TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY

FEAR

Wrote this back when it was relevant. I hope enough time has now passed that I can post it without pretensions of currency.

Central to FEAR is this idea of being surrounded by armoured grunts in a classy office, bullet trails streaking in all directions in slow motion, dust and sparks exploding all around, then blowing one of them in half with the shotgun and launching into a flying kick at another while he shouts a slow-mo deepened “Fuck!” They got that exactly right, and it’s one of the all-time top ten essential gaming experiences everyone should have before they die.

But it sometimes feels like they didn’t know what to do around that. Their attempts to deviate from that formula for variety’s sake – excluding the horror sections – are all rather awkward. The extra-tough enemies are dull, the turrets are a chore to destroy, the flying robots are desperately incongruous and almost impossible to defeat stylishly, and the psychic demons that can hurt you and be shot are a catastrophic midjudgement. Instead of being scary and fun to fight, they’re neither – that they’re vulnerable to bullets makes them mundane, and that they zoom mindlessly towards you makes them insultingly poor opponents.

The one exception is the stealth troop type – they’re both genuinely different and great fun. But even that gives rise to a further frustration – they’re horribly under-used. Especially given that they are both scary and fun to fight, and that’s clearly what they wanted from the later levels. Instead, they’re replaced by the aforementioned physical demon things in the last levels, and then and there FEAR drops from one of the best games ever made to merely something with a lot of potential. All other quibbles are barely that – quirks, more like; blemishes in a beautiful skin.

It still feels like a 90% game to me, despite everything, so I shall specify some of the things it does better than anyone else ever before. I hearby give FEAR the following awards:

• Best FPS Combat – a big one, but well-earned.
• Best Enemy ‘Barks’ – for ‘Fuck!’, “Shit!’, “Fuck, shit!”, “Shut the fuck up!” and “No fucking way!”. I honestly never thought I’d have to take this award away from Far Cry’s mercenaries with their twin classics “Yeah yeah!” and “I’m going to shoot you in the face!”
• Best Costume Design – the grunts are all functionally identical, but they sport a range of genuinely stunning uniforms. They’re sleek, they’re formal, they come in tasteful colours (particularly the crimson/white/black one later on) and yet they look like they mean business. Sadly there isn’t a specific credit for costume design in games, since technically they’re not costumes (“These clothes are my skin!” – prize for placing the (mis)quote), but I’m inclined to credit these outfits to John Turner, Senior Character and Weapon artist.
• Best Shotgun – sorry Half-Life 2, but holy shit this is a good shotgun.
• Best AI – I know it has its flaws, but the deciding factor is that these are the only enemies that continually surprise me.
• Best Explosion – and I mean ever. I’m not even restricting this to games. This beats Akira.
• Most Arbitrary Plot Twist – for the one after the credits. “Er, okay.” I’m willing to be corrected on this one – I know there’s a lot of hot competition.
• Best Enemy – for the grunts. If I have to be specific, let’s say one in a blue-grey/white uniform, using a shotgun. Cool, challenging and incredibly satisfying to beat up.
• Best Enemy In A Supporting Role – for the stealth dudes. Creepy, cunning and brilliantly acrobatic.
• The Sands Of Time Award For Worth-Copying Contribution To The Genre – for the melee combat. Take note, everyone: we need melee moves, they need to be powerful and we need to be able to do them without switching away from our regular weapon.