sense a market opportunity:

http://www.thenonbiasedreviewer.com - where everybody knows your scoooore (mel:cheers)

gaming your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your game,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your game.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your Game.

@Snooz
:)

Slight problem - where are you going to find non-biased reviewers?

Anyone keeping count on how many times farticus has mentioned KZ2 in a discussion about FEAR up until now? I lost count at 9.

@tomnol

And if you had read, or comprehended what was written, you would understand WHY it's mentioned.

Got a handy but irrelevant count of any other words at hand?

hey, it's a bizniz opportunity not a bizniz plan! I'm getting there. I'm thinking people with autism..or making myself the dictator, problem solved.

I wasn't expecting this from Gillen - he gave Perseus Mandate somewhere in the seventies for PC Gamer, and that is a slice of unshaven ass pie. I don't know what to think any more

Get a life you losers. How can ye argue so much about what a stranger thinks of a game. It was a good review that made it quite clear that if you play FPS non stop then it's nothing special, but for everyone else out there its a competent game that should be tried before buying.

but.... but it really,really read like a 6/10... and should then get at least a 8 from EG? Shouldn't it?


Yeah, I'll shut up now, I think the score looks fair. and HolyJebus sums it up nice.

"That's certainly true. I'm currently playing Resistance 2 and it is one of the most uninspired shooters ever. If the difference (between a 5 and a 9) is to be found in multiplayer then there is really no excuse for this:

Have to agree with that. I traded it yesterday afer finding it a total dull fest. One of the most over-rated games of last year. How they can give it a 9 i'll never know. Maybe this reviewer would have seen it differently.

The review doesn't read like a 5 score game.

That's because Kieron actually uses 5 as an average rating, which according to most editorial policies is supposed to be average.

Many reviewers tend to use 7 as average. ¬_¬

Which is why waving around some EG score as a defining bottom line when trying to organise games into best -> worst order is a bit silly.

Is the review going to be edited to fix the inaccuracies or some sort of P.S. added?

I want to try R2 to see if its more entertaining than RFOM. Of all the FPS games on this current crop that I've played, only Bioshock and Killzone 2 have really stirred any "yes please" sensations.

And before anyone goes on, I've not touched Halo 3 but I'm sure I'd love it.

Is the flying kick thing going to make some sort of drastic game changing experience?

"I want to try R2 to see if its more entertaining than RFOM. Of all the FPS games on this current crop that I've played, only Bioshock and Killzone 2 have really stirred any "yes please" sensations.
"

from the small bit of KZ2 have played, it is leagues ahead of R2. How they can get the same score i'll never know. KZ2 probably is a 9.. r2. 6 maybe for me?

Is eurogamer trying to get more hits than Edge.Loosing faith in all game journalism.

@trebell:
Buddy, EG.pt gave R2 a 10 (ten!; yeah... like the one after nine!).

Well, I remember asking Dan what he preferred out of KZ2 and R2 when he was doing the KZ2 multiplayer hands on, I just guess he found two games that he like equally for different purposes.

@trebell
Why do people assume that differing opinions to their own are rooted in bias rather than simply having different tastes? The maturity of the games market is such that games are all about variety and there is something for everyone. Instead of seeing this as a good point people would rather bitch about how a particular review doesn't match their opinion and is obviously wrong/biased in some way. Blind to the fact that others might enjoy what they don't or hate what they do.

@DrDamn: actually that's my mistake. I got the wrong reviewer. There is only one here who has always seemed a bit platform biased to me, none of the others and that review wasn't him so i'm wrong on that. Still an overly high score for a painfully average game for my tastes.

"After this site gave Saints Row 2 9/10 I have given up trusting their opinions and/or 'expertise'."

I know, it should have got 10/10.

If review sites are going to make a stand against game design then they have to make that stance bold, loud and clear.

Picking on an FPS that isn’t regarded of 'that' highly to push their notion of perfect game design is pretty hypocritical when compared with their own statements on other big releases.

I certainly don’t want to see the Eurogamer of old where they lost there number stamps and were left with 8, 9 and 10’s

But if they are going to take a stance as a review site against these sorts of game mechanics it has to be genre wide and developer be damned.

I’d respect the 5/10 score far more if they were consistant.


and as for the arguement about reviewer opinions... that's rubbish. As a site Eurogamer should have a clear mission statement something that all it's reviewers should look for in each game they review. Be it ingenuity, gameplay or good olde fashioned 90's Graphics > all.

If they don't have this it's basically a hang out ground for reviewers and their 'opinions' Why should this be a draw for someone wishing to read a good review. If Eurogamer decides that it wants to take this high brow approach then it should be equally critical with every release. At least then people will know where to come if they want to read about genuine development within our games.

Having one review chew out a game for features that another game laud's is fine and their 'opinion' if they were seperate entities floating about the net, but brought under the same roof it becomes pretty unprofessional.

But then thats my opinion. 7/10 Nice site but lacks focus.

"If they don't have this it's basically a hang out ground for reviewers and their 'opinions'"

isn't that surely the only way you can do these things? games aren't like films - one guy can't be expected to review every game coming out in a week, like a film critic would do for films. so, with that said you have to expect a certain disparity when it comes to game critic a and game critic b's views on any given game.

i mean, imagine the conversation:
writer: "i give it 5/10 - pretty average"
editor: "ahh but i think most of our reviewers would like this game - please append "but i liked it quite a bit, actually" to the end for continuities sake"
writer: "... ok"

besides, whether or not you agree with a review is missing the point. a good critic (as i believe KG is) will articulate what they do/don't like in a game. if you read their review and think "I DISAGREE, SIR!!! I WOULD REALLY LIKE MORE TURRET SECTIONS" then that's absolutely fine - you will probably like that aspect - stick another point on the score and move on.

Why oh why does Eurogamer continue to give this man a platform for his 'New Games Journalism' twaddle?

I'm more confused about why Eurogamer gives a platform to the hordes of dribbling morons that come crawling out the woodwork whining about the score whenever a review doesn't match their expectations, even though they haven't played it. OHMIGOD THE REVIEWER SAID THIS GAME WAS A 7.2 AND I THINK IT IS 7.3 BLAH BLOO BLAH

Aside from the slight cock-up with the kicking thing, there's nothing wrong with the review. A competent FPS that does nothing new. Middle of the road game gets a middle of the road score.

Demo sucked horribly; way more linear/one-small-street-feeling than the original FEAR (and its both addons), meaningless cluttered-HUD, useless black bars on top and bottom, oversized text and just not a lot of inspiration as KG noted. The melee kicks were in though, just as the kick-door-open feature from the addons and turning a table up to create your own cover is cool as well but everything else felt too overdone (even the colours).

This went totally wrong if you ask me, and then they even scrapped bullet-time from the multiplayer. Get back on the good track soon, Monolith. :(

@ Gecks

Look at the UK gaming magazines. Edge's approach is more of a (and i hate saying this) High brow approach to the games industry it reviews all it's games with it's eye on ingenuity blah blah blah.

Other magazines care little for this aspect, or they believe that their readerbase doesnt (fair enough) so their reviews are based more on simple gameplay, fun (and jesus) graphics.

It is the job of the editor the site as a whole to direct the reviewer not in their opinion but in the scope in which they review the game. Nowbody expects to read serious current afffair issues in Marie Claire.

Imagine picking up Edge only to read how WWF got 10/10 because of how totally rad it is to do (Whatever move the kids are doing now-a-days)

A publications/website should be consistant.

As I said i'd have more respect for this arbitrary number 5/10 if the site were more consistant. You don't need the one reviewer for that.

@PearOfAnguish0

"Aside from the slight cock-up with the kicking thing, there's nothing wrong with the review. A competent FPS that does nothing new. Middle of the road game gets a middle of the road score."

But that's not what this thread is about, it's about one middle-of-the-road game scoring nearly twice as much as another middle-of-the-road game. The score isnt the issue, the inconsistency is.

Edit: Whoever suggested having a main review and then a mini-review by the other reviewers and a combined score is spot on. That will at least remove a great deal of opinion from the review and allow a little more objectivity.

Iora has it right.

Tom reviewed the original game. I would rather have had him post his thoughts, seeing as this is a sequel. Compared to FEAR how does Project Origin stack up.