The FEAR Effect Comments by Tom Bramwell

Very nice interview, appreciated reading quirky questions and answers as opposed to standard marketing crap.

How does FEAR change as you move through the game?

Good question and a well negotiated answer. Unfortunately there are whispers that "it doesn't" and the levels lack much needed variety. Not that such a thing ever held Halo back...

A good interview, Tom, nice.

I liked the demo but it didn't run well on my PC. I will have to wait for the 360 version I guess.

Excellent interview. He obviously has a real passion for the game which will mean that he will not have settled for anything less than excellence throughout the entire game. To be honest the interview has sold me the game more than any 'previews' I have read so far.

'But when a spooky little girl takes out an entire Delta Force squad, how are you supposed to deal with that?'

Throw a spider at her and tread on her Barbie.

Is this game coming out on the 360 (not that I'll be able to afford one anytime soon)?
I hope it does because when I 'ran' the demo on my computer it was actually unplayable (I think my system only just meets the minimum requirements).

Lookin forward to this one. Just hope my PC can handle it. Nice interview by the way.

i really hope this baby will keep up his (ambitious) promises
i can't endure to be disappointed again as i did with HL2
at least looks like we'll see it coming out in time cos no other delays have been reported...

"As for quick-saving, it was never a question. I guess the bottom line is that I can pause a DVD or mark my place in a book, so why shouldn't I be able to save my progress in a narrative video game?"

Yaaaaayyyy!! More people should be saying this. I formly believe that saving your game is a core part of a computer application. Having to find the next checkpoint because my doorbell has just been rung is not acceptable.

I simply DON'T subscribe to the idea that quick save/load kills tension. If that is the case, it your tension building that is broken and that is what should be fixed.

I'm sure that most of us can agree that harshly placed checkpoints don't add tension, they simply add annoying repetition. "Difficulty" != "Fun" (despite what many publishers seem to think). I could name several games that had a quick load/save mechanic that were still able to maintain tension (AvP being the best example).

Did the demo come with StarForce or any other such anti-consumer software?

Additonally,

"If you get distracted every time you save, you're clearly not very invested to begin with, which may be the fault of the game but probably isn't the fault of the quicksave key."

I really like this chaps way of thinking.

EDIT: Just finished reading. Very good interview. This Hubbard guy has some great ideas. If he were a girl, I would stalk him.

> Is this game coming out on the 360 (not that I'll be able to afford one anytime soon)?

Yes.. apparently it is already up and running on 360 dev kits.

Dont know if anyone can answer me this but I have windows XP home with SP1 installed. I read somewhere that SP2 is recommended. Will it run (everything else on my PC meets the min. specs) ?? I do actually have SP2 on disc but heard that some of my older games will no longer run if I install it (which is why I havent yet). In two minds you see.

Please, please, can this game be more than ultra-generic alleyways, warehouses and pipe-filled rooms. I keep thinking I need to wait for a demo before making my mind up, then I remember I've already played it...

The horror stuff was pretty cool, but the utterly dismal, standard FPS setting was just awful. Is the whole game like that?

ja cargocult this is also my concern
im sick too of all of these hyperlinearistic shoot-my-ass-coz-me-no-brain kind of games and FEAR looks like the same soup but with just some piece of meat as an addon.
I hope im wrong otherwise this will be the last VG i buy out.

Kangyroo...

I agree with that take on why quick saves are good. I'm behind that 100%.

However, when quick saving becomes a crutch, I think that then you've got to think about either fixing the game so that it's not, or atleast recognizing it as an actual part of the game, working it into the game fiction itself, as PoP does.

Oh I agree, if you introduce quicksaves into your game and find they don't quite work then you shouldn't just leave things broken. I'm just saying that I think that too often people use it as a excuse for other failings.

"We tried quicksaves. People just kept reloading and there was no tension".

In cases like that, the tension was simply missing. Adding annoying checkpoints is a poor substitute. As Mr Hubbard puts it, the player fearing the loss of their progress since the last checkpoint is not entertaining.

Indeed!

Games are capable of so much more than "fun". It seems like the only emotion many people know how to illicit is the feeling of sheer frustration at bad design decisions. Sometimes I wonder if they're* doing stupid shit on purpose, and if, in that case, it's very artful, and a commentary on a wasted life, full of ideologies to be crushed at every turn.

*They = bad game designers**, but not this guy. Necessarily.
**I'll include myself in this category for fun and profit.

I'm a firm believer in piching ideas and mechanics. Someone building a bridge doesn't start from scratch, they look at bridges that were built quickly for not much cash and didn't fall into rivers, and see what they did right.

In a different thread here there is chat about Far Cry Insticts and its aiming system. If I was working on a console FPS the first thing I would do is nick Halo's aim assist and acceleration design. If I was working on a scary FPS I would look at AvP and get busy with my big idea catching net.

Everytime I see a mechanic in a game that drives players nuts, my first thought is whether I have seen the same thing done well elsewhere. Pinching well done things from other games is even a time saver, so there is no excuse for not doing it really.

EDIT: Of course I talking about basic mechanics here. I'm all for innovation in core gameplay design. But if your menu interface sucks, there is really no excuse these days.

Somes games I like quicksaving and other games I like checkpoints. But the problem with checkpoints is that they aren't used properly. Halo should have a double checkpoint system. That is, when you died should have been able to pick whether to restart at the last checkpoint or the one before it. That way you would never have been totally screwed by getting a checkpoint just after a huge battle where you used all your ammo and almost all your health.

And Halo 2 needed 25% more checkpoints. I once went well over an hour without getting one which is just silly.

*sniff* I want FEAR EFFECT that was promised for PS2.

Thats quite a nice idea. I guess an alternative might be to prompt the player as to whether they want the checkpoint recording, but then that interferes with immersion rather. At least your way you only be prompted upon diying or accessing the menu, both of which are pretty intrusive already.

Craig Hubbard's message-->"We kick Valve arses like wee little girl".

Hope the little girl is able to kick the player's ass too... if you know you're actually safe during the "scary" bits, it won't be half as scary as it could be.

Perhaps you could do a game with quicksave with sequences where it was disabled... these would be short, clearly indicated "danger zones" where you wouldn't be able to save. So you'd be able to ratchet up the tension, as players would know that something really challenging and/or scary was coming up, while broadly keeping the advantages of quicksaving.

Sorry but games just aren't scary no matter what game designers like to think ... unless you play at night and turn the lights off that is ....MWAHAHAHAHAhahaetc

Very nice interview - congrats EG. I also like the way the Mr Craig keeps mentioning books and novels, and their conventions, suggesting that he has much deeper set of influences than B-grade sci-fi action flicks. In fact I haven't seen any game dev in recent memory mention novels and writing craft - ever.

The demo is ace, the only iffy factor being the apparent samey-ness of it all. Let's hope there is more to it than meets the eye.

FarCry had checkpoints, and I didn't mind at all. You could even load a game from a checkpoint of your choice. As long as they're placed intelligently, I really don't see any problem with them as opposed to quicksaving.

As for F.E.A.R... I predict that there will be crates. Lots of crates. I judge FPS games now purely from the Start to Crate Ratio.

I am totally for Checkpoints. I played Doom III by saving the game after every monster (mainly because I was scared shitless most of the time, but that is another story...), and I can certify that it does NOT reduce the tension in the game if the atmosphere is strong enough, but it surely makes it easier.

Far Cry's checkpoints came under much fire in the beginning, but ultimately they served to balance out the risk/reward ratio, as in: the real reward is game progress, not the next healthpack. In fact, after finding Far Cry fairly difficult in terms of checkpoints and healthpack placement, it was hard not to be a little disappointed with Doom. But that's just me..

I think Talha's hit the nail on the head there. Doom 3 worked (for him) because the tension within the game was sufficient as not to be dimmed by the quicksave whereas Far Cry worked because the gameplay balance was built around that system.

What seems most important is that the save system is considered first and the gameplay structured round that rather than design a game and then drop a quicksave or checkpoint system on top with no thought for how it affects pacing, tension and whether the prospect of replaying a portion of the game will iss the player off.

Well, if you guys think that quicksaves are gay, they are made for the purpose of allowing players from different levels of experience to be able to get through the game too. So if you're really hardcore about playing FEAR, why don't you just follow the suggestions above and:

a) turn all the lights off while playing
b) pump up your computer's volume
c) make sure you're all alone
d) tweak the difficulty setting up a notch
e) don't use those 1-hit KO weapons which are just so cheap (Type-7 Particle weapon, for example.)
f) vow to yourself never to use the quicksave button and just patiently wait for those checkpoints.

I'm sure these things will definitely make gameplay a lot more 'tense', if that's what you wanted...