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The next level is pretty cool atmosphere-wise. But I like how they went to all the trouble of a full, motion captured scene with that short elevator shootout when most players will just ignore it and spray wildly into the elevator.
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Jun 20, 2014 23:47
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IronSaber posted:Or say that they can't complete the surgery due to a "preexisting condition." The only true horror in FEAR is the medical insurance.
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Jun 21, 2014 05:50
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FEAR 3, on the other hand, is skippable. Played through the majority of it and found it to be mostly dull sci-fi. It even added its own version of running zombie hordes, which hardly fit the game.
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Jun 21, 2014 17:21
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Armadillo Tank posted:I have never really gotten scared in any of the jump scare games like Amnesia or otherwise. If anything the jumpscares annoy me. What is good about Fear is that it spends most of its time building atmosphere and being omnious. The amount of fire power you have also doesn't matter when you realize its protective ability is relative to that of your enemies. As such I felt more at risk in shooters than in the forced scare-run games. Jump scares have always been a kind of cheap trick. I don't like the feeling of getting hit by them, so (as you said) they end up just being an annoyance rather than scary. True scares come from the atmosphere and the potential to have something terrifying or jumpy coming at you; you could make a jump scare from nothing but a picture of a nude model and a loud laugh and it would still garner the same jump from the viewer if you did it quickly and loudly enough. They only work on people who are legitimately vulnerable enough to collapse into tears from that kind of fright. It's one of the things I hate about Outlast. I really want to love that game for all the things it does right and how pretty it is, but it's overly reliant on jump scares to provide the fear.
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Jun 21, 2014 19:02
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Speaking of weapons, I like the sound design for this game. It's different from a lot of the stock effects you often hear in games. Still not sure why shooting regular, unaltered human mercenaries with a submachine gun causes what looks like flames to flare up from their wounds. But it looks so good that I don't care.
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Jun 22, 2014 00:21
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Armadillo Tank posted:I always took that blue sparking effect in Fear games to mean that you hit something armored but still affected/damaged something. I guess, but it happens with the mercenaries who are in tactical turtlenecks, Kevlar, and nylon.
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Jun 22, 2014 02:14
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Calax posted:For some reason this has me thinking every single merc you meet is a clone of Archer. More like clones of "that tacticool guy from the CQB airsoft arena". 
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Jun 22, 2014 03:01
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biosterous posted:I would not complain about having more videos to watch. Neither would I. I have a firm love for this game.
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Jun 26, 2014 06:03
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Is it just me, or do the effects in this game feel superior to FEAR 3?
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Jun 26, 2014 16:19
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FEAR 3 has enemies that are legit running zombies that show up a few levels in. They're a total departure from any of the past enemy styles. They even got their own "defend against the horde" multiplayer mode. On the other hand, they reused the mechs, and I approve of any game with that.
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Jun 28, 2014 00:51
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Funny enough, FEAR 2 is my favorite of the series. The first game has a more nostalgic atmosphere (I remember when it was first previewed and hyped up as being a legit horror game mixed with a solid FPS, with the early stuff involving the hallway of blood ceiling and objects being tossed around repeated in every gaming news channel), but the second is just more fun for me. I like the gunplay and the sound effects, and I like the more varied environments after FEAR started to get dull. FEAR 3 kind of confuses me. The gunplay is fun, but it feels...ugly. I tried it on my PC (after initially beating over half of it on OnLive) and everything just seemed kind of muddy and blurry, so much so that I tried to look up graphical fixes because I was convinced that there was something wrong with my game. Turns out that's just how it looks.
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Jun 28, 2014 04:27
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Speedball posted:I always liked FEAR 2. I thought it had a better atmosphere and progression than FEAR 1 and that opening bit actually made you give a poo poo about your squaddies, something FEAR 1 consistently failed at. The only squad guy I remember from the first game is the other Jankowski, and only because he kept popping up (literally in most cases) endlessly from the beginning. I mean, you kind of remember the guy when sudden visions of him become a fairly common jump scare. Other ones? Barely care. The Asian chick is the only other one that I can picture in my head, and I don't even remember her name. I do remember that one of the non-canon expansion packs killed her off.
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Jun 28, 2014 18:19
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chiasaur11 posted:Bitching about stairs This is actually perfectly in tune with actual soldiers. Not even a SEAL would want to climb several dozen flights of stairs on the way to a gunfight, especially since it would tire them out right before a battle. Having actually climbed close to 300 steps at once before (it was a lighthouse), I empathize with them.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:13
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quote:For the love of god use more grenades when they're clustered together like that, they keep handing them out to you like candy anyway so there's no point not to. Use more grenades in general. This game has really pretty destruction and I think its graphics stand up well even in 2014.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:53
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For all the wondering about Alma and whether she wants to help you or not and the stuff on the "little girl vs. adult" that the first game expanded on.....I'm just waiting for LP to finish so I can see everyone new's reactions and I will say no more about that.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:23
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Armadillo Tank posted:Is this the game with the thing that you can ride which is like that game that just mentioned? Is that just F3AR? Yes.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:19
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If I were the game creators, I would have given a bonus to whoever made that line.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:42
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The unique thing about the Replicas is that while they're under psychic "control", they're not just remote controlled drones. They have intelligence and some initiative, and they do things like curse when grenades land nearby or make sounds of pain.
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Jul 3, 2014 22:14
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Ergonomix posted:I rented F3AR and played it in split screen co op with a buddy and we had a pretty good time but never played it again. It definitely seemed like it was designed to be co op before single player, but even if you can get somebody to play it with you I would recommend getting a better co op game like EDF first. I don't know the full story. I know that Monolith was bought by Warner Brothers, while Vivendi was able to recruit TimeGate Studios to make the expansions to the first game.
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Jul 4, 2014 03:28
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I vaguely remember that there was some kind of legal trouble with FEAR 2's development. I think Monolith split with their publisher and lost the trademark to the FEAR name or something? Anyway, I do remember that they held a fan contest to name the second game because of that. "Project Origin" won, but then they got the title rights back, so they just made it the subtitle instead.
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I see you mentioned the sparking effect when shooting enemies. I was actually talking about those gouts of blue fire/sparks that come when you shoot the Armacham or Replica soldiers. You can see it best in the first video, where there's no slow motion and you're shooting enemies that definitely aren't wearing metal sci-fi armor.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:01
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I may or may not do a F3AR LP after you complete this. Depends on whether I've got my new hard drive yet and if it's not overloaded with the videos that I actually make for my job.
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Jul 5, 2014 04:16
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I just reinstalled F3AR to see what I like and dislike. Like * Working cover system * Better sound design for guns * Decent atmosphere * Relatively fun gunplay Dislike * loving ugly blurriness that includes motion blur even while walking, which makes everything seem unfocused. * I swear the mouse slows down as I aim at an enemy, which fucks with my aiming. * Endless achievement and challenge progress updates literally almost every minute, which destroys any semblance of atmosphere. * Replacement of intel items with simple meaningless collectibles that don't make too much sense in-universe. * Cutscenes where the Point Man remains totally silent, leaving his partner to do all the talking while the protagonist sullenly glares past his beard at everyone. * Ragdolls tend to do glitchy or anti-laws-of-physics poo poo that isn't funny enough to forgive. * Cover system is unsure about how much it wants me to unstick myself by moving away from it, so it's possible to try and sprint away from a grenade only to find yourself still glued to a crate. * Cover system has angles where your body is exposed to gunfire but you can't even see a target, let alone shoot it. * No blindfire. You're either ducking blind or exposing your whole body to aim and shoot. Trying to blindfire just shoots the cover in front of you; haven't tested that with explosive weapons yet. Also, this game was really obviously designed for co-op first. Every level ends with a stats tally to see which player did the best and it even sets up the entire main menu as if it were a multiplayer lobby, including starting a campaign like a multiplayer game with a countdown after clicking "Launch."
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Jul 5, 2014 08:00
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"This is where the game really kicks off, in my opinion. This--" *PLANE CRASHES*
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Jul 5, 2014 19:40
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I love how the rocket launcher has that reflection thing going on with its scope lens. All the scoped weapons do it to an extent, but the rocket launcher is the most obvious.
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Jul 5, 2014 21:39
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quote:I always took the 'Synchronicity Event' in this case to mean the time when Paxton Fettel reached out and 'synchronised' his power with his mother. That's correct, and is the explanation the FEAR Wiki gives. The first Synchronicity Event was when Fettel was 10 and psychically linked with his mother, giving him indeterminate powers that resulted in him killing seven people and providing the impetus for the Project Origin scientists to kill Alma to stop her from doing that again. The second event involved her remaining psychic spirit in 2025 (about 20 years after her physical "death") connecting with Fettel again so he could take control of the Replicas as their psychic commander and kill the people who tortured her, thus starting the first FEAR game.
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Jul 6, 2014 07:37
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quote:Like I said before, the Replica (at least the battalion or two we see in these games) don't need someone else controlling every little detail of what they do - they just get their orders from them. Alma's giving them an order (which, yes, happens to be "kill the player character, again") and they're carrying it out how they see fit. I think this is accurate to an extent. They still do things like curse when a grenade is thrown near them and shout commands, indicating that they have at least some level of independent thinking. I figure that they can either be given general orders or be specifically commanded, but a psychic commander usually won't have the focus to individually control every member of an entire army, so they need to have some initiative. quote:Although now I'm not understanding why they go dormant as soon as their psychic commander dies or stops linking to them or whatever. Maybe it's some sort of failsafe, like ATC knew the kid was going to still be trouble after he killed a man during the first synchronicity event and then started chowing down on the corpse because he thought he'd learn poo poo from doing so. I also think this is accurate. If I had an entire army of cloned special forces troopers in high-tech armor with the best guns money could buy, I wouldn't exactly want them to just go nuts and do whatever they wanted if the commander suffered a heart attack or something. Edit: I just beat FEAR 3 and after the credits, it actually shows the first Synchronicity Event. Since it's not a spoiler, I can explain exactly what happened: Alma's child form appeared in Fettel and Point Man's room while Fettel was alone and linked her mind to his, giving him immense psychic powers and driving him totally nuts. He killed seven guards who tried to subdue him by exploding their heads until the combined effects of something like half a dozen tranquilizer darts stopped him. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 20:27
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:It's like Dead Space 3, in that it's entirely possible to play it solo without missing overly much. It's obviously better if you have a friend to play with, but if you can't dig up someone to play it with, you're not missing out on too much. Yeah, I just beat it last night. It's still fully possible to beat it by yourself (albeit quite difficult, since there are some pretty cheap boss fights that are clearly meant to be played with two people) and as far as I know you don't miss out on any content (unlike Dead Space 3, which outright removes dialogue), but it's still very clearly designed from the ground up for co-op. The entire main menu is designed as a multiplayer lobby with a countdown to launch even for single player and the entire game is one long arcade-style score attack where you complete challenges (like backstabbing 3 enemies or draining a full slo-me meter 3 times) to earn points so you can increase your health, ammo capacity, or slo-mo time. At the end of the game, it even tallies up the best aggression, psychic potential, and tactics (not sure how it's all scored) for both players to determine which ending is played. It's cool and all and it works well as a co-op game, but it unfortunately sacrifices most of the atmosphere and horror content in favor of co-op gameplay. Not only do the scares and atmosphere have less impact when playing with a friend, there's actually fewer horror moments in the game and much more combat. I would legit suggest that there were about half a dozen of the old FEAR-style scares in one playthrough.
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Jul 7, 2014 15:55
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Speaking of which, what's the spoiler policy for the first FEAR game? Also, are we allowed to freely say who the two protagonists of FEAR 3 are?
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Jul 7, 2014 18:36
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WFGuy posted:I would actually argue that the Dead Space 3 co-op is done pretty well, since it doesn't force you to have an NPC bot if you're playing solo and want the 'scarier' experience. However, I was also bored of it by one run and spent all my co-op time giving the friend tons of gear (so much medigel) and the most late-game weapon parts I could, then ran around with a double rocket launcher blowing enemies to pieces since there's no such thing as ammo type. Dead Space 3 was just boring. It had too many identical or near-identical environments and dragged on for way longer than it had to. It felt like they threw in as many "You need to go to the other side of the base/spaceship/complex to flip a single switch or nothing works" moments as possible just to pad out the game length.
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Jul 7, 2014 19:09
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1stGear posted:...kind of? You can still be seen and shot by soldiers and whatnot. Basically, the plot of Reborn is you're playing as a Replica soldier who's being guided by Fettel back to where Fettel died, then Fettel's spirit takes over you. It kinda wasn't. The content is mostly the same as what's in the next update or two of this LP, except you're playing as a different character. It's short and basic enough to basically play like a "demo" of FEAR 2.
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Jul 7, 2014 20:34
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I'm playing through the first game while you do this LP. The first FEAR definitely has a superior atmosphere, but FEAR 2 makes some improvements when it comes to more varied locales, sound design, and way huge improvements on graphics (the first game has not aged too well). It's hard to decide which I prefer. The first game is definitely lower key, and feels more like an indie horror film in terms of scale.
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Jul 8, 2014 02:38
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Lazyfire posted:Yeah, but that first game doesn't go loving balls out crazy at the end like this one does. Seriously, playing this entire game through is worth it if only to see what happens in the last ten or so minutes. The combat in this game is often improved as well by some standards, though there are infinite enemy spawn locations and some really poorly designed encounters. Also, the first FEAR lacked turret segments that blared Nu-metal at you. Then again, some parts of the first FEAR soundtrack sound like they'd be better suited to a World War II movie made in the 1960s than a sci-fi horror shooter with slow motion and excessive gore. I also was able to pay closer attention to how the Replicas behave, and I can confirm that the psychic commander gives them orders rather than just remote controlling them. The Replicas still communicate via radio and vocal commands and react with surprise and shouts when the Point Man shows up, which definitely nixes the idea of a hive mind. There's also a point relatively early in the game where you find some Replicas patrolling outside and one of them specifically says that they're waiting for orders. I can't see why Fettel couldn't command individual soldiers, but all evidence points to the "psychic commander" idea simply being about giving the soldiers orders in the most direct manner possible far from the battlefield and probably being capable of seeing through the eyes of any one that he needs, giving him a much clearer view of the battlefield than normal. Hence why the soldiers under Alma's control in FEAR 2 still act normal: they still have all their regular training and mind and are simply being given orders by her. Speaking of the Replicas, the AI is smart enough that you can feint it: start moving to the side like you're flanking and listen for a Replica to say "He's trying to flank!", then run back to your old spot. At least one Replica will likely be aiming where you were about to flank, letting you shoot him while he's not paying attention.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:35
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Marshal Radisic posted:In some firefights there's so many people and mechs running around and dust in the air that you can't really make anything out. Thermal at least lets you figure out where the dudes and the rockets are coming from. Yeah, I found some use from it myself.
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Jul 9, 2014 02:19
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The school is probably the high point for the game.
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Jul 10, 2014 00:41
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Kadorhal posted:I remember back in the MW3 and Future Soldier threads, there were a few guys complaining about how every modern shooter has at least one showdown between a Blackhawk and a Hind, and the Blackhawk, despite being less-armored and having a smaller gun, wins every single time because of course it does You know, I don't think I've ever seen that outside of MW3 (and presumably Future Soldier; I've never played it). I've always seen Hinds fought with other combat choppers or anti-air weapons.
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Jul 10, 2014 12:23
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. I find it interesting that in this series, almost every Blackhawk you see gets shot down, whereas it takes one whole game, two expansions, and half of another game before a single Hind shares the same fate.
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Speedball posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhDxl4S5tkU Aw man, now I feel old. I remember when that video was new.
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Jul 11, 2014 10:52
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Snakefist? Snakefist?! SNAAAAAKKKEEEEFIIIISSSSSSST!!! It was fairly easy for me the first time, but we struggled back and forth for a few seconds.
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Jul 15, 2014 03:32
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Also, notice how Vanek's face changes as the gun gets closer and closer to him? That's actually part of the game and his face will dynamically change as the gun goes back and forth, with him looking more and more scared the closer it gets.
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Jul 15, 2014 17:28
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Earl of Lavender posted:Can the gun move back and forth during the QTE, or does it moving at all towards the player equal death? It'd be great if you could make Vanek alternate between pants-wetting terror and bellows of evil laughter. I'm hoping I remember this correctly (because I'll look like an idiot if I say something wrong), but yeah, it's a back-and-forth fight.
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Jul 16, 2014 00:39
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Well, I don't think defecting to Vanek would do much. The guy shows up already hating Beckett and viewing him as essentially a test subject freak that he needs to exterminate. He never even treats Beckett as anything but a target to shoot. Also, tying this in to FEAR 3: 1. The new Penetrator (basically the Hammerhead) is much more accurate than the Hammerhead, and they actually fling ragdolls at a stupidly high velocity to make it more likely that they'll stick to something. I once even caused a guy to get pinned to the ceiling because I shot him through the head from a story below him. However, they only occasionally appear as a few pickups (maybe 3 or 4) in the final part of the game and are only carried 6 enemies in the entire game. So whereas the Hammerhead can be a permanent part of your inventory, the Penetrator is essentially a disposable tool. 2. Monolith loves to put funny stuff in their games that you miss unless you specifically search for detail, like the cartoon Alma on the classroom boards. In FEAR 3, you can find Skittles and Almond Joy candies in a shop that are now "Fettles" and "Alma Joy".
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Jul 16, 2014 23:03
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