Carpenter talks F.E.A.R.

Legendary horror movie director John Carpenter has declared himself the official spokesman for F.E.A.R., the spooky new PC shooter from Vivendi.

Speaking to US website Gamespot, Carpenter also revealed that he's a huge Metal Gear Solid fan - but that he reckons F.E.A.R. is even better.

"I thought [MGS] was terrific. [Hideo Kojima] wrote me a letter and I praised it. Now this is the first game that's come along that I thought was better than that," he said.

"This game is exceptional... F.E.A.R. is as close as I've come to playing a movie."

Carpenter said it was the game's graphics that first caught his attention, but the gameplay and the atmosphere really sealed the deal: "One of the things a director always tries to do is to get their audience to suspend their disbelief and to invest in the movie emotionally.

"F.E.A.R. does that with a game. To do that, the graphics and the gameplay are the most important things. Their hyperrealism and their fluidity makes you forget about having to deal with the controller and allows you to just start projecting onto the screen. It's just immersive," he explained.

So what other games does Carpenter like? Well, he first got into gaming thanks to Sonic the Hedgehog, but these days Doom 3 and the Silent Hill games are firm favourites. And despite F.E.A.R. being so ace he reckons there's always room to take the horror genre further - "As long as you have a good idea."

"Nowadays it's called intellectual property, but in the old days, the old school used to call it ideas and stories," Carpenter said.

"If that's good and sound, as far as the technology will let you go, that's where you go."

Carpenter also confirmed that his new project, Psychopath, will be both a game and a film - but that it'll hit consoles before it hits cinemas. "There are different rules for each medium," he said.

"The form, the language, the approach... Movies are much different than games. Games are much different than movies. But each is an art form when it's done right."

You can read the full interview over at Gamespot.