Yes, the graphics are dated but the gameplay is absolute fire and it has the best enemy A.I. of any shooter I've played by a long shot. F.E.A.R. is I dare say a true masterpiece of the shooter genre. I cannot think of a single shooter in the last 10 years that comes even close to how good F.E.A.R. is.
It truly is scandalous how game developers 20 years ago and longer were able to create timeless classics that still hold up today (as long as you can get them to run on modern systems) but game developers of today can't even create decent games with completely overblown budgets.
Comparing the diversity of games of the late 90s and 00s with today is truly soul crushing. The shooter genre alone was incredibly diverse. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Counterstrike, Half Life, F.E.A.R., Unreal Tournament, Quake, Crysis, Max Payne, Painkiller, Dead Space, you name it. And don't get me started on the now almost extinct RTS genre.
It really is painful to look back and see how with the end of the 00s the games industry has turned into one big copying machine trying to recreate one smash hit over and over and shitting out abominations that get worse with every iteration until a new smash hit appears and the cycle repeats.
And if shitty gameplay wasn't bad enough modern games also have abysmal performance and blurry, smudgy, shitty graphics with constant ghosting and other artifacts because every asshole uses Unreal Engine 5.
I just want to play good games. Fuck.
The medium has so much potential when the writing isn't done by danger hairs and the programming isn't done by jeets.
Game design too. It's not just the writing and coding that's shit. If at least the gameplay of modern AAA titles was good but that's the thing they fuck up the most.
F.E.A.R. is a classic. Just shooting the guns in it feels better than any other game I've played.
It's incredible. Everything feels great. You feel like a goddamn (albeit very squishy) god gunfuing through the levels. The only downside are the dated graphics although it depends on the level. Some levels hold up pretty great. Some not so much. And the character faces are obviously pretty bad for todays standards.
Fortunately I'm not a graphics whore so I much prefer outdated but for their time good graphics over UE5 slop.
You know what you never see anymore? Hanging lights that swing around when immense force is applied (a nearby exploding grenade).
Not only that. Dust and debris hanging in the air making it impossible to see. FEARs graphics are in many aspects very outdated but these effects held up incredibly well.
Helldivers has some really good atmospheric effects. There's something magical about seeing automaton eyes twinkle through the fog and knowing there's a whole rest of a squad with them.
The best part is F.E.A.R's AI was technically fairly simplistic https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/three-states-plan-ai-of-fear.pdf
Modern games really are slop
“Hurr durr graphics better”- Every Reddit dipshit claiming the Resident Evil 2 remake is the greatest game ever.
I like that particular remake :(
how does the enemy AI in fear compared to halo?
From my decades old recollection I think it might have been better. They didn't have the little touches like losing morale and running away like halo, but their combat tactics were very dynamic.
They wouldn't get stuck in a loop repeatedly peaking from the same piece of cover, they'd take some shots from one location and relocate constantly. And seemed like they were weighted to coordinate so that they would prefer to move from cover to cover when another was firing at you.
[Edit] oh and looking at some gameplay videos to confirm, they also had the nice touch that the last squad member standing wouldn't call out everything to a roomfull of corpses. Not shouting "grenade!" for just your enemy is an Einstein move for your average FPS grunt.
Pretty sure they did have morale-like variables. If a squad started losing men I think they started doubling back a bit and fortifying their position a bit more.
When you rush into a room and surprise them they also tend to try to retreat into a better position. Which is a very nice touch. They actually feel intelligent even though they arent.
Yeah maybe so too, I just know they didn't fully turn tail and run like the halo grunts would sometimes.
Oh yeah, they definitely maintained a certain level of persistence. But without being overly reckless like some game AI.
GOAP is what the system was dubbed. Goal Oriented Action Planning.There's published papers about how the AI worked, and there's been a few iterations of AI systems loosely based on some of its design concept.
Just like with anything though, GOAP may not fit well for some game AI needs. It's a very closed-loop kind of system, which wouldn't make it especially ideal for an open world environment like in an Elder Scrolls game, where you might want the AI to have more dynamic and overridable behavior.
I would say it's situational.
Keep in mind that in Halo there were sandbox levels with vehicles, and one of the cool parts abuut it is that if you drove a vehicle up to AI teammates, they would hop on with you, or drive it themselves.
Another neat thing was that if you drove a vehicle into an area with the enemy and disembarked, they would take that vehicle and use it for themselves and provide cover fire for their teammates to advance.
However, Halo required an entire subroutine of nodes baked into the level for the enemy AI to behave the way they did, and it could take up to eight hours to bake a level with all of the different ways an AI could behave in that level.
It's been at least 20 years since I've played Halo 1 so it's hard to say. Also Halo is very different game from FEAR. I'd suggest to check out Mandalores review. He sums it up pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z-oSpuIhw4
Both FEAR and Halo enemy AI is pretty good. I have to give the win to FEAR though but that's because the level design and the AI designer worked together. The AI in Halo has good movement and tactics that they'll use against you. However in FEAR they will use aspects of the environment semi-unscripted. They will pull down book cases to use for cover and crawl through low hanging areas to try and get the flank on you.
Completely different in a way that makes it real hard to compare, because they both fit so well into their respective games.
I'd say Halo is a little better purely because there's more variety of enemies so it feels a bit more varied.
The enemies in FEAR don't have the same character as they do in Halo.
Neither are bad though.
Compare all the industries back then run by White men vs. whatever we have now.
Another one I "recently" replayed again: Riddick escape from Butcher Bay. Played it years and years ago when it came out on the original Xbox, game is STILL good for a semi-movie tie in game. Even with those they bothered to make a good effort. Sure, gunplay isn't amazing but the whole stealth aspect of it was great for its time.
Check out Trepang2. It’s a spiritual successor to FEAR.
I did. There's something about the game that turned me off. The graphics look too 'soft' for a lack of a better word and something about the gameplay was a bit boring. Although I might've turned it off too quickly. I returned it within the 2 hour window.
EDIT: Thinking about it I might've also made the mistake of not playing it on the highest difficulty.
The difficulty scaling in the game is a bit wonky admittedly. Since Trepang2 has a few boss enemies, which isn't as much of a thing in the FEAR games.
Like I said I don't know what exactly turned me off anymore. I don't have a problem with high difficulties. But Trepang 2 looks and feels boring and if I remember correctly the levels I played were mostly if not exclusively horde/wave levels. I distinctly remember being in some sort of office lobby and having to hack servers and every time you start to hack a server a new wave starts. For a horde shooter I need appealing visuals otherwise I'll just get turned off.
That's totally fair. I mean I honestly think Trepang2 while decent for what it was (very small dev team), it did not have the same kind of polish that FEAR had. Lots of things like you mentioned that just felt a little off somehow.
It's definitely impressive for a four man team. And I just saw that it uses Unreal Engine 4. That probably explains why I don't like the visuals of the game.
mama alma...
Ironically FEAR 3 was one of the games to help create that trend. It wasn't the worst game ever, or even bad really, but it wasn't a great FEAR title. People love to bring up Halo and CoD in these conversations as online successes, but it was companies trying to chase the multi-player dragon that messed a lot of other franchises up. They wanted to force a multi-player mode because FEAR had some cool mechanics but in the end it just destroyed the atmosphere and focus of the game. It was painfully short and a lousy finale for the series.
But hey, it had multi-player.
FEAR 2 ends with the main character being raped, live, onscreen, by the villain.
And the player experiences it through the victim's eyes.
Imagine.
And she's not as hot as the villain from Far Cry 3.
It had phenominal A.I
enemies were actually trying to kill you while also trying to stay alive (i.e not standing in the Open like retards)
Or rushing you like zerglings.
yeah, once their morale shattered they either starting losing combat effectiveness or they became fanatical in an attempt to avenge their comerades
the A.I seemed very human, i wonder who programmed it?
I'll have you know that many games developers post here and swear that pajeets don't know how to overload assets with ridiculous clunk and stuttering lag the way that true, homegrown, clankers know how to.
They'll tell you that game development has never been finer and only the very best know how to make games that capture the true spirit of gaming.
Personally I can't wait for frameworks to be defined within an AI process which removes all of the bloat that shitty games devs put together while calling anyone that notices either racist or not standing by the home turf when it comes to numbers and balancing them.
AI is not going to improve things. It'll only make things worse. Which is fine by me as the majority of AAA games are already unplayable garbage.
Ever play Operation Wolf without a mouse?
Jeets hate reality, that’s why. Their reality is literal shit.
The biggest thing about the AI in Fear is that they tell you what they're doing. If an enemy sneaks up behind you without you knowing then you will just assume it cheated.
Not always. They managed to surprise me several times by sneaking up behind me because I didn't pay attention.
Yeah but that's still fine because it calls out what it's "thinking" some of the time. If it didn't call out at all, like in a different game, people would assume they just teleported behind them.
This is part of the reason they want to make remakes so badly: if the remake takes over the original in the popular consciousness, it'll become the new baseline for expectations for what games should be striving for. "Continue to lower the bar" has been the (((establishment))) mantra of the past 20 years.
The other part of why remakes are made is cynical audience milking, which sadly works all too well.
Something I miss is how from that era the environment had such a real feel. Glass breaks, objects on desks and shelves go flying, make noise if you bump into them l etc.
All that left behind to create a rigid plastic world that has “good graphics” on a trailer so the people who bought a PS4 will feel like they got something for it
Plastic world... you hit the nail on the head. I was thinking what bothered me about modern graphics and it's exactly that. They look like plastic. I especially hate the Unreal look. The blurriness and artifacts of TAA don't help either.
I much prefer the sharp and rough look of the old 'hyperrealistic' graphics or simply stylized graphics. This focus on hyperrealism is not my cup of tea.
I find TAA far less egregious than I've always found FXAA. FXAA always made me feel like I had full on foggy glasses or something.
I do wish more games included SMAA though. Especially since SMAA isn't even owned or licensed, and should usually be pretty easy to incorporate.
I've been on a GMod binge lately. I'm of the mind that using older engines like Source and IdTech4 are the way to go. There's all kinds of graphical enhancing add ons now; I've seen Half-Life 2 in 4k!
It’s pretty strange that people enjoy the same hobbies as they grow up. It’d be like someone who spends a lot of time watching movies as a kid to continue to do so as an adult or someone that played football in high school watching the NFL and college as an adult. It’s rather bizarre and I’ve no idea why it shows up so much on kotakuinaction2 so much.
Have you ever taken a look at the banner? The person is holding a video game controller.
Ill also say, gaming used to be a nerdy thing, played by nerds, and made by nerds. Gaming is shit now because its completely saturated by normies who make games for children to rape their parents credit card.
When I was a kid I lived in bumfuck nowhere, even when I had a nintendo you can only play the same handful of games so many times. I consumed alot of books as well. In fact I have this insatiable urge to read. Its a shame I dont use my full "potential" but holy fuck man.
I had dreams of visiting egypt, and owning a home and all that shit. But then I was poisoned for a few dollars by some shit head like you that thinks that money is all that matters.
And ive been suffering ever since being made fun of by people who think im just lying for a few dollar payout. Its fucking pathetic and sad, and I hope the world fucking burns lmao.
If jesus existed, humanity didnt deserved to be the saved the first time around. But thanks for your boomer view, its much appreciated. Back when minimum wage could buy you a house and all that bullshit.
What a dumb thing to say, you say dumb things sometimes.
Are the sequels any good? I was thinking of picking up a copy after reading this and saw that they're all pretty heavily discounted on steam right now.
FEAR 2 already leans into the Call of Duty trend of the time. Based on what I've seen in Mandalores review I'm choosing to skip the sequels and only play the addons of the first games.
Based on my hazy recollection from way back the second one is pretty solid, though it was pretty hit and miss if you loved or hated the story. Monolith made both Condemned* games in between the two and you can tell they improved a bit from doing so.
The expansions were not good and the third game was by one of Microsofts random "porting" companies and it shows. Ironically the company who made it would rename themselves and become the devs behind World of Tanks a few years later.
*Condemned 2 still has probably the meatiest and most fun FPS gameplay I've ever played, and its tacked on multiplayer actually manages to use horror as a gameplay element while being incredibly fun. Its a shame that, unlike the first game, its locked to the PS3/360 with zero ports and its emulation is unplayable.
There's 2 addons to the original which are better then FEAR 3, FEAR 2 isn't as good but still good.
Playing F.E.A.R. for the first time is a real treat. Aside from the questionable reactions and decisions from characters but that's minor.
Spec Ops: The Line as well if you're not already acquainted with it.
Have it. Started playing it. But I'm not a fan of third person cover console shooters. I just don't like the gameplay of cover shooters. But it won't disappear from my Steam library so maybe one day I'll play through it.
Play through it in easy, mowing down the soldiers on easy actually adds to the story in a certain sense.