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Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:10:27 - F.E.A.R. (PC) |
One thing I love about a good first person shooter is the sense of godlike power it makes you feel over an enemy. In Unreal Tournament 2004 you're given the ability to "fly," in Half Life 2 you have telekinesis via the gravity gun, and in F.E.A.R. you have the ability to slow your perception of time and use insanely fast reflexes. The way these special abilities are used can make or break a game. In F.E.A.R.'s case, they keep the game from being completely boring and repetetive.
As the game progresses, the enemies gain an increasing advantage due to the complicated level design. The best way to describe these levels is "maze-like." There are multiple routes to the same place and many ways to get lost trying to find your objective. The artificial intelligence has superior awareness of the level layout, while the player is oftentimes lost. Furthermore, the enemy can use the environment in ways the player can't: they can flip tables over to use as cover, they can crawl under objects and they can dive through windows. In this game, enemies don't just run at you and shoot; they coordinate their movements, they call commands and warnings to each other, they provide cover fire, they flank and they retreat to amass reinforcements. Their superior speed, numbers and reaction times make them a worthy adversary to even a veteran first person shooter player. In short, the enemy artificial intelligence in F.E.A.R. is second to none. This makes defeating them all the more satisfying.
Being able to slow time down and react to things faster than humanly possible has always been a little fantasy of mine since grade school, and F.E.A.R.'s implementation of this ability is perfectly executed. When you go into reflex booster mode there's the obligatory "beeoooooowww" slow-mo noise. Colors become more saturated, and a radial blur obscures the corners of the screen for a tunnel-vision effect. Gunfire tracers similar to those in the Matrix become visible. Sparks, debris and smoke are shooting everywhere as chunks get knocked off of corridor walls, leaving visible holes. And a well-placed shotgun shot to an enemy torso sends him flying back, crashing into other enemies and knocking them off balance. Watching grenades and exploding gas cannisters (which happen to be conveniently placed in an office building) is a real treat. Visually, this effect couldn't be more compelling and whipping through enemies this way is really adrenaline inducing and visceral.
The slow motion gimmick is what saves this game from being completely sub-par. The superior story and enemy intelligence alone wouldn't be able to rectify the monotony of fighting through the same environments hour after hour. If the designers had only made some variety to the locales, this game would be an easy 10 out of 10. As it is, F.E.A.R. is a flawed, but extremely satisfying shooter that I'm enjoying playing through for the third time.
This entry has been edited 3 times. It was last edited on Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:22:54.
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Jan 17th, 2007 at 16:45:49 - F.E.A.R. (PC) |
The game was crashing when my CPU was overclocked from 1.86ghz to 3.33ghz, (even though I was Prime/Othos stable). So I swapped my motherboard out for a better one and now it's rock solid at 3.25ghz. At these speeds, gameplay is very smooth and immersive. It's games like this that define the PC as a platform: kind of unstable, a little buggy, nothing too innovative, but fast as heck and totally immersive if you have the specs to keep up with it.
Anyway, I got through the first couple of chapters (termed "Intervals") of this game. It's hard to take much of it without freaking out. The game is very spooky and all sorts of supernatural events are happening. There's a lot of gore. The enemies are completely devious. On medium difficulty it feels like you're playing online against some fairly good players. I've never played a game with this level of artificial intelligence. The enemies work together and recognize your moves, calling out commands and warnings to each other, "He's trying to flank!"
The real drawback to this game is how monotonous it is. You're fighting through very similar environments the whole way through. It's pretty much all basements and office buildings. They mix it up a little bit, but you really don't feel like you've been anywhere special at the end of the game. (These are some gigantic office buildings. Like unbelievably gigantic.) Also, a lot of the story revelation is very weak. Like you have to sit and listen to peoples voicemail, and usually its stuff like, "Bob? Are you there? I thought I heard an explosion! OMG I'm scared." The story itself is better than most shooters but not great. It would have been cool to have the same level of AI and story in more varied environments like in Far Cry.
At least the action is keeping this game interesting. It really gets my heart rate and adrenaline going. This is a game you will forget about in a year or two.
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Jan 17th, 2007 at 16:32:39 - Super Mario Bros (NES) |
It's weird to go back to this game after so many years. I've been spoiled by fancy graphics and sound. The game was running at > 300 FPS until I turned VSync on, now it's much smoother.
This is probably one of my most favorite games of all times. I must have spent hundreds of hours playing it as a kid. I remember saving a hammer suit from the Ice World until Bowser's castle and using it to kill him in 3 hits, instead of letting him kill himself as usual.
Anyway, it was fun to play this game again today. I still remember where all the secret whistles are. Even though I'm horribly out of practice and kept dying, I was still enjoying the nostalgia of this game. This game is the easiest Mario game on the NES, as it's very liberal about doling out 1ups and continues. That's alright because the game is so big, it would be a huge drag to get halfway through and then have to start over.
It took me an hour just to get a third of the way through the third world (going for 100% completion). I'm really out of practice at this...
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Jan 11th, 2007 at 21:52:44 - Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC) |
Well, I beat it. I think I must have clocked in a little less than five hours. The game really picked up for the last third, and there were some really awesome action sequences. I finally got used to the fact that this expansion was more of the same environments from the first game, and given some solid action sequences, actually found the game to end up being enjoyable, quite enjoyable.
I had fun fighting through an evil hospital filled with soldiers and zombies. At the end of this part, you and Alyx are in the attic and a gunship is blasting the whole place to smithereens. Really, it seemed like the whole area was destructible, as the floor would fall out from beneath you when the gunship shot it. Combined with great sound effects, fantastic visuals, and some decent electronic music, this part really got my adrenaline going (finally).
The game ended pretty abruptly and the story was (of course) inconclusive. Here's to wishing they hadn't delayed Episode 2 until this summer :(
I think I'll play through this game again sometime when I'm in a consistently better mood.
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Zinn has been with GameLog for 17 years, 9 months, and 14 days |
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