F.E.A.R.

By Tom Bramwell Published 8 August, 2005

Supports arguments both for quick-loading and looking beyond Hollywood.

I've just died. Again. I knew about the first guy on the balcony, so I shot him through a window before descending to the ground floor and going outside. But I underestimated his partner.

He'd gone and hidden, see. I thought he was to the right of the door I was stepping out of, but he wasn't; he was up on the balcony crouched out of view, and as I stepped into the open he got his shot off. Fudging the keyboard with the base of my palm administered the last crucial health-pack and activated slow-motion mode and the down-the-barrel viewpoint, allowing me to respond quickly and accurately - the bullet leaving a tunnel of distorted and multi-coloured air in its wake like a streamer - but the damage was done. The thud of his crumpling body was the first crisp sound I heard as I disabled slow-mo and the dampened audio returned to normal. But it wasn't followed by an eerie silence; instead I heard the sound of a chopper.

Racing round to the stairway that led up to the balcony, reloading my railgun-esque super-zapper on the way, I knew the slow-mo had recharged sufficiently for me to fend off both the guys zipping down from the hawk-like shape hovering ahead, but then as I advanced the doors nearby crashed open and more troops swarmed into the open. Some leapt off the balcony and started firing from below, and even in slow motion their numbers were too great. I missed a vital rail-shot. The next rail connected and reduced my target to a cindered skeleton, but with no health-packs left and my slow-mo now drained, it was too much. The screen went red.

CUUUUUT!

With F.E.A.R., Monolith wanted to make an action movie in a first-person shooter. Those were the words they used when we grilled them about it earlier this year. In fact, it was virtually all they'd say. Going back, we wish we'd asked some different questions. Ah, going back.

'F.E.A.R.' Screenshot ambient

The way that ambient light changes dynamically within a scene really adds to the tension.

Quick-loading just inside the doorway, I was ready this time. Doors open. Out I moved, gingerly, my sights already firmly on the spot where I knew my adversary would emerge. VOOO-oomp. Slow-mo. There he was, and then there he wasn't, as I railed him before he'd even raised his gun barrel. Oooo-OWOP. Slow-mo off. 4. Frag grenade selected. Chasing round to the stairway, I knew the chopper was coming. I knew about the guys waiting to burst from the doors. So I hurled a frag grenade so that it landed just in front of them and sprinted hard to the point I knew would trigger their emergence. It did - and just in time.

VOOO-oomp. I was just in time to see the growing bubble of the grenade's explosion blowing a cluster of soldiers to pieces. Stooping, I aimed down the barrel and took the first chopper-man out before he'd even started his descent; a cloud of bloody mist billowing to mark the kill. The second man made it half of the way down, but dropped the rest as a charred frame. Oooooo-OWOP. Ears pricked for further trouble, I moved forward cautiously. THUD. Worry. THUD-THUD.

Oh. It was a dismembered leg, barged off the balcony by my stumbling feet.

Through the blown-apart doorway. F5. Saved. And that's a wrap.

'F.E.A.R.' Screenshot explosions

Explosions seem to suck in the scenery around them, really adding to the effect.

Right now you could reach for your anti-quick-save placards and start waving them, but we're not protesting. This isn't a debate about quick-save's role in the genre. To us, F.E.A.R.'s distinctiveness justifies quick-save's inclusion in a manner that you don't see in other first-person shooters. Bear with us.

Played on a suitable difficulty level, it's hard. Not tragically hard, but hard enough to kill you if you don't make efficient use of your slow-motion skill, and don't keep yourself alert to the health-number in the bottom left of the screen, which has to be topped up manually by administering health-packs with the Z key. Hard enough, in other words, to kill you if you don't direct the best scene possible.

Although you know the score when you re-emerge from the loading screen, the strength of F.E.A.R.'s visuals and its use of slow-motion to draw that spectacle out of its intensity mean that the scene you then act out - with a more informed performance, of course; unrealistically efficient as a result - can entertain you thoroughly. With enemies who manoeuvre into better positions, unafraid to knock things over en route; the three weapons you've kept ready to be called upon; the coupling of that spectacular slow-mo effect and the F.E.A.R. engine's many other visual excesses; and the tension-building need to marshal everything at your disposal effectively, it can give you what Monolith wanted to convey: that sense of being the hero in an action film. The drama, the intensity: the perfect outcome.

'F.E.A.R.' Screenshot inventive

Your enemies are quite adaptive. Your caption-writer's quite uninventive today, too.

Without slow-mo and with dumber enemies, the quick-save/quick-load argument would be easier to make the other way. It would be the normal debate. What the slow-motion key gives you is the chance to actually see everything play out. Wading through the intensity of an FPS fire-fight can be like driving past a hill-top church silhouetted against the sunset and failing to comprehend it; your concentration lies with your actions rather than on what you're observing. The guy in the passenger seat is arguably better off. F.E.A.R.'s use of slow motion gives you the chance to drive and stare all at once.

And then it makes you jump.

That's the other side of it, unapparent in Monolith's "core concept" of an action movie FPS. F.E.A.R. is a fine harmony of FPS elements, but narratively it's been heavily influenced by Japanese horror, and that's its other momentous trick. The tension overflows from every fire-fight, and as a result the average stroll down a hallway is an uncomfortable experience. Then you slow down for reasons you can't figure out, and your heads-up-display stutters as audio intrudes from an unknown origin; the sound of a little girl laughing. Then an unmistakable shape disappears around a wall. Move forward and there's nothing there, and nowhere she could have gone.

When you mount a ladder to descend, your field of vision sweeps round with your turning body. When you do this later, you see her again for a split-second. This technique of capturing you in a bubble of tension and then stabbing it with the unnatural is something worth appreciating. And over the course of one level F.E.A.R. demonstrates its potential to do this a lot.

'F.E.A.R.' Screenshot her

There she is, piercing yet another moment of tension with greater effect than a bullet. Women are sometimes like that.

Of course, it demonstrates a lot of potential. One of the chief complaints about it is going to be the way it makes your new PC seem slightly creaky already, but if you can give it what it needs then the visuals are very strong. The audio is considered. The action is unmistakable. Thanks to a Gordon Freeman-esque "faceless, nameless" lead character, it's very involving - and this is used to horrify and engage. Only a few tweaks are needed for it to feel as good as its blueprint suggests it should do. The physics, for example. They can actually contribute to the tension; a dead body only slumping loudly to the floor a few seconds after the dust has settled and silence has rained in. But they can also cause undue panic and confusion by letting you snag your boot on a body, leading to an implausible thud-thud-thud as it moves. But it's very close.

One to watch, then - and, thanks to a gameplay device we've sometimes thought rather ordinary, one that you'll be able to watch very closely.

F.E.A.R. is due out later this year on PC. The single-player demo version is available now.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (45) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Tomo #1 7 years ago

    Good summary I'd say.

  • Darkedge #2 7 years ago

    i want the full game!!

    game of the year i suspect..

  • Bezzy #3 7 years ago

    I can see why you're not wanting to jump at the game's throat for reliance on quick saves, Tom, but don't you think that if they're used so prolifically (and fuck me, are they ever!), it would have been more elegant to some how frame them within the fiction of the game? Or, shit, just explain the scene you're about to get into better, rather than expecting the player to play every scene by trial and error?

    And here's a funny paradox: the first person cutscenes, rather than being scarey, actually come across as the most comforting places in the game. It's because you know that the designers are trying to get you to see the neat shit they've spent so much time crafting, so you end up being safe as houses. "Blood on the ceiling? I guess I must be doing something right then."

  • Freek #4 7 years ago

    Is it me or did they already reveal the storyline in the demo?

    Government wants to make an army of super soldiers so they kidnap one of thier top men, his daughter gets killed in the procces.
    The original subject escapes and/or the program is shut down but they still have some DNA on ice so years later they revive the program.
    Little girl comes back from the grave and starts killing people in revenge using the pyscic link of the new super soldiers.
    Conviently they're all clones so you just have to make one model and one vioce over for them all.
    The player, his memory lost since that fatefull day, is putt on the case as a fresh F.E.A.R recruite and when his long lost daughter sees him she tries to contact you from beyond the grave and spooky things happen.
    You save the day, her soul is putt to rest, evil guys are all dead and they all lived happily ever after, untill the sequal.

    edit; I dunno if the weird stuff will be safe, in Silent Hill 3 similar scenes and sequence happen except if you hang around it will kill you so you don't feel safe at all. Hopefullyt F.E.A.R will do similar things later on but sticks with safe things at first since it just level one.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/05 @ 14:02

  • drumbaby #5 7 years ago

    Schmonolith.

  • BravoGolf #6 7 years ago

    Would this work, I dare ask, on my laptop with a 64MB GeForce 4200 GO and 1Gig RAM?

    /clutches straws

  • deaner #7 7 years ago

    I'm beginning to F.E.A.R. that it wont live up to the (substancial) hype.

  • Artemus #8 7 years ago

    I thought the demo was fun but at 650mb, it's too damn short. I suspect I'll be getting this despite my creaking PC.

    Another thing, I remember watching a video of this about a year ago and there was some very cool melee slow motion combat. The only thing I could do in the demo was use right click to melee attack with the gun...

  • abigsmurf #9 7 years ago

    I quicksaved all the time, I've done that for every FPS since half life 1 (thank you for introducing the need for quicksaving with your instant deaths! One of the 'innovations' the genre didn't need) but I never actually died, guess I'm too used to max payne and switching on slowmo every time I see an enemy.

    The game was good, a couple of scary bits and a few that made you jump as well as some solid combat. The game is pretty as anything if you turn up the shaders and turn on the shadows. Long load times, sound and AI bugs are a downer though, anyone know if the demo is actually the start of the game?

  • jlaakso #10 7 years ago

    If it's actually reliant on retrying every scene, no good. On the other hand, Max Payne played a lot like that and once you got the hang of it, I only had to replay particularly tricky scenes and the ones I wanted to complete without missing a beat (that is, getting hit).

  • Creedy #11 7 years ago

    My god, I played the demo and it freaked the absolute fuck out of me. Yes the scarriest parts are "safe houses" but it's the atmosphere and the way the scenes are done that freaked me out. I nearly had a panic attack. lol

    As for melee moves, you can do more then the melee gun shove or the punching.
    Run foreward, press jump and then melee.
    Also run foreward, press duck and then melee.
    You'll do either a scissor kick or ground slide respectively.

    I really look foreward to owning this game. I played the demo through on hard, only quick saved twice. I found the AI to be a worthy challege, they tricked me a few times by hiding in shadows. Was good to see them communicate together so well.
    Edited by 2 at 08/08/05 @ 14:35

  • MightyPenguin #12 7 years ago

    Trial and error gaming? Fuck that for a game of soldiers. If something possesses me to buy this game when it comes out, I'll play it on God mode.

  • Bezzy #13 7 years ago

    Humans are incredibly good at coming to terms with inhospitable climates (including quick save requirements for an inhospitable FPS game). But that doesn't justify reliance of quick saves like a goddamn crutch for overly punishing game play.

    Like, I'm sure I could get used to necrophilia if I gave it enough of a chance. Doesn't make it right.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/05 @ 14:37

  • Creedy #14 7 years ago

    I don't understand what the hell you guys are on about with this trial and error whinging. What game doesn't involve trial and error?
    Half Life 2, Doom 3, Devil May Cry 3, God of War, Crimson Tears, Halo 2, Soul Calibre 2, Street Fighter 2.
    All combat games are trial and error, learning techniques, tactics, adapting to enemies.

  • T4RG4 #15 7 years ago

    Played the demo... either I actually didnt play the demo of F.E.A.R or I just didnt find it interesting... it was like playing any other FPS and I found it actually became boring... in the demo!! Couple of cool scary bits, but other than that... pft.

  • UncleLou #16 7 years ago

    Trial and error gaming? Fuck that for a game of soldiers. If something possesses me to buy this game when it comes out, I'll play it on God mode.


    It's not more or less trial and error gaming than any other reasonably challenging FPS game. I don't mind that at all, especially if, as in the FEAR demo, the AI is rather good. It's not as if you have to learn any crappy boss monster patterns by heart or anything.

  • Furbs #17 7 years ago

    I wonder if people who moan about trial and error gaming and quick saves moan about having to start a whole level again if you die three quarteres of the way through it?

  • jlaakso #18 7 years ago

    "All combat games are trial and error, learning techniques, tactics, adapting to enemies."

    This isn't the same thing as depending on quickloading every single scene multiple times. Also, I haven't played the demo, so can't comment if it is actually like this or not.

    You can make a game challenging without depending on dying a lot. See Ninja Gaiden for reference.

  • UncleLou #19 7 years ago

    This isn't the same thing as depending on quickloading every single scene multiple times. Also, I haven't played the demo, so can't comment if it is actually like this or not.

    No, it's not like that. And if it was like that for anyone, I suggest to simply reduce the difficulty level.

    You can make a game challenging without depending on dying a lot. See Ninja Gaiden for reference.

    Now that's a game I haven't played and therefore can't comment on, but I remember that the forum was full of complaints of people who thought it was way too hard, and they hence never really played it. I am not sure that's the best reference of how challenging games should be. ;)

  • Bezzy #20 7 years ago

    Trial and error ought to be happening at the beginning of games, not the entire way through. You should be learning about consistent rules which you can count on later in the game, using them to form well grounded strategies, rather than constantly second guessing some random, cognitively inpenetrable arbitrary landscape of inconsequential chaotic... bollucks.

    And indeed, the point is, there are far more elegant ways to "challenge" people than to kill them at every turn.

    Do you know why Far Cry became so "challenging" in this fashion toward the end? They were not quite meeting their contractual obligation to provide "x hours of game play", so they crammed the last level with as many insane enemies as they could. True story. And yet, even though this was a completely brain dead solution, people didn't blink, because a hundred other samey FPS games had to do the same damn thing! Players have been bred to be acceptant of this shit, because they don't know that they can ask for more. It's like, I could put "A punch in the nuts" in a DVD case, and sell it, and people would THANK me. "Your sterilization technology is second to none, bezzy!!".

    P.S. This game's not bad.

  • UncleLou #21 7 years ago

    Far Cry certainly didn't get the balance right, but on the other hand it wasn't a game that would not have needed any artificial padding, it is a huge game anyhow, unfair enemies or not.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/05 @ 14:57

  • Bezzy #22 7 years ago

    I agree! It was artificially padded despite that.

    Ohh, and did I mention that it had the same rationale for its check point based saving? It was there literally just to increase the amount of time the game took.

    This is not conjecture.

  • MoFo #23 7 years ago

    Would this work, I dare ask, on my laptop with a 64MB GeForce 4200 GO and 1Gig RAM?

    Yes it will work perfectly fine on those specs. Or to put it another way - how the fuck do we know? Why don't you ask the developer rather than a bunch of clueless plebs on a public forum.

  • deaner #24 7 years ago

    ...

    Or he could look in <a href=http://www.eurogamer.net/article_discussion.php? article_id=60400>the days other F.E.A.R. news'</a> comment section and look at the system spec I posted, and the subsequent comments:

    ...you just need a video card with hardware transform and lighting, and pixel shader 2.0 support, as well as a good chunk (64 MB+) of memory.

    Although that should probably also include "must be supported by the latest DirectX".

  • broony #25 7 years ago

    As mostly a console gamer I actually forgot about the quick save function and used to checkpoint system in the game. When I died I never felt cheated or that it was trial and error when I died. I understood everytime why I died, it was because the A.I. was doing things I didn't expect them to do.

    The jumping through windows stuff didn't appear scripted to me apart from the fact that if an enemy is near a window and you throw a greneade or are blasting them to peices they will try to escape and jump through. As I was not using quick save I found the game did pan out differently every play I tried.

    The graphics are not that astounding but there is more character, variation and atmosphere thatn in any of Doom3's levels. The a.i. in fear is much improved on Half life 2's in my opinion.

    The set peice scary bits did really scare me, alhough nothing has got close to the fear involved in the marine campaign in Aliens vs predator (2) it was the most scary game I'd played in a long time, and at least there was more thought put into the unsettleing of the player than having monsters repeatedly jump out behind you like doom 3.

    I do agree that the controls are a bit much, but its much the same with any game, by the end of the demo I was jumping, zooming and slow-moing without a second thought.

    Overall I really enjoyed the demo, and I felt it does feel like something very new and individual within a very cluttered genre. I will definately buy this.
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/05 @ 15:13

  • Tiiti #26 7 years ago

    What broony said

  • kangarootoo #27 7 years ago

    Not played this demo yet, but it sounds promising.

    "You can't please all of the people all of the time" seems to be the overall message I am getting from everyone's posts. It does at this stage however sound as though a fair chuck of people found it a lot of fun, and that seems a reasonable taget for any developer to aim at IMO.

    @broony. I'll take your AvP 2 and raise you AvP 1 (on my first home PC as I recall, financed with the proceeds of ridiculous Y2K nightshifts back in my IT days. God bless mass paranoia). Man I was so scared playing that Marine campaign, I crapped my pants and those of everyone in my street. Never has an inocuous "blip" sound caused so much instability.

  • Furbs #28 7 years ago

    Yeah. 1st level of AvP1 was more scary to me, simply because you we on your own and inside corridors.

    Hmm I would reinstall it, but I think it'll just look too shite!

    /is a graphics whore.

  • broony #29 7 years ago

    Yeah thats why I put the (2) in brackets, both those game were just horrible to play, but in a good scarred for life with fear way.

  • Furbs #30 7 years ago

    Remember playing as Marine vs Alien in a one on one deathmatch back in the day. Had a moment very similar to Aliens. My motion tracker was going off right on top of me but couldnt see anything. Looked up and my opponent had be stalking me along the ceiling for ages, just waiting for me to see her (yes, it was a she!). Last thing I saw was something black and shiny move for me as I shit meself.

  • PuffyPipe #31 7 years ago

    Would this work, I dare ask, on my laptop with a 64MB GeForce 4200 GO and 1Gig RAM?
    ........................................

    Yes it will work perfectly fine on those specs. Or to put it another way - how the fuck do we know? Why don't you ask the developer rather than a bunch of clueless plebs on a public forum.
    ........................................

    Well i know the answer and its no. It would be incredibly jerky and although u have enough ram your graphics card is just no good enough. anyone really into there gaming knows laptop are not for games....well maybe just one, Football Manager 2005!
    Edited by 1 at 08/08/05 @ 16:16

  • kangarootoo #32 7 years ago

    I played FarCry on an under specced system and it was still a lot of fun even with the detail turned down (until it introduced the monsters and went indoors a lot, then it was sh*t), so I wouldn't be too quick to condemn it just 'cos it won't look as pretty as it might.

    My laptop is a 2800 Sempron (think the CPU is actually 1.6GHz) and the GFX are 64mb 5200FX, so not miles from your spec BravoGolf. If I get the demo installed over the next day or so I'll let you know the results. For comparison, Allied Assault runs like a dream, Vampire Bloodlines sort of worked (mad jerking bugs aside) and Battlefield is playable single player but not sharp enough for battling real people.

  • Furbs #33 7 years ago

    Thats weird...on my desktop BF2 runs worse in single player, purely because of the amount of bots it has to throw around. Plays like a dream online though.

  • kangarootoo #34 7 years ago

    Actually I didn't make that too clear. I mean that playing against bots I can get by despite the tiny bit of graphical lag that sometimes occurs. Playing against real people the same delay will get me killed half the time. I saw a similar thing when running Bloodlines, the barest delay before your key press is translated into on screen action. I think it means that its not just the GFX chipset getting loaded (the memory in my laptop probably isn't that speedy compared to most current desktops).

  • crashVoodoo #35 7 years ago

    must say i really enjoyed the demo, played it about 7 times now ... although not without its faults its a nifty little taster and its got me gagging for the rest :p

    i got an intel p4 3ghz, 1gb ram, 128meg 9800 pro and although the card is getting a bit long in the tooth it still runs pretty darned well 20-30fps on average. i had it at 1024x768 with everything on high except fsaa which was at 2x, soft shadows were off (looks shit anyway) and texture resolutuion at Med. i did have some dodgy black lines intersecting with shadows every so often but i put it down to being a demo - unless you guys didn't get 'em.

    there did seem to bit a lot of buttons to press but i got them all mapped out just nicely. microsoft mice are fantastic for games configuration ..

    2 thumb buttons - slo-mo and nades
    wheel - forward and back for weapons
    tiltwheel - left right for nades

    can run rings round the enemy ... probably why i enjoyed it more than some of you others :/

  • og.loc #36 7 years ago

    OG Loc is not impressed with this FPS bullshit.

  • kangarootoo #37 7 years ago

    Spec update. One of my housemates has a PC with the following.

    2800 Athlon 64
    512mb Nvidia XT800
    1GB of whatever speedy memory goes with an Athlon 64.

    Runs just fine with most of the bells and whistles on full. Some of the minor specs were set to medium instead of high, but you don't notice unless you set out to. Turning on soft shadowing seemed to have the biggest effect (though volumetric shadowing itself made no difference at all).

    Not tried my own laptop yet. Will try and get round to it.

    Quite liked the demo myself. A bit by the numbers, but a good example of an old style FPS in my book. I found the gameplay kind of old school (bonkers slow down effect aside), which I guess in part was because of the save, die, reload mechanic that I seemed to go through same as a few others on here. Old school is no bad thing though, and I still enjoyed it. I think it is the kind of game that you get better at, so you actually end up reloading less.

    I found a similar thing with FarCry. I.e. got my ass kicked loads during the demo, but once I got hooked into the right way to play ("right way" insofar as I stayed alive longer) I was able to play the full game on a high difficulty setting without finding it too frustrating (unitl the crappy mutants turned up and then it drove me mad).

  • Zuiyo #38 7 years ago

    It should be "right off the door" and not "right of the door".

  • roofles #39 7 years ago

    The demo's level design seems amateurish, because they simply mashed bits of various in-game levels together.

  • T4RG4 #40 7 years ago

    So is this going to sell like crazy? If it does, and I one day start my own studio - I'm just going to create bandwagon games. It is merely average, its like we're still living in a cloud of Matrix fallout, move on, nothing here to see...
    Edited by 1 at 09/08/05 @ 11:14

  • Bezzy #41 7 years ago

    "One thing that is BTW starting to annoy the hell out of me: why do "human" AI enemies in FPS shooters always have to announce themselves? ?"

    Because if they were actually human, you would never ever ever win ever. Single player games are man against machine, not man against pretend man.

  • zErOb_cOOl #42 7 years ago

    Well it looks good, but its another FPS. I mean, after Halo, how much more depth can you possibly add to a FPS, with current technology, apart from glossing up the graphics?!

    /Bored

  • m2h #43 7 years ago

    The sp demo was such a waste of bandwidth. So incredibly short, and sooo big in size. WTF?

  • bootsy_NL_30 #44 7 years ago

    Zerob ----after halo !? wtf ....halo was good but not that good .....I played the demo of f.e.a.r loved it and am definatly buying a copy...btw even if you havent got a top spec machine the game has a great system of figuring out what your system/graphics card can handle and is one of the most user friendly configs on the market.

  • The Old Bill #45 7 years ago

    "The sp demo was such a waste of bandwidth. So incredibly short, and sooo big in size. WTF?"

    Should tell you something about the games mechanics.