Widescreen Gaming Forum

Game of the year ! Absolutely !

But damn... too short... 8 hours of gameplay here :?

Game of the year ! Absolutely !

But damn... too short... 8 hours of gameplay here :?

Have no fear, they'll surely make an expansion pack for you to buy. :P

Game of the year ! Absolutely !

But damn... too short... 8 hours of gameplay here :?

That's a lot better than Max Payne 2. ;) I completed that in two sittings (six and a half hours total) and wondered if I missed about 50% of the game...

Ok, all I've seen here is ranting and raving about the game, and personally I'd like to tell all newcomers to not believe the hype.

I played the FEAR demo and here is my opinion... it's mediocre. For one thing, I had to run the game at mostly the lowest settings even on my 9500 Pro, and I still didn't get framerates above 40 (by contrast, I can run medium to high settings in HL2 and get framerates of 50 and above, with a 40 average). In short, the game looked worse and played slower than HL2 on the same hardware.

As far as gameplay goes, there was really nothing particularly innovative. Yes, I got the crap scared out of me a couple of times (I'm not saying the game isn't thoroughly spooky), but when it came to the combat, I just felt let-down. There was a single instance where the AI did something truly unique (a guy threw a grenade at me from behind cover), but otherwise it felt pretty much on par with Far Cry or HL2. The weapons were typical and the bullet time was just fluff. For a game that some claim appeals to CounterStrike players, I can tell you (as a CS lover) that this is not the case.

FEAR is a good game for some people, but for me it just felt like another ho-hum FPS trying to win everyone over with hyper-realistic graphics that only about 5% of gamers can enjoy to their full extent. And when graphics eclipse gameplay, I believe a grave mistake has been made. Glad I didn't drop good money to buy this one...

And when graphics eclipse gameplay, I believe a grave mistake has been made.

That is something I have to certainly agree with - graphics at the cost of an enjoyable game is something that shouldn't happen, but too often does now (*cough*Doom3*cough*). But this debate heads back into the realms of 'retro gaming is better', and we've already got a thread on something similar to that. ;) :lol:

However, I will just say that something was off if the AI only did something unexpected once - almost each time I engaged in a firefight the AI did something I didn't expect, and which forced me a couple of times to retreat and try a different tactic... once, unfortunately, during retreat I ran smack into one clever trooper who had circled round behind me.

In the end, FEAR was a step forward - but at the cost of as high a min spec as it had, I'm not certain that step was worth it...

Oh... and the full version of FEAR ran a lot better than the demo. :)

a new gfx engine is purely made to stress the GPU's, whats the point of having a game that doesnt? :)

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Unfortunately you can't always judge the game based on the demo any more. The final game runs faster and is a lot more fun than the demo. It's possible to tweak the game to run well on a midrange system, you'll just lose some of the efects. The gameplay in F.E.A.R. is a as good or beter than FC and HL2 and we all know that FC AI sucks. How many times did yuo pop a guy in FC and the other one standing few yards away wouldn't react? It's not hapenning in F.E.A.R. I still maintain that it's a great game ans yes it deserves the hype. As far as graphics, keep in mind that it's not just the look of the textures that's considered 'graphics' and there are more factors that affect game speed. Physics in F.E.A.R. are advanced too. There is a lot more to F.E.A.R. engine than: weapons effects, bullet holes, smoke and particles, etc.

Besides, how much innovation do you really expect from FPS these days? Most of the time they try to innovate they screw the game or make it too difficult/weird to enjoy. IMHO F.E.A.R. has great gameplay and great graphics and great AI to top it off, just needs a little tweaking. And this is next gen game. Both HL2 and FC are old games by now and Q4 isn't nearly as much fun according to many people and based on D3 engine which is also old by now.

And yes, 9500 is low end right now so you can't really expect to run a recent game on max settings. I'm on my 3rd card since I had 9800Pro, it was already too slow for me in HL2 and FC. I agree that this is a problem for many people but your only option is either to upgrade at least once a year or buy a console system to avoid the issue altogether.

I think the step was worth it. I wish more games would push the hardware further.

I played the FEAR demo and here is my opinion...

This is where I QUIT reading your post. I don't know whether to laugh at this or just seriously give some thought to having someone take you away in a strait jacket to a mental institution. OMG :roll:

[quote]
I played the FEAR demo and here is my opinion...

This is where I QUIT reading your post.
Indeed. It would have helped if he had a better system, and esepcially tried the full game rather than the demo. The way I perceive it is that all he's really doing is perhaps convincing people to stay away from the demo if they have a crappy system lol.