Super Nerd Sundays Presents: The End of Fear!

The F.E.A.R. series (represented without its absurd capitalization or parenthesis for the rest of this diatribe) has always been near and dear to my heart. I’ve always had a soft spot for the first game ever since I first gave it a try, back in the hey day of amazing demos. Then the second game broke my heart twice: first when it came out and presented itself in a lackluster fashion, then again when I finally bought it as a sale item on Steam and it failed so thoroughly in every way that the first Fear game had succeeded that I lost faith in Monolith’s ability to create games.

The expansions which dotted the landscape leading up to the second game, long affairs that showed the legs that the first game, a franchise about a nameless protagonist killing purposefully generic bad dudes, also never drew me in. I’ve got copies sitting on my computer and I’d generally rather play Spectromancer than give those a whirl most days. Terraria’s old school action holds more appeal for me than beefed up versions of the first Fear game, resplendent with additional weapons I probably won’t use and new enemies that, judging by the demos I played long, long ago, I’ll probably find more frustrating than fun to play against.

All of this was actually kind of convenient, because I thought that Fear 3, or F.3.A.R. as it is being marketed in a noteworthily retarded way, was a game I could totally ignore. Between some absolutely terrible teaser trailers and news that the design was being taken over by Day 1 Studios, best known for Fracture, the ambitious and abjectly shitty game about changing the elevation of terrain in order to do damage. It was an unnecessary sequel to a franchise that started strong, squandered its good will and monetized itself in the most ridiculous way imaginable. Being able to play as a psychic ghost was, on its surface, not very interesting. Can you even shoot a psychic ghost, after all? And what’s the fun of being a superpowered ghost running around without any danger? What’s the point of an FPS without risk? I’d never have cared about the answers to these questions if Fear 3 hadn’t gotten positive buzz from critics I actually pay attention to (one of whom isn’t a critic at all).

The game answers these questions by making them completely irrelevant. You’re never playing an invincible superghost. In fact, the “dual play” option is something players unlock after playing through each level, so being able to play as Paxton Fettel is actually a bit of a reward. And while Paxton does some very, very interesting stuff, such as mind controlling enemies and blasting them with psychic power until their heads explode, the Point Man remains the focus of both the game’s development and the portion of it which most people will end up playing. And this is all bells and whistles for most players. Fear, the core of the Fear series, is about the Point Man and his abilities: holding a limited number of guns, using a limited number of guns and slowing down time pretty much whenever you feel like it.

Fear 2 inexplicably fucked up such a simple and almost perfect formula, pitting you against enemies that played like absolute ass, enemies which never acted up in an interesting way or added any interesting mechanics to the game. Ammo was always thrown at you, regardless of where you were in the game, and the story… Oh, the story. Fear kept its story relatively light, drawing heavily on semiotic themes and building itself around a shared cultural fears and knowledge: the abuse of children by their parents, a fundamentally horrifying trait of our society, and the slow building psychic and technological apocalypse of Akira, which hasn’t lost any of its relevance or canniness over the last two and a half decades. Fear 2 ousted this consistency of theme and tone, replacing these elements with a vague story about guys trying to find a girl who then end up getting surgery and having a bad time recovering from it. It’s set against a city where every set piece is either a red sky or a dark sewer, with one brief segment at the beginning in an underground lab which is apparently supposed to be a mock up of a real-world hospital.

And Fear 2’s shooting mechanics were toothless. Ammunition was abundant, the guns relatively samey and unsatisfying. Even the AI, one of the original Fear’s more impressive features for its time, was lackluster at best. Its sole redeeming moment was a bit of “what the fuck?” inserted as its coda, more of a fascinating comment on the nature of plot structure in video games than an earned conclusion to a well crafted story. On it’s own, Fear 2 was bad. Compared to the first Fear it fixed me with a feeling of betrayal.

It made me believe that Fear 3 would just be more of the same, a deeper descent into the shittiness that Fear 2 hinted at. I looked at Fear 3 with skepticism as a result. I thought I’d pick it up on sale in a few months, just to see what it tried to do with one of my old favorite games. I thought that, if anything, it would just further remove itself from the wonderful play of the original Fear. I was wrong, and I’m quite happy to say so.

It’s not quite right to say that Fear 3 is a return to form. It is, in a way. The guns in Fear 3 all have a great feel to them. They’ve all got their own purpose, their own mechanics and their own ammo, almost always acquired by walking over spare guns found in crates and corpses. And managing that ammo is a bit of a challenge, just as was the case in the original Fear. It’s a matter of making a simple, difficult decision: do you match your ammo use to the guns readily available to you? Or do you hold on to that gun you love and fire sparingly, hoping to find some more rounds around the next corner? And the bullet time is great – perfectly utilized, along with some satisfying, effective iron sights. The levels are well designed and the AI is great and varied perfectly. Enemies will act aggressively or carefully. They’ll dart from behind cover and try to flank you. They’ll even try to flush you from your position with grenades. Even the frustrating ghosts from the first Fear, one of them things I hated about the original game, are back. But there’s a lot of new stuff going on here, a number of new mechanics which contribute to all the goodness that came from the first Fear.

Fear 3 also throws in some of the mechanics Fear 2 brought to the table, things like mech segments. I’m still not crazy about these, but at least Fear 3 makes them part of navigating the level where Fear 2 just made them ways to churn through droves of enemies in short order. These segments have a more polished, puzzle-game feel than the mech segments of old. They’re a break from the combat, a puzzle that involves using a mech to destroy blocking terrain and heavy vehicles instead of hunting for a button. There are also grenade types again, although these are actually useful for a change. Fear 3 had me using flashbangs to blind and flank my opponents, something I’d never have done in Fear 2.

And the cover system is brand new to the series. Fear 2 hinted at the idea of moving benches, medical instruments and desks about a foot to create cover, which was about as useful as my English degree. Fear 3 has added a Rainbow Six style first-person cover system where you pop and fire at enemies after binding yourself to an obstacle. It’s surprisingly fun, and it works well with another new addition borrowed from other games – regenerating health. Normally this isn’t something I like in my horror games (nothing makes a game less tense than being able to sit in a corner until your wounds heal) but with the cover system it works surprisingly well. The fact that enemies will make appropriate use of cover helps too. Certain enemies even get the regenerating health ability that is normally reserved for the player character, as I discovered during one particularly infuriating boss fight. All of this goes towards making a very fun and fresh, if traditional in its roots, corridor shooter.

And as I mentioned earlier, there’s the introduction of Paxton Fettel as a playable character mixing things up. But this is less of a big deal than you’d think – Fettel still plays a lot like the Point Man, especially when he’s inhabiting something else’s body. He’s fun, and he’s new, but he’s not that amazing on his own. I imagine he’ll completely revolutionize any kind of co-op play I get myself into, but I haven’t had a chance to try any yet so that’s pure speculation. I’m more excited at the prospect of co-op, in fact, than I am at the prospect of playing a rage filled psychic ghost.

See, Fear 3’s co-op is kind of unique. And kind of hard to explain. Because it takes all of those mechanics I mentioned earlier and wraps them up in its co-op system by tying them to a point system in the campaign mode. Players are scored based on how well they complete challenges during a level. These can vary from getting a certain number of kills with a certain gun to spending a certain amount of time in cover to shooting enough people in the head. If there’s a mechanic in the game, there’s likely an achievement which will reward you for its proper use. And, in co-op, you’re being scored against your teammate. So while you’re slowing down time and getting headshots your companion might be inhabiting bodies and racking up kills with a possessed enemy. And only one of you can actually win.

Even if you don’t win those points are all going somewhere. Fear 3 has replaced its collectible upgrade system with a leveling system that uses these points. Fans of collectibles don’t despair – collectibles still abound, though now they just reward experience points to diligent players instead of health or slow-mo time. And Fear 3’s levels tier more than just player health and bullet-time. Ammunition storage, special melee attacks and extra grenades have all arrived on my doorstep because I decided to take the time to shoot three people in slow motion during the course of each level. And these upgrades endure between games. Each time you play you’re building up an enduring catalog of bonuses that will manifest themselves in unexpected ways. So far I haven’t seen any that are unique to Fettel, but I’m keeping an eye out.

This would be enough to recommend Fear 3. But apparently Day 1 shocked everyone and decided to also wrap a multiplayer game based on frenemy mechanics in to Fear 3’s package. And they decided to limit the player count to four, an unthinkable thing to do in the present day of game design. I haven’t taken time to actually explore any of these options (my multiplayer gaming of late has mostly been focused on RTSes, and the time I might’ve spent exploring these options on my own has been spent preparing for a cross-country move) but they’ve been generating substantial buzz. I’m not sure they’ll sustain themselves, much in the same way that Assassin’s Creed 2: Broterhood’s revolutionary multiplayer did not, but I’m pleased to see people recognizing new things as new and giving developers credit for trying to do something original.

Which isn’t something I ever thought I’d write about a Fear game. They always were derivative, even at their best. But Day 1 has taken the derivative shooter and made it into something great. They’ve taken mechanics we knew and loved, or maybe hated, and they’ve wrapped them in a shiny new package with things like point scoring, enduring leveling and original takes on what it means to play games competitively and cooperatively. They’ve taken a bullet time mechanic that they refined from the days of Max Payne and they’ve crafted it into part of a larger game about managing resources. They’ve taken the corridor shooter, the first person standard of old, and made it into something fresh. And that alone is worth the fifty dollars you’d spend to give Fear 3 a try.