Fear

[ToddMcF2002]

I'm really late to the party on this one, but it never really grabbed my attention. I guess the concept of fighting soldiers in a office complex for 30 hours never really grabbed me. Turns out the combat is so much fun, the enemy so engaging and fun to watch and the level design so clever that it just works.

Nothing beats catching a soldier in the head while he is leaping over a wall. It just never gets old!

Anyway, great fun. "incoming!"

[Moriendor]

Yep. Great game and personally I found the expansions and even F.E.A.R 2 a lot better than their reputation. The second expansion starts out kind of lame but gets much better towards the mid and end game.
As for F.E.A.R 2, I was horribly disappointed when I first played the demo (due to some consolitis and the removal of some gameplay elements like leaning) but when I finally picked up the full version for cheap it was actually quite a blast to play through the game. The presentation of the story and the various settings was well done (great art direction) and the parts where you could slip into an armored mech with über firepower were a nice change from the run and gun gameplay.
I would definitely recommend to play through the whole "saga". As usual for first person shooters the expansions are pretty short and F.E.A.R 2 is just barely in the two-digit hour range as far as I remember. Personally I consider it to be a case of quality over quantity. It's good stuff.

[skavenhorde]

I second Moriendor's opinion. Great game. F.E.A.R. 2 was good while it lasted. I finished that one waaaayyyy too fast. I don't remember if it was just a short game or I couldn't stop playing it :D

[Dwagginz]

It wasn't the longest FPS, skaven, but it was still pretty good. I've only played the first in the series, and I stopped playing Extraction Point (Never got Perseus Mandate), possibly because I found out that the two expansions were heavily retconned by the second game.

HV Penetrator is still one of my favourite FPS weapons of all time, however.

[ToddMcF2002]

Well I just finished Fear, the original. Great stuff. I liked how it was plot driven as opposed to the big boss showdown. Thumbs up!

[JDR13]

FEAR is one of my favorite modern FPSs, and Extraction Point was just as good.

I was disappointed that they eventually decided to ignore the events of Extraction Point as being "non-canon", especially since it was a much better game than FEAR 2.


I stopped playing Extraction Point (Never got Perseus Mandate), possibly because I found out that the two expansions were heavily retconned by the second game.

My advice is to play Extraction Point, and just forget about FEAR 2.

[DArtagnan]

Hmm, never really bothered with this game.

Maybe I should give it another shot.

Thanks for the comments ;)

[ToddMcF2002]

Well finding FEAR is easy... finding Extraction Point is a whole other matter. Anyone have a reasonably priced source? I'm not paying Amazon $53!

[JDR13]

Do you have a PayPal account? If so, then Ebay is the way to go. If not, then get one. :)

How about $9.99+ $4 shipping? This guy (http://cgi.ebay.com/F-E-A-R-EXTRACTION-POINT-EXPANSION-PACK-PC-NEW-/220696305013?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item3362865d75) has 2 copies left so you might want to hurry.


This thread is really making me want to replay the original+ expansions again.

[JemyM]

I wasn't a fan of FEAR. I guess the concept of fighting soldiers in a office complex for 30 hours never really grabbed me.

Joke aside, I believe my beef was my expectations. FEAR was almost as scare-less as Resident Evil 4 to me. There were only maybe 1-2 scenes that grabbed me and the rest was just firing at these unnamed soldiers who's prescence I never really understood. This made me somewhat disconnected and kept the feeling that I was playing just-another-average-shooter. I also found the game somewhat repetitive with it's lack of foes.

FEAR was released in the same era as Condemned which in almost every aspect was the better game if you were expecting a horror game.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I was never much interested in FEAR. Too much horror-themed for me.

[Thrasher]

Well the enemy AI and sneaking factor plus judicious use of the bullet time feature is what made this series of games for me. Many encounters were like a puzzle to be solved or get massacred (this was on hard setting). Very fun, without a doubt!

You can get the original plus both expansions all together, dirt cheap, for $10 from direct2drive.com as I did. Well worth it!

http://www.direct2drive.com/9435/product/Buy-F.E.A.R.-Download

[ToddMcF2002]

Thanks Thrasher. Unfortunately I paid Direct2Drive and now I'm paying some more. >:O Their download tools are pretty bad. The first attempt using their generic "Download" utility failed and it somehow can't find the directory for the files it wrote. Executing the setup manually resulted in "Files incompatible with OS" which I think means a failed download. For the second attempt I'm using the "Gamespy Commando" tool they have on their site but with no documentation for. This time I had a network disconnect and "Commando" is too stupid to resume on its own so it sat there doing nothing until I hit resume. Sure makes me miss Vuse! Someday I hope to play the expansion. Good price though!

Anyway, thanks for the heads up Thrasher. It will work out eventually :)

[Thrasher]

Damn, that is a real shame. I've downloaded as recent as last summer the following with no problems:

- F.E.A.R. package
- BioShock
- Titan Quest Bundle
- Assassin's Creed Director's Cut
- Drakensang: The Dark Eye
- Prey

Maybe they've changed their system. It used to just be a simple standard http file transfer save as dialogue. I really hate frickin special downloader software that messes up your system. One of the reasons I haven't f'ed with impulse driven. Steam, I've bitten the bullet, and it works fine, but it took them literally YEARS to get it working correctly. PITA, if you ask me….

Is there a simple http download option like i used in the past? I'd go with that and avoid the download crap-ware, if possible…

EDIT: I just tested on my Mac using safari. It does a standard http file transfer download - no crap app.

Try using a browser like Safari, the more obscure the better minimizes the chance they got around to screwing it up.

[ToddMcF2002]

Well I need something with a "resume" because of the drops. At least the download manager "Gamespy Comrade" (not Commando whoops) has resume. Transfer rates are a joke though. 200KBS. I'm used to 1.2MBS. Estimated time... 16-30 hours. If it doesn't work this time I'm going to scream. We will see I guess!

[Thrasher]

It was super fast for me here (7 MB/sec). I'd say it's related to a connection limit on your end.

EDIT: or perhaps the use of a crap app.

[ToddMcF2002]

Could be. I've heard that Comcast plays games throttling. Its at 700kbs right now, so that's good. You're in CA right? What provider?

[Thrasher]

Yeah, I'm on a 10MB network at work now. Not sure who provides it.

[ToddMcF2002]

Ha ha I would be so fired.

[Thrasher]

Hey, I forgot to tell you. Beware of those large zip files. The windows built-in unzipper has bugs in XP, etc and has trouble unpacking these files - something to do with their large size.

Use a reliable 3rd party tool like WinZip or WinRAR.

Cheers!

[ToddMcF2002]

Well... played a few minutes of Fear 2 while I was waiting for the Fear 1 mission packs to finish. What happened to Q and E? No leaning around corners? Ugh. I used that constantly. That's really gonna bug me. Plus the progress save system reeks of console. Nice graphics though and the HUD is sort of cool.

[JDR13]

I hated the HUD in FEAR 2, much too intrusive and console style for my taste. They really consolized the entire game though, which was a primary reason I didn't like it.

I also didn't like how they drastically reduced the toughness of the enemy soldiers compared to the first game, in favor of simply throwing more of them at you.

[ToddMcF2002]

Well Direct2Drive finished up around 4AM that morning using "Gamespy Comrade" and the install went just fine. I'm about 2/3rds into Extraction Point and I do appreciate the increased difficulty on normal and the bleak storyline. Good stuff!

[Thrasher]

Glad it worked out for you!

[ToddMcF2002]

WOW is all I have to say about the outrageous difficulty of a few sequences in Perseus Mandate! I mean holy crap. I don't care to admit how many times I died in that game. It seemed like every few minutes I was walking into some big area with verticals and structures designed for enfilade. WASD and straining to orchestrate CTRL, Z, R, G and SHIFT just invites FPS panic!!! Overall I think I liked it better than Extraction Point but the are both great in their own right.

Gotta say, glad I'm done! I'm going to take a FEAR break now LOL. I'll try FEAR 2 after I rebuild the itch.

[Thrasher]

Yeah, it definitely was an adrenaline rush. There's no way I could have beat it without the use of the slow motion ability. :)

[Zloth]

F.E.A.R. was definitely a good one (http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2387/fear2007060819462051.jpg)! I got something else along with it - the expansion I think - and tried playing it right after I finished the first game. That wasn't so smart. I got bored pretty fast and never went back.

Still, definitely a memorable game. Too memorable sometimes. I keep trying to call the little girl in "The Ring" Alma. ;)

[ToddMcF2002]

Yup FEAR was great. It is repetitive but I just never got bored killing hordes of soldiers. I'm going to take my 5th stab at Quake4 I think. I've never played more than 10 minutes of it!

[orionjett]

FEAR is easily one of the games more intense and the atmosphere is going to play, and is a spectacular mix of horror and action. Can not help feeling that this is a game that is the spiritual successor to the original Half-Life.

[xSamhainx]

I wonder if the multiplayer is any good???

Just bought the "complete pack" off Steam for ten bucks, and have been looking for some good deathmatch lately. Anyone played MP???

[ToddMcF2002]

Looks pretty standard fare to me (based on youtube anyway). Modern Warfare 2 looks incredible, but I've never tried it.