Fresh on the trails of my DOOM binge, I saw the F.E.A.R collection on sale and bought it, because I'd been wanting to play it since it released. At first, I was frustrated, because it took up a metric ton of space on my hard drive, took forever to download, and didn't even launch the first few times I tried to play it. Then I nuked it, redownloaded it, and tried again. And I squee'd.
The interface is much cleaner than Doom 3's, the controls are responsive and make sense, your guy can hold a gun and use his flashlight at the same time, the game is actually creepy at points, and it's built around tactical combat... which just so happens to be a favorite play style of mine. I'm a strategist. I calculate. I analyze. I set traps. And if you put a sniper rifle in my (character's) hands, then I will gleefully headshot everything on the map from hundreds of yards away.
Needless to say, FEAR was a fresh drink of cool water after the frustrating mess that was Doom 3. But the more I played it, the more the game felt wrong to me. "Why?", I wondered. And then this article caught my attention, and everything made sense.
To summarize: Faceless targets (e.g. Stormtroopers) are a lot easier to kill than targets with a face (e.g. Han Solo). Now, most of the enemies in FEAR are faceless masses. They're mass-produced psychic supersoldiers in full battle gear. However, I think what's getting me about them is their radio chatter, amongst which are such things as,
"Shit!"
"What's your status?"
"Need backup, NOW!"
"Two men down!"
"Shut your fucking mouth."
They get scared, they get anxious, they panic, they get upset, they get mad at each other. And this removes the 'faceless' from 'faceless masses' and makes them more human. Game or not, how can I justify shooting them?
This is (one of the reasons) why I can't enjoy Call of Duty or any other similar shooters. Because I'm shooting at human targets. However fake or digital they are, with as real as games are getting nowadays, the enemies are drifting outside of my comfort zone into 'not quite faceless enough', and I become unable to stomach more than an hour or so of gameplay a day, if that. Here's a confession for you: I have never played Wolfenstein 3D.
Somehow, though, splattering nazis just doesn't sound as appealing to me as splattering the hordes of Hell... Even if they do have Super Robot Zombie Hitler on their side. See, there's still the whole 'human' element. Pixelated though they are...
...actually, now that I think about it, I probably wouldn't have many problems running through that one. My point remains.
FEAR isn't a bad game, by any stretch. It's really well made, looks clean (except for, y'know, anywhere Alma has been), plays nice, is decently challenging, and isn't afraid to poke fun at itself- it admits the whole "psychic clone soldier" thing as ridiculous before the first mission even begins. But it also bugs me, so I'm putting it down for now. I've dug far enough into this one, I'm done for a while.
The interface is much cleaner than Doom 3's, the controls are responsive and make sense, your guy can hold a gun and use his flashlight at the same time, the game is actually creepy at points, and it's built around tactical combat... which just so happens to be a favorite play style of mine. I'm a strategist. I calculate. I analyze. I set traps. And if you put a sniper rifle in my (character's) hands, then I will gleefully headshot everything on the map from hundreds of yards away.
Needless to say, FEAR was a fresh drink of cool water after the frustrating mess that was Doom 3. But the more I played it, the more the game felt wrong to me. "Why?", I wondered. And then this article caught my attention, and everything made sense.
To summarize: Faceless targets (e.g. Stormtroopers) are a lot easier to kill than targets with a face (e.g. Han Solo). Now, most of the enemies in FEAR are faceless masses. They're mass-produced psychic supersoldiers in full battle gear. However, I think what's getting me about them is their radio chatter, amongst which are such things as,
"Shit!"
"What's your status?"
"Need backup, NOW!"
"Two men down!"
"Shut your fucking mouth."
They get scared, they get anxious, they panic, they get upset, they get mad at each other. And this removes the 'faceless' from 'faceless masses' and makes them more human. Game or not, how can I justify shooting them?
This is (one of the reasons) why I can't enjoy Call of Duty or any other similar shooters. Because I'm shooting at human targets. However fake or digital they are, with as real as games are getting nowadays, the enemies are drifting outside of my comfort zone into 'not quite faceless enough', and I become unable to stomach more than an hour or so of gameplay a day, if that. Here's a confession for you: I have never played Wolfenstein 3D.
 |
| "Is this guy friggin' serious? That's a classic!" |
...actually, now that I think about it, I probably wouldn't have many problems running through that one. My point remains.
FEAR isn't a bad game, by any stretch. It's really well made, looks clean (except for, y'know, anywhere Alma has been), plays nice, is decently challenging, and isn't afraid to poke fun at itself- it admits the whole "psychic clone soldier" thing as ridiculous before the first mission even begins. But it also bugs me, so I'm putting it down for now. I've dug far enough into this one, I'm done for a while.
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