F.E.A.R. on GOG - gog.la/FLASHLIGHT THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo Steam only sells the ENTIRE TRILOGY of games as one package now. You can't buy FEAR standalone anymore, which sucks.
8:55 The number of callouts is completely shocking tbh. I'll never forget one time I was trying to take out a squad silently from a crawlspace above one of the office rooms, only for one of the clones to witness my location and shout, "He's in the ceiling!" One of the most memorable experiences I've ever had with a game
I never noticed this before, but- there's seperate callouts for "behind the couch" and "behind the sofa". I don't even know there's a difference between them, or what it is. I thought they were the same thing, like soda/pop. I guess that's why I'll never be a psychic supersolider ;_;
@@dontatmetillyouvebeenoutside no? That's a divan, or a daybed, or a chaise longue. Sofa/couch are basically interchangeable, but out of the two 'couch' has the stronger connotation of lying down or lounging.
“If Dragon’s Dogma taught me anything, it’s that wolves hunt in packs.” I hate this quote so much, I probably love it even more for being hilarious and true
@@yoboikamil525 in open world RPG games like Skyrim or Fallout there's always that one line every one quotes, for Dragon's Dogma it's the various obvious "tips" said by your party members, like wolves hunting in packs or everyone being weak to fire.
The best AI isn't the one so advanced it outsmarts the player, it's the one that make the player feel like they prevented a clever attempt to get outsmarted.
@@uliloolilu780 That is neat...unless you're deaf. Or hard of hearing. I like how Crysis did it, where grenade indicators were linked to difficulty/options. So, that way, you can fine tune your experince.
PC gaming was for a long time exclusive to "the elite". You had to set up boot discs, know DOS commands, configure sound drivers, troubleshoot windows and hardware was expensive... These days every "idiot" can afford and use a computer and "idiots" usually have much lower expectations. They don't care about the AI (or story) in FarCry still being completely stupid as long as there are more virtual people to shoot. Shit, imagine the AI was actually any good. Thousands of dollars invested into good AI, half the players complain about the "unfair difficulty", impacting reviews and sales negatively ... no, we can't have that. Make stupid games for stupid people. Make them so stupid that nobody smart would want to buy them, because that might lead to negative feedback from them. We're too smart to pre-purchase some average-at-best FPS game or fall for microtransactions in singleplayer games and we're a minority. Big publishers don't care about us anymore. If you're still looking for games to progress like they did 15-20 years ago, you have more faith in humanity than I have.
Actually metro Exodus might have done it. If your by a tree, enemies will call out that you're by a tree. Also, as you kill more of them, they group together more, and stay in lighted areas
The thing I loved most as a teen when FEAR came out was just how ridiculously visceral it was. Only reason then I was fortunate enough to play FEAR on high graphics settings was for some reason or another my parents went and got a new computer that was just maxed out in early 2005. I don't remember what the graphics card or CPU models were. I just know it had 2GB of RAM and some odd number for the CPU, like 2.3GHz. I just knew for at the time, those numbers were pretty nice and FEAR ran like smooth butter on warm toast. Though in hindsight, I think somebody really worked to upsell the good stuff to them. I do remember Mom being both shocked and amazed by what she saw when I was playing the game. Though I think she left the decision to Dad and he basically said, "Bah, he's seen stuff like Event Horizon and Terminator and all that. This isn't so bad." Funny. In retrospect he basically saw it as me interacting with a movie.
@@blueshit199the AI misses shots even with the particle weapon, so even without taking into account the random bullet spread they're far from aimbots the resistant to headshots thing is kind of necessary, since you could just sit and pop the heads of enemies without really engaging them, you're complaining about something that makes the game better
Someone needs to mention that this game had two of the best weapons ever put in a fps. The spas12 combined with this games physics engine was transendant, far and away the most satisfying shotgun in modern gaming. And the spike gun, that gun could hang a replicant by his big toe from a flg pole and trust me, it never got old.
You reminded me how I once bolted a guy to the wall in a way that made him just stand as usual, only to then get scared of him ("did I miss an enemy?!") when I finally went back around to his position...
The only thing I dislike in DS1 is the rigid structure of the game. Go to a new place by train, do something in that place, go back to the train, repeat. BUT it's also the only reason I can force myself to play and acctually scary horror game - the clear structure gives youobvious drop out points, and knowing just how much more of the level there is pushes you forward very well. I preffer playing DS2 - the gunplay in that game is SO good - but if I had to put just one of them in a time capsule, I'd put DS1 in there. The atmosphere in that game is just fenomenal.
@@thebabahyuck6666 I would say touch the third, but in coop mode, personally it was a lot more fun in coop, of course the third one kind of deviated from the first two games in terms of feel. Other people even argue that the second dead space wasn't even worth attention
One of my top moments from radio chatter. Frantically engaged in close combat and I fire off my shotgun as I retreat just as the enemy retreats round the corner. Status unknown but I am close to death. The enemy squad leader radios in. "You okay?" I turn round and see a severed head squirting blood roll round the corner and on the other side is the body it was once attached to. So that's a no 'Sarge, I thought. "Move up!" Orders squad leader. "Fuck you." Says a replica. "Negative" Says another. Mfw these clones know FEAR...
@@jerrycan1756 It may have only been a player prompt but more games, especially shooter gallery types. need enemy NPC radio chatter to be included and fleshed out because the feeling of satisfaction from knowing you broke your enemies' will to fight is simply superb.
Extraction Point also has one of my favorite moments in gaming. It's the point where you're working your way to the rescue Jin, one of your teammates. She is trapped in a room with the invisible stalker enemies. She radios you and you can hear the despair in her voice. She says something like: "Those things are here with me... You're not coming are you?" Her giving up hope like that sent chills through me while also stacking the urgency. And when you do finally get to her, she is dead. No rescue is made. You were too late and she died in terror and despair cowering in a room surrounded by nightmares. Her death along with that of the other solider on your original team of three makes the xpac exceedingly bleak, and I love it for it. It's some of my favorite few hours of gaming ever.
Extraction Point just had this overwhelming feel of complete loneliness whereas in the base you were always in contact with your teammates which kinda diminished the horror somewhat.
I always had a soft spot for Perseus Mandate, partially because I really liked just how little the mercs cared about the supernatural stuff they were dealing with. I remember one moment where you hear one of them calmly telling the rest of the mercs over the radio that shadow demons just killed several of their men, so they should make sure to stay in the light, as if that's just a completely normal bit of advice to give. Made it feel like you were dealing with a bunch of badasses who were so experienced that even ghosts didn't phase them.
FEAR's nailgun was one of the most satisfying weapons in gaming history. Nothing better than the awesome sound effect and sparks and blood from the hit, watch them fly five meters through the air, get impaled on a wall and dangle around.
10:06 Mandalore reacting to the fake jumpscare: "Oh, I guess it was nothing" Me : Pissing myself because of the guy that just appeared behind him out of nowhere.
I was thinking the same thing, when I found the body I thought “Is this going to jump at me or what?”, then I saw that arm in my left shoulder and scared the shit out of me.
Funnily enough, I didn't find the base game all that scary, maybe a little creepy at times but wasn't really jumpscared by anything. Extraction Point was way more spooky for some reason, probably because of increased emphasis on the paranormal. But the one actual jumpscare I had happened in, believe it or not, early in Perseus Mandate when I walked in a dead end, turned to leave and walked into the apparition of that one dude that just said "is anyone here?". Maybe I was just unprepared to expect spooky stuff yet because it was like the first or second level so I got legit jumpscared there lol.
@@abadenoughdude300 Not even the ghosts at the end of the game? They scared the shit out of me as a teen, the way they spawned anywhere and just directly flew towards you worked SO well
This review was excellent, really captures what made the game good (and bad). Something that should be pointed out: Monolith also developed The Matrix Online at the same time as this game, and by all accounts it is quite clear which one got more effort put into it. Shame the F.E.A.R. franchise never really went anywhere after the first game.
fear 2 was okay. fear 3 not even half as good as fear 2. But at that point i was more interested in the story than gameplay. fear 3 gameplay felt like a huge downgrade from the first game. Second one was closer to fear 1 but not as good either but better than 3.
fuck most people then, the OG game had the complexity of quake and the movement of a tank when you were walking on foot, it worked when you where in a vital suit but on foot it felt like you where walking casualy, the grapling hook felt very useless too
@TheJD It just won't feel the same. Play it if you'd like. The first feels amazing. The second is good but the weapons seem like they try too hard to be futuristic and makes even less sense sonce it literally picks up after the explosion in the first game. 3 is just poorly animated and while it's hardcore the story blows.
"Oh my god, why is no one taking us seriously?" "Sir, we are wearing hats with with the initials F.E.A.R on them, we are called F.E.A.R, someone took his time to come up with the acronym F.E.A.R" "I don't know what you are hinting at."
The AI is so good mainly because of how it negotiates variables like the physical objects that move in a fire fight. This is extremely rare to be done as well as it is in this game. There are also yes tricks that cheat appearances, but there is no denying that the lack of snags and hangups in the basic navigation of the bots just makes the whole experience fluid to the player. The audio cues from the AI as you noted go a long way to pumping emersion even if they have 0 barring on the AI pathfinding. Its just 2019 and rarely do we see AI that can negotiate variables such as physical objects that move about the environment in a plausible or impressive way. Just look at the automatons in the GTA series, they have all these amazing routines but soon as actual gun fights erupt they are dumb as bricks with relatively no actual tactics and rather a bunch of scripted responses and cheats layered in to create difficulty or paper over their total lack of actual self preservation.
Another important AI trick that no one seems to pick up on: there are randomised enemy spawn locations, so you don't have the same experience every time.
The fact that Monolith made not only F.E.A.R but also created Blood, No One Lives Forever, Condemned and Shadows of Mordor...Such excellent devs for the tricks they pull off with AI and animation. Definitely a favorite of mine
8:55 It reminded me of Spec Ops: The Line, where they recorded a whole bunch of callouts specifically so they'd be used in a way they'd be used in real life, such as having a very specific callout for a mall T-Rex or something.
I love how sometimes you can't tell if it's part of the horror that items are flying around the room, or if the physics engine has just glitched out again. I actually mean it. The fact that physics jankiness can happen at any time almost makes the horror dynamic. Things don't always play out the same way, and that sound might not just be a binder falling off a shelf.
Except when you combine jank physics with horrible sound mixing that makes things sound like an elephant falling down the stairs while it's just a corpse's leg having the twitch. Looking at you, Extraction Point.
I totally understand what you mean. I’ve had that too the first few times I played fear. But when you’ve played fear as much as I did, you eventually know what’s a glitch or not
I remember that, at least in some versions, the ragdolls would go ballistic if you ran the game at too high of a framerate. The same thing happens in vanilla Dead Space nowadays, but in F.E.A.R the ragdolls could seizure their way out of the material plane and all the way to Partyhalla.
7:40 look, the AI might not be that advanced Technically, but it still accomplishes things that even modern games cant handle (and i have no clue why). For one, the AI in FEAR *ACTUALLY SHOOTS AT YOU,* and the enemies *ACTUALLY RUN FOR COVER.* These things arent hard to code, but for some fucking unknown reason, most of our modern AAA shooters still cant make AI that even reacts to the players existance faster than on a 10 second delay, and cant even make AI that runs to cover, but rather chooses to stand afk in the middle of an empty room. That's why the AI in FEAR is so good, because it simply works as it is meant to work, simply and effectively, while 90% of all other FPS games AI are utterly broken beyond belief, even in 2019.
funny that COD doesn't seem to do that. taking cover is contextual to the narrative in that game too. some AAA games get it right. using the word most is just straight hyperbole. play MW2 on veteran, get pinksocked by shadow company towards the end of the game.
Big budget modern games want to give the player a power fantasy. They don't make the AI competent because they don't want it to be. They want players to be overwhelmed by numbers and then succeed despite those numbers, rather than be overwhelmed by skill. It's much easier for the casual player to pass blame to unfair odds rather than accept they weren't skilled enough and need to get better.
Try the Division 2. The AI is quite smart and react according to what type of attack you are using. And shit, they have seperate dialogue for each and every type of gadget/weapon you have, and they also counter attack very good. Check it my man.
I actually can name one game where a dead guy can set off an explosive (not a fire extinguisher) STALKER games enemies shoot after dying and on rare occasion if they are next to an explosive barrel they can set them off. Also SMOD for HL2, but that's a mod
I don't understand why STALKER's AI is being trashed by game journalists. The bots are having hard time navigating the environments, that's true, but they actually try to use cover, they throw grenades (perhaps far too often), they can do supression fire and finally THEY ARE TRYING TO FLANK YOU, GNIDA. Immersive enough.
I really enjoyed this game as a youngling, not that my computer could handle it. I didn't even know what frames per second were back then -- I think I got 10-20fps and I was happy. Though I could really feel it online when people would come around the corner and kill me before I could react, haha. No bullet time and loud radio callouts to help there [SPOILERS] But probably the thing that really took the game to a next level for me was the a complete misunderstanding on my part. I thought that when they said that the doctor had impregnated his daughter that they meant *physically*, not via artificial insemination, and it made everything seem even more fucked up. In my interpretation it wasn't so much a clinical procedure as it was a dad full on raping his teenage daughter. I completely understood where she was coming from, and it made the revenge plot ironclad. Knowing that my character was unwittingly the product of some fucked up incestuous rape/murder experiment that drove my mother and brother crazy made it even more nauseating. After the game I excitedly went online to see what other people thought of it and learned the truth... Was pretty disappointed, honestly, it took a bit of the punch out of the ending for me. Oh well! Still a pretty solid game, though I've never known lights to turn off so loudly
I guess both are pretty messed up. Either way she was horribly tortured. Pretty glad it was incest as that'd make it a bit too much. A preteen being forced to give birth is more than enough
This game is so iconic to me. The atmosphere and the combat are literally one of a kind. I played FEAR for the first time with dad when I was maybe 4-5. I played FEAR 2 years later, and I eventually picked it up again when I was in elementary school, and finally got my hands on FEAR 3 when I was in the sixth grade. Fear 1 and 2 used to terrify me, and it must be some ptsd because I never get scared of anything anymore, and recently when they were released on Xbox game pass I bought FEAR 2. The atmosphere and the uneasiness of the game remain, even after all this time. It’s an incredibly underrated franchise.
creating content is like drugs. More than once and you're addicted and you'll only stop if it's bad for your health. Or in other words: you stop till you need a therapist.
Condemned was a great horror survival game, and is actually scarier than most horror games because it wouldn’t just be monsters or creatures but the humans are actually the horrors.
A legendary game. The best artificial intelligence of enemies, a creepy and interesting plot, excellent graphics for those times. This game was all that was needed to the players. Low bow to Monolith Productions and all those who were involved in the making of this game. You have made a masterpiece!!!
I am an idiot... I didn't realize that's why he used that song till now. I thought he was being normal funny and clever, but no- he was being MANDALORE funny and clever.
FEAR's AI may have been exaggerated over the years, but it's still really, REALLY good. Don't let anyone tell you it's not. Practically every fight feels like a scripted encounter... but it's not. Reload, and it will be completely different. Mainly, it's the bosses (the mech suits) and minibosses (the guys with funny shoulder pads and the invisible assholes) that play out more or less the same way every time. It's not uncommon to see things like this: The replicas push you into a dead end and pin you down with covering fire, then throw a grenade forcing you out, into the covering fire while also having more replicas go around to flank you. In most other games, if something like that happens, it's because it was scripted to happen that way.
It's not that it has good AI (and in fact it has pretty shit AI), it's just that the AI is given lots of options that all work against the player, and the levels are designed to support them.
@@Zorro9129 the ai is just really basic, go see the person's mandate expansion for that F.E.A.R.'s AI excelled when it was given extremely basic systems (seek cover flank, etc) but complex environments to work in Its not great AI, its okay AI combined with excellent sound, level and physics design
" Don't let anyone tell you it's not" - what does that mean? I will tell you that it's not, just because you are stupid idiot, eventhou I've never played FEAR more than 15 minutes.
@@bepisoilsnake ''it's just that the AI is given lots of options that all work against the player'' The fact that it all works well against the player, isn't that a sign of good AI then?
"If Dragon's Dogma taught me anything, it's that wolves hunt in packs" Right there is when I remembered to give the video a like, no matter what comes after. Seriously though, I love your in-depth reviews of older games that still deserve to be played today. I've had more than enough playthroughs of F.E.A.R. for one lifetime, but you reminded me to go replay the RPG gem that is Dragon's Dogma.
*****ATTENTION******ATTENTION***** i must inform new players (and veterans) that the 1st FEAR game cannot be bought individually anymore on Steam. now its stuck in a $50 pack with ALL the FEAR games. it's bullshit, i know.
@@jonnythedemon that's stupid. Just because it goes on sale often doesn't justify selling FEAR 1 *exclusively* in a $50 pack. Where's your sense of logic bro? You could probably buy it for less than 10 bucks otherwise, instead of waiting for a sale to buy 3 games when you're only interested in the first one.
*SPOILERS* Um, wasn't one pretty obvious reason for the inclusion of the plot twist (about your origin (hehe)) that it explained why Alma didn't just straight up murder you? She would have no reason to be even marginally intrigued by you otherwise. I agree that it grounded the story better with the player, but I also think it made pretty good sense to have it in there. I'll also admit I am heavily biased in anything I say about this game since I love it. A lot. Mostly for the tone and story, which managed something very few games do well (at least to me), namely being consistent and pretty high-level in its execution. Maybe I didn't really grasp the full implications of all the messages and data the first time around playing this. But I think that if you pay attention, the order in which information is revealed and what it actually contains helps paint a VERY stylistically confident narrative, when it is blended with the tension of the unfolding events. For lack of a better word, I think it is intelligently pulled off. Just... really well done.
It explains why Alma doesn't kill you, sure... but what about the other stuff Mandy mentioned? Why is the Pointman conveniently in the task force going after the company that birthed him and is holding his mother? Seems painfully contrived and with the pointman not having much of, of any character, we don't have answers to this. How did the Pointman get away from the company? Did he escape? Was he let go? We don't know. A fix for the first issue is to give the Pointman some personality and have him make mention of a reason he joined FEAR and specifically wanted to go after Armachan. Maybe the early sections of the game could hint at his grudge against the company, and Armachan was the reason he joined FEAR, maybe this was the chance he was waiting for or something. At least then it's seems less painfully convenient or contrived. As for how he escaped or was let go... any explanation would've been nice. The thing is, this story has potential to be great with its twist, but they created the twist without consequence for their action. They didn't realize the massive hole they had just created that recontextualizes the entire game, as well as why you're there...and they don't have an answer for it. Maybe in the later games it does, but it's clear this series wasn't really thought through all the way. It strengths aren't in its story writing ability, but gameplay. Which is a shame because I could see some changes to this story being decently easy to make (on paper anyway).
For me, the canon is: 1. F.E.A.R. 2. Extraction Point. 3. F.E.A.R. 2. 4. Reborn. 5. F.3.A.R. You can explain that the end of EP was just an hallucination, that’s why Jin Sun-Kwon was alive on F.3.A.R.
"The level designer and the AI designer were probably holding hands the entire time" Something that clearly didnt happen in Half Life 2 and because of that some people think that the Combine Soldiers AI is from braindead to average
It's a shame because the combine AI is pretty competent on a technical level considering they work about the same on a random custom map as they do in the campaign. And in some cases better. Not all game AIs can say the same. Granted they would be far more competent if they were designed with the campaign maps in mind, but then they become rather dependant on those maps to be competent.
Combine grunts AI doesn't need to be good for gameplay and lore reasons. Your main gimmick is physics, so them being tactical and smart would ruin player's fun ways to kill them by throwing shit across the map. Also they were mainly made to fight civilians and resistance, both are underequipped and uncapable without numbers
I LOVED this game so much. The multiplayer was great (to me), running around the map with your weapon holstered just jump kicking and nut punching everyone... Good times.
I love FEAR 1's aesthetics I think it's really cool. Everything looks like a prototype and you're dealing with the paranormal I loved mandalore's idea of instead of continuing to fight the replicas you went on to something that's also paranormal and strange like a weird cult or aliens or something.
I figure that the Vivendi stuff was wiped from canon for the sole purpose of ownership rights. The publisher didn't want to have anything in future games that would possibly require them to pay a different developer royalties or whatever, so they declared those expansions non-canon and ignored them.
Best FEAR review ever! Thank you for making it! The gun play and vfx in this game are WAY ahead of their time. You can tell the designer was a fan of 90s action movies. Each firefight looks like a goddamn action movie. So good!
Oh man this brought so many memories of my final year of highschool, our IT class finished the curriculum 3 months early, so we just spent hours and hours playing F.E.A.R MP and Halo CE., that nailgun and those kick animations brought a tonne of nostalgia back.
Duy Linh Chu Ha their Alien versus Predator even more of a masterpiece for me. However, despite loving lotr, i just couldnt give a shit about shadow...
RuVik Their AVP game was good but it came way too early. If they didn’t make the game on such an outdated engine, the game would have been a masterpiece. But the game is still fun to play.
I love FEAR. My favorite chapter is Urban Decay since it has a sort of Candyman vibe with all the derilict buildings. My favorite Addon is Extraction Point because it might be one of the darkest and most depressing videogames I have ever played. The dark mood really got to me, but it was also because I finished The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone a few weeks prior. But Shooting a bunch of replicants with dual pistols in bullet time while granades and bullets fly through the room and everything breaks or explodes just never gets old. Never finsihed Perseus Mandate tho. My only complaint is that I feel like the game tries to be too edgy at times. Like all the swearing done by the Replicas. But thats pretty minor.
One of the best games ever for their time. Tried replaying it recently though and just didn't have the patience. The camera cutting every time you climb/mantle drove me nuts
I think slow mo actually make it way more fun, without it I just feel like my gun is going all over the place. That said, you're right in that even extreme difficulty isn't that hard thanks to slow mo being that strong.
Without slow-mo it plays like a tactical shooter, and a good one too, especially if you don't use quicksaves and just go on with checkpoints alone. It becomes an incredible tense experience in which you are dealing with Ai that hunts you down and tries to outsmart you, so you have to check your corners, use cover and lean all the time and fire in bursts instead of spraying bullets all over. It's like it's two games in one, really.
For majority of the game I didn't remember that slow-mo was a portion of the game and forgot the key to activate it so I ended up playing about 75-80% of the game without it. I had a great time and I think it made the horror more intense and immediately dangerous.
I played it on Hard Difficulty. I think this is the best difficulty, between fair but not to hard. And I only used slow motion, when I had to, for example, when I was on very low health and no more medikits. So yes it was really fun to play like this, because I had nice exciting fights with the enemys.^^
The two things I remember about FEAR: 1) I was riding in an elevator and the spooky music sting played, meaning something scary was happening. But I was facing the wrong way and missed it. Oh well, moving on, hope it wasn't important to the plot or anything. 2) The final enemy on the last level is ghosts. Which seems nice and scary, but these ghosts are vulnerable to bullets so you just easily shoot them like any other enemy.
The feel of the shooting combat in this game is unmatched even today. The mix of particle effects, slo-mo, AI, and enemy movement was perfect. The lighting to set the atmosphere was top notch and something game developers today can learn from. Even the sound and feel of the guns. The combat in this game felt so visceral. It's highly disappointing that 12 years later, even with improved graphics, most of the garbage out there feels like a cheap arcade shooter.
Fear combat by far the best multi-player out there. I use to play with Baxstar, happystick and other old players. Makes me miss the old times of playing this game
BTW I think it'd be really interesting to note that the wide variety of enemy callouts was also, strangely enough, a thing in Monolith's more recent games, Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War. If you pay attention during fights in those games, you'll hear the orcs do things like shout "He's on the bridge!" or "He's on the wall!", and if you kill one of the enemy Captains in the second game the nearest orc alert the others that the Captain is dead and will sometimes refer to him by first name.
What you mentioned regarding the AI dev and the Map dev holding hands brings the Combine AI from HL2 to mind. I've seen interesting demonstrations of their pressuring, covering fire, and call out systems that are honestly really cool, but from what I understand, outside of one or two levels, the maps never really were designed to take full advantage of what the A.I. could do.
@@maximusxj13 Feel like people who deride battle royales would hold up arena shooters like quake as the height of multiplayer gaming when battle royales are basically the same shit.
Oh yay, another Mandalore video, you're kicking them out pretty frequently now... Why do I get the feeling you make them while gas cloud harvesting on the other screen? You were right about the lighting though, I remember playing this game when it came out and being awe'd by the lighting, the idea of it being so 'natural' (for the time) was amazing, and I don't think the horror elements would've been anywhere near as good without it, which is saying a lot for an FPS - I had no idea real horror aspects in an action game were possible.
0:53 that is one of the best scares in games though. You see her outside the window and go back out of the office expecting her to be gone, come round the corner to find her right there walking towards you.
I actually really liked FEAR 2 too, the story is stupid but it has a much more diverse setting and enemies to fight against. The city levels are fantastic and highly atmospheric.
It was mainly like that because of the advance new gen tech that they had making the game so they wanted to make FEAR 2 visually "prettier" than the last hardware it was capable of. It wasn't really all that bad of a new art design choice I'll say, but it takes away from some of the horror with too many shiny lights.
LudicrousKid I didn’t really mind it. FEAR 3 on the other hand. Why the hell were the replicas friends with Armacham? They were literally massacring each other in the previous 2 games and I’m pretty sure Alma had control of the V7s
@@hydradude3989 I think that by the events of F.E.A.R. 3, they had a decent amount of Replica soldiers that weren't being controlled by Fettel/Alma, either from simply not getting controlled somehow or "losing connection" so to say. It's likely that they activated the Replica soldiers as they were intended, being soldiers fighting for them.
I would love to see you cover the other F.E.A.R games, I bought this one just from the first ten minutes of this video. I was already intrigued about it from the other stuff I have heard but, this sold it for me. That was even before I saw the cool as Kung Fu shit, great video my dude!
This game's theme has captured my imagination so much. I really wanna see the other cases FEAR would tackle. I would love to see a game that's about a small branch of the Army that deals with offensively dealing with affairs that are supernatural.
The team-based multiplayer was actually really good at the time. One of my fondest memories of its multiplayer was where there was a hallway with an offset room in the middle with a weapon, and both teams had started just chucking grenades down the hallway, filling it up with smoke. There were just a ton of people trying to get into that room, disappearing behind the smoke and getting mowed down as the other team was filling the hallway with lead.
God I really cant wait for that, had this game for a while now but its very confusing.. from what little I understood its a japanese/asian deus ex with a twist.
Your reviews over the past year have been truly fantastic Mandalore, good job. FEAR is great despite the offices. Personally, I never touched EP because I thought they weren't worth going through. I guess it was just PM that was shit. Also, the one thing that I remember bothering me about FEAR was most of the weapon sounds were average.
SPOILER ALERT: in terms of gameplay EP and PM are both perfectly good...they are almost exactly the same as the first one. they just add more enemies and weapons. as for story...the only thing that happens that seemingly doesn't fit with the canon of FEAR 2 and FEAR 3 is that Jin Sun Kwan dies in EP before the Point Man (you) reaches the end...the rest fits entirely with the story. and...considering Jin died during a point when you are hallucinating...it could have been fake...and so i like to think it wasn't real....which is why she is still alive in FEAR 3
The first time I played through the section with the cloaking dudes I was shitting and pissing myself the whole time; it’s easily one of the best horror segments out of any game Ive played
Playing F.E.A.R. Extraction Point with Snake Eater blasting through my soundboard during the parking garage section was the single greatest feeling of power I’ve had in any game
One of the scariest and most badass games ever. This and Gears of War 1 are perfect examples of how to do awesome gameplay and scary elements at the same time. The gameplay, graphics, scares, and AI still hold up. I wish Aliens Colonial Marines had this level of good game design.
FEAR, specifically the first one and its add-ons, is one of the best action horrors out there. I think too many people misunderstand or misuse the definitions of "survival" and "action" horror. Amnesia and Alien Isolation are survival horrors (although you get a bit of shootey-shoot in The Bunker and Alien, it's a tool, not a goal); Doom 3 and FEAR are action horrors.
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
F.E.A.R. on GOG - gog.la/FLASHLIGHT
THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo
Steam only sells the ENTIRE TRILOGY of games as one package now. You can't buy FEAR standalone anymore, which sucks.
MandaloreGaming I still play this game in 2017.....
I just love how you described Ryse: Son of Rome.
"Boudica invades Rome with fucking elephants."
Severance, Blade of Darkness please.
Ok
if you've watched gachi you've heard half of Mandalore's videos.
They really recorded separate call-out lines for when you're behind a sofa versus behind a couch
“NO MOTHERFUCKER ITS AN OTTOMAN HES BEHIND A FUCKING OTTOMAN”
- a replica, probably
Hey I know that this is a long time ago but can I ttust buying things from gog?
@@he212ro8 yes
@@he212ro8 you're kidding right?
@@_BirdOfGoodOmen idfk, never used it. How am I supposed to know
8:55 The number of callouts is completely shocking tbh.
I'll never forget one time I was trying to take out a squad silently from a crawlspace above one of the office rooms, only for one of the clones to witness my location and shout, "He's in the ceiling!" One of the most memorable experiences I've ever had with a game
9:45
The Skelton Appears
Let's be frank... Anne frank
I never noticed this before, but- there's seperate callouts for "behind the couch" and "behind the sofa". I don't even know there's a difference between them, or what it is. I thought they were the same thing, like soda/pop. I guess that's why I'll never be a psychic supersolider ;_;
@@dontatmetillyouvebeenoutside no? That's a divan, or a daybed, or a chaise longue. Sofa/couch are basically interchangeable, but out of the two 'couch' has the stronger connotation of lying down or lounging.
I remember that dialogue between enemy soldiers, when there was a short pause during a firefight:
" - Is he dead?
- Shut the f**k up!"
It's actually pretty funny how another clone would get mad at each other for talking so loudly with their radio's giving away their position
i like to think it was the game devs acknowledging how much the replicas gave their every move away audibly and pointing out how ridiculous it is
“If Dragon’s Dogma taught me anything, it’s that wolves hunt in packs.”
I hate this quote so much, I probably love it even more for being hilarious and true
This layed me out for a solid minute because I was not expecting it at ALL
Quotes from DD are masterworks all... You can't go wrong...
I did not understand this joke until i actuallt played Dragon's Dogma.
someone explain
@@yoboikamil525 in open world RPG games like Skyrim or Fallout there's always that one line every one quotes, for Dragon's Dogma it's the various obvious "tips" said by your party members, like wolves hunting in packs or everyone being weak to fire.
The best AI isn't the one so advanced it outsmarts the player, it's the one that make the player feel like they prevented a clever attempt to get outsmarted.
Another thing that's neat is the fact that enemy grenades don't come with a "danger"-icon, which all modern shooters seem to have nowadays.
Yeah you actually had to hear it
@@uliloolilu780 That is neat...unless you're deaf. Or hard of hearing.
I like how Crysis did it, where grenade indicators were linked to difficulty/options. So, that way, you can fine tune your experince.
@@davidcolby167 I guess never played crisis.Heard the game destroys your pc
@@uliloolilu780 It did, when it was released. 12 years ago.
The replicas also say “Fire in the hole” or “flush him out” before tossing a grenade. The enemy AI in this game is amazing.
Why the industry hasn't learned from FEAR to have the level designer and AI programmer work very closely together, I'll never know.
Probably production times don't allow such organization when you need to pump a new game every 6 months.
Because that would require effort and money, and between largely lazy devs and/or impossibly demanding publishers, well...
PC gaming was for a long time exclusive to "the elite". You had to set up boot discs, know DOS commands, configure sound drivers, troubleshoot windows and hardware was expensive...
These days every "idiot" can afford and use a computer and "idiots" usually have much lower expectations. They don't care about the AI (or story) in FarCry still being completely stupid as long as there are more virtual people to shoot.
Shit, imagine the AI was actually any good. Thousands of dollars invested into good AI, half the players complain about the "unfair difficulty", impacting reviews and sales negatively ... no, we can't have that. Make stupid games for stupid people. Make them so stupid that nobody smart would want to buy them, because that might lead to negative feedback from them.
We're too smart to pre-purchase some average-at-best FPS game or fall for microtransactions in singleplayer games and we're a minority. Big publishers don't care about us anymore.
If you're still looking for games to progress like they did 15-20 years ago, you have more faith in humanity than I have.
Actually metro Exodus might have done it. If your by a tree, enemies will call out that you're by a tree. Also, as you kill more of them, they group together more, and stay in lighted areas
Because of the weak CPU that consoles have, i mean have you seen a PS2 game having better AI and level designer than a PS3 game?
The thing I loved most as a teen when FEAR came out was just how ridiculously visceral it was. Only reason then I was fortunate enough to play FEAR on high graphics settings was for some reason or another my parents went and got a new computer that was just maxed out in early 2005. I don't remember what the graphics card or CPU models were. I just know it had 2GB of RAM and some odd number for the CPU, like 2.3GHz. I just knew for at the time, those numbers were pretty nice and FEAR ran like smooth butter on warm toast. Though in hindsight, I think somebody really worked to upsell the good stuff to them.
I do remember Mom being both shocked and amazed by what she saw when I was playing the game. Though I think she left the decision to Dad and he basically said, "Bah, he's seen stuff like Event Horizon and Terminator and all that. This isn't so bad." Funny. In retrospect he basically saw it as me interacting with a movie.
My money is on it being one of the 3.2GHz Pentium 4s and a Geforce 6800 variant. Not that I can be proven right now!
And here I am with a PC that could eat yours for breakfast, but can also get eaten for breakfast by any remotely modern game.
@@aninditapaul9291 Fifa 16 on a computer that old would run like a paraplegic
@@ethanbaileylol2283 What's a paraplegic and which pc are you referring to
Your dad is a cool dude.
FEAR seriously ages like fine wine, my respect for it keeps growing each year
FEAR sucks ass, you all just have bad taste in video games
@@blueshit199 lmao, how? It's a great shooter with tight and atmospheric level design and impressive AI
@@Corrupted the atmospheric level design is just same looking concrete corridors and the AI has aimbot and is resistant to headshots
@@blueshit199bruh ai is smarter that many people today 😂. You just hater
@@blueshit199the AI misses shots even with the particle weapon, so even without taking into account the random bullet spread they're far from aimbots
the resistant to headshots thing is kind of necessary, since you could just sit and pop the heads of enemies without really engaging them, you're complaining about something that makes the game better
Someone needs to mention that this game had two of the best weapons ever put in a fps. The spas12 combined with this games physics engine was transendant, far and away the most satisfying shotgun in modern gaming. And the spike gun, that gun could hang a replicant by his big toe from a flg pole and trust me, it never got old.
The laser sniper that turns people into skeletons was also very satisfying.
I loved the spike gun
those guns makes you rethink who the real monster in the game is. so much fun
You reminded me how I once bolted a guy to the wall in a way that made him just stand as usual, only to then get scared of him ("did I miss an enemy?!") when I finally went back around to his position...
You dare miss name the penatrator the greatest nail gun ever made never repeated even in the fear sequals
Honestly yeah, this and Dead Space 1 have aged incredibly well.
El Duderino
You mean they haven’t aged
I'm still too pussy to finish dead space 1
The only thing I dislike in DS1 is the rigid structure of the game. Go to a new place by train, do something in that place, go back to the train, repeat. BUT it's also the only reason I can force myself to play and acctually scary horror game - the clear structure gives youobvious drop out points, and knowing just how much more of the level there is pushes you forward very well. I preffer playing DS2 - the gunplay in that game is SO good - but if I had to put just one of them in a time capsule, I'd put DS1 in there. The atmosphere in that game is just fenomenal.
@@jackblack4110 If you decide to, play the second one after and then don't touch 3.
@@thebabahyuck6666 I would say touch the third, but in coop mode, personally it was a lot more fun in coop, of course the third one kind of deviated from the first two games in terms of feel. Other people even argue that the second dead space wasn't even worth attention
The PCs go from being Alienware to Dell in Perseus Mandate. That about sums up the whole experience, really.
From unique and standout, to mundane.
Because it had a fast development cycle in 2007, that timegate could not really work on the environments & graphics.
Isn't Alienware owned by Dell?
well dell makes alienware. so its the same thing
@@lasarousi dell bought alienware in 06
*"these guys actually have a lot of character"*
*"do you see him?*
*"S H U T Y O U R F U C K I N G M O U T H"*
marry me.
One of my top moments from radio chatter.
Frantically engaged in close combat and I fire off my shotgun as I retreat just as the enemy retreats round the corner. Status unknown but I am close to death. The enemy squad leader radios in.
"You okay?" I turn round and see a severed head squirting blood roll round the corner and on the other side is the body it was once attached to. So that's a no 'Sarge, I thought.
"Move up!" Orders squad leader.
"Fuck you." Says a replica.
"Negative" Says another.
Mfw these clones know FEAR...
@@KingOhmni What about the "NO WAY!!!" answer...
@@KingOhmni I adored when, after a firefight wiped part of a squad, the leader called for a check in, and another survivor told him to shut up.
@@jerrycan1756 It may have only been a player prompt but more games, especially shooter gallery types. need enemy NPC radio chatter to be included and fleshed out because the feeling of satisfaction from knowing you broke your enemies' will to fight is simply superb.
IN THE CUBICLE
FLSUH HIM OUT
GRENADE OUT
Me:runs
Replica standing outside the cubicle waiting for me shoots me point blank with a shotgun
Extraction Point also has one of my favorite moments in gaming. It's the point where you're working your way to the rescue Jin, one of your teammates. She is trapped in a room with the invisible stalker enemies. She radios you and you can hear the despair in her voice. She says something like:
"Those things are here with me... You're not coming are you?"
Her giving up hope like that sent chills through me while also stacking the urgency. And when you do finally get to her, she is dead. No rescue is made. You were too late and she died in terror and despair cowering in a room surrounded by nightmares.
Her death along with that of the other solider on your original team of three makes the xpac exceedingly bleak, and I love it for it. It's some of my favorite few hours of gaming ever.
Extraction Point just had this overwhelming feel of complete loneliness whereas in the base you were always in contact with your teammates which kinda diminished the horror somewhat.
Hey so just what in the Fuck was that ending? Its bothered me for years. Its clearly not a lead into 3 since jin is alive. So wtf?
@@napalmkitty6686 the expansions are noncanon
Venom Snake I’ve played it without issues. If you have any Logitech hardware, that may be the problem.
Venom Snake turn off the human interface devices in Device Manager. This will fix it instantly
I always had a soft spot for Perseus Mandate, partially because I really liked just how little the mercs cared about the supernatural stuff they were dealing with.
I remember one moment where you hear one of them calmly telling the rest of the mercs over the radio that shadow demons just killed several of their men, so they should make sure to stay in the light, as if that's just a completely normal bit of advice to give.
Made it feel like you were dealing with a bunch of badasses who were so experienced that even ghosts didn't phase them.
For the next person like me that comes around - Song at 18:34 is THINK by Kaleida
and it's tite as fuck
John Wick reference?
Thanks!
You're the hero we deserve
your services are thanked
"it's like a typical ghost story!
....except the ghost doesn't make you trip, it sends the GSG 9 to come kill you!"
As all the best ghost stories do of course.
Why GSG9 tho, thats the German one. Wouldnt SWAT be more applicable
@@EmberTheShark it's a sarcasm, specifically saying that as to referring the best tactical squad mambers.
"The Pointman" is probably the most badass fucking name for a protagonist I've ever heard.
IKR? Just a basic title and yet you know immediately this man is not someone you want to fuck with.
I wanna cosplay a replica lol
>the courier
@@darthtiberius3716
"Mailman" doesn't sound all that cool
The man who points at people
FEAR's nailgun was one of the most satisfying weapons in gaming history. Nothing better than the awesome sound effect and sparks and blood from the hit, watch them fly five meters through the air, get impaled on a wall and dangle around.
Nail and time dilation combined
i agree brother
10:06
Mandalore reacting to the fake jumpscare: "Oh, I guess it was nothing"
Me : Pissing myself because of the guy that just appeared behind him out of nowhere.
I was thinking the same thing, when I found the body I thought “Is this going to jump at me or what?”, then I saw that arm in my left shoulder and scared the shit out of me.
Funnily enough, I didn't find the base game all that scary, maybe a little creepy at times but wasn't really jumpscared by anything. Extraction Point was way more spooky for some reason, probably because of increased emphasis on the paranormal. But the one actual jumpscare I had happened in, believe it or not, early in Perseus Mandate when I walked in a dead end, turned to leave and walked into the apparition of that one dude that just said "is anyone here?". Maybe I was just unprepared to expect spooky stuff yet because it was like the first or second level so I got legit jumpscared there lol.
@@abadenoughdude300 Not even the ghosts at the end of the game? They scared the shit out of me as a teen, the way they spawned anywhere and just directly flew towards you worked SO well
@@Corruptedhospital stuff was super intense along with the soundtrack, it was the only part in the series to which I was reluctant to finish
This review was excellent, really captures what made the game good (and bad). Something that should be pointed out: Monolith also developed The Matrix Online at the same time as this game, and by all accounts it is quite clear which one got more effort put into it. Shame the F.E.A.R. franchise never really went anywhere after the first game.
fear 2 was okay. fear 3 not even half as good as fear 2. But at that point i was more interested in the story than gameplay. fear 3 gameplay felt like a huge downgrade from the first game. Second one was closer to fear 1 but not as good either but better than 3.
only lost planet 2 is actually better than 1, because fuck, that game was monotonous and slow, at least 2 was monotonous and fast
fuck most people then, the OG game had the complexity of quake and the movement of a tank when you were walking on foot, it worked when you where in a vital suit but on foot it felt like you where walking casualy, the grapling hook felt very useless too
i just have a different opinion, cant i have unpopular opinion?
jeez, the joke went over your head and unto the moon
FEAR: Golden and amazing
FEAR 2:Umm ok...
FEAR 3: You ruined it. You ruined it and I'm leaving
@Exotic Razor Well... he is *kinda* right, Fear 2 isn't as good as the first one but it's still pretty solid, and Fear 3 is an abomination
Fear 3 makes Fear 2 look like Fear
Nipps Welmactt You forgot about F.E.A.R. Online.
@TheJD yes
@TheJD
It just won't feel the same.
Play it if you'd like.
The first feels amazing. The second is good but the weapons seem like they try too hard to be futuristic and makes even less sense sonce it literally picks up after the explosion in the first game.
3 is just poorly animated and while it's hardcore the story blows.
"Oh my god, why is no one taking us seriously?" "Sir, we are wearing hats with with the initials F.E.A.R on them, we are called F.E.A.R, someone took his time to come up with the acronym F.E.A.R" "I don't know what you are hinting at."
The AI is so good mainly because of how it negotiates variables like the physical objects that move in a fire fight.
This is extremely rare to be done as well as it is in this game. There are also yes tricks that cheat appearances, but there is no denying that the lack of snags and hangups in the basic navigation of the bots just makes the whole experience fluid to the player. The audio cues from the AI as you noted go a long way to pumping emersion even if they have 0 barring on the AI pathfinding.
Its just 2019 and rarely do we see AI that can negotiate variables such as physical objects that move about the environment in a plausible or impressive way. Just look at the automatons in the GTA series, they have all these amazing routines but soon as actual gun fights erupt they are dumb as bricks with relatively no actual tactics and rather a bunch of scripted responses and cheats layered in to create difficulty or paper over their total lack of actual self preservation.
That’s one thing I like about the halo games, being the AI functioning so well.
Another important AI trick that no one seems to pick up on: there are randomised enemy spawn locations, so you don't have the same experience every time.
The fact that Monolith made not only F.E.A.R but also created Blood, No One Lives Forever, Condemned and Shadows of Mordor...Such excellent devs for the tricks they pull off with AI and animation. Definitely a favorite of mine
I love you for that John Wick FEAR moment.
I'm glad. I'm a huge fan of your work
MandaloreGaming ooo
Seriously, "Think" by Kaleida is such a great piece.
Hey, big fan of yours, didn't expect to see you here.
Rasmus Sjösten Slättås I love that song so much
8:55
It reminded me of Spec Ops: The Line, where they recorded a whole bunch of callouts specifically so they'd be used in a way they'd be used in real life, such as having a very specific callout for a mall T-Rex or something.
I love how sometimes you can't tell if it's part of the horror that items are flying around the room, or if the physics engine has just glitched out again.
I actually mean it. The fact that physics jankiness can happen at any time almost makes the horror dynamic. Things don't always play out the same way, and that sound might not just be a binder falling off a shelf.
So it's one of those cases where "it's not a bug, it's a feature"
Except when you combine jank physics with horrible sound mixing that makes things sound like an elephant falling down the stairs while it's just a corpse's leg having the twitch. Looking at you, Extraction Point.
I totally understand what you mean. I’ve had that too the first few times I played fear. But when you’ve played fear as much as I did, you eventually know what’s a glitch or not
I remember that, at least in some versions, the ragdolls would go ballistic if you ran the game at too high of a framerate. The same thing happens in vanilla Dead Space nowadays, but in F.E.A.R the ragdolls could seizure their way out of the material plane and all the way to Partyhalla.
7:40 look, the AI might not be that advanced Technically, but it still accomplishes things that even modern games cant handle (and i have no clue why). For one, the AI in FEAR *ACTUALLY SHOOTS AT YOU,* and the enemies *ACTUALLY RUN FOR COVER.*
These things arent hard to code, but for some fucking unknown reason, most of our modern AAA shooters still cant make AI that even reacts to the players existance faster than on a 10 second delay, and cant even make AI that runs to cover, but rather chooses to stand afk in the middle of an empty room.
That's why the AI in FEAR is so good, because it simply works as it is meant to work, simply and effectively, while 90% of all other FPS games AI are utterly broken beyond belief, even in 2019.
funny that COD doesn't seem to do that. taking cover is contextual to the narrative in that game too. some AAA games get it right. using the word most is just straight hyperbole.
play MW2 on veteran, get pinksocked by shadow company towards the end of the game.
Play Sniper Elite four. Sure they have the accuracy of a stormtrooper, but at least they use cover.
Big budget modern games want to give the player a power fantasy. They don't make the AI competent because they don't want it to be. They want players to be overwhelmed by numbers and then succeed despite those numbers, rather than be overwhelmed by skill. It's much easier for the casual player to pass blame to unfair odds rather than accept they weren't skilled enough and need to get better.
@@KaiserTom Skyrim in a nutshell
Try the Division 2. The AI is quite smart and react according to what type of attack you are using. And shit, they have seperate dialogue for each and every type of gadget/weapon you have, and they also counter attack very good. Check it my man.
Nice attempt at disguise at 11:37 but my ears are finely trained to detect gachi
4:32
Bretty sure I heard a black man bust his nuts at 9:12. Also best girl btw.
many gachis to be discovered in treasure videos
If you slap people like this, Ivan, you will not be afraid to get AIDS.
A N I M E
N
I
M
E
I actually can name one game where a dead guy can set off an explosive (not a fire extinguisher)
STALKER games enemies shoot after dying and on rare occasion if they are next to an explosive barrel they can set them off.
Also SMOD for HL2, but that's a mod
gta 5, i shot a cop, he threw his shotgun, hit the top of a car went off and shot the other cop. I still remember it.
On Halo I got headshotted by a dying Jackal with a binary rifle on legendary difficulty.
I don't understand why STALKER's AI is being trashed by game journalists. The bots are having hard time navigating the environments, that's true, but they actually try to use cover, they throw grenades (perhaps far too often), they can do supression fire and finally THEY ARE TRYING TO FLANK YOU, GNIDA. Immersive enough.
I really enjoyed this game as a youngling, not that my computer could handle it. I didn't even know what frames per second were back then -- I think I got 10-20fps and I was happy. Though I could really feel it online when people would come around the corner and kill me before I could react, haha. No bullet time and loud radio callouts to help there
[SPOILERS] But probably the thing that really took the game to a next level for me was the a complete misunderstanding on my part. I thought that when they said that the doctor had impregnated his daughter that they meant *physically*, not via artificial insemination, and it made everything seem even more fucked up. In my interpretation it wasn't so much a clinical procedure as it was a dad full on raping his teenage daughter. I completely understood where she was coming from, and it made the revenge plot ironclad. Knowing that my character was unwittingly the product of some fucked up incestuous rape/murder experiment that drove my mother and brother crazy made it even more nauseating. After the game I excitedly went online to see what other people thought of it and learned the truth... Was pretty disappointed, honestly, it took a bit of the punch out of the ending for me. Oh well! Still a pretty solid game, though I've never known lights to turn off so loudly
Rc3651 wow. I really prefer your version of the plot.
Sounds like a great headcanon!
I thought that too, up and until I watched this review.
I guess both are pretty messed up. Either way she was horribly tortured. Pretty glad it was incest as that'd make it a bit too much. A preteen being forced to give birth is more than enough
2020 and F.E.A.R 1+EP is still one of the best FPS games of all time.
2021 and F.E.A.R 1 is still one of the best FPS games of all time
Fear 1 and extraction point are masterpieces
@@Just_a_Snake 2022 and FEAR 1 + EP is still one of the best shooters of all time.
3000 and fear is still the best fps game of all time
@@matthew1882 2023 and FEAR 1 + EP is still one of the best shooters of all time.
This game is so iconic to me. The atmosphere and the combat are literally one of a kind. I played FEAR for the first time with dad when I was maybe 4-5. I played FEAR 2 years later, and I eventually picked it up again when I was in elementary school, and finally got my hands on FEAR 3 when I was in the sixth grade. Fear 1 and 2 used to terrify me, and it must be some ptsd because I never get scared of anything anymore, and recently when they were released on Xbox game pass I bought FEAR 2. The atmosphere and the uneasiness of the game remain, even after all this time. It’s an incredibly underrated franchise.
*Dark Messiah Review*
Then I can finally rest in peace.
th-cam.com/video/-p3zj0YKKYE/w-d-xo.html
rest in peace bro
RIP
so many new videos and it hasnt even been a year
what have you done with the real mandalore?
creating content is like drugs. More than once and you're addicted and you'll only stop if it's bad for your health. Or in other words: you stop till you need a therapist.
That is a sacrifice I am willing for Lord Mandalore to make...
How can you not mention the Nail Gun that actually nails ragdolled enemies to walls? That was such an amazing detail as well.
You should review Condemned. That's a classic too.
I remember playing the demo it was scary
@@r011ing_thunder6 It's great. The sequel is damn good too.
Oh my god I totally forgot that existed. I remember the ending being really exciting...for some reason? I have to dig those discs out.
Fun fact I learned, the ai from fear was implemented in condemned 1 n 2 as well
Condemned was a great horror survival game, and is actually scarier than most horror games because it wouldn’t just be monsters or creatures but the humans are actually the horrors.
A legendary game. The best artificial intelligence of enemies, a creepy and interesting plot, excellent graphics for those times. This game was all that was needed to the players. Low bow to Monolith Productions and all those who were involved in the making of this game. You have made a masterpiece!!!
BEHIND THE WINDOW!
THROUGH THE WINDOW!
FROM THE WINDOW!
TO THE WAALL!
.
.
.BEHIND THE WALL!
That killed me
@@junioraltamontent.7582 Through the window!
To the wall!
Till the sweat drop down my balls!
To all these bitches crawl!
Lol
I am an idiot... I didn't realize that's why he used that song till now. I thought he was being normal funny and clever, but no- he was being MANDALORE funny and clever.
To the window!
Get raw!
FEAR's AI may have been exaggerated over the years, but it's still really, REALLY good. Don't let anyone tell you it's not. Practically every fight feels like a scripted encounter... but it's not. Reload, and it will be completely different. Mainly, it's the bosses (the mech suits) and minibosses (the guys with funny shoulder pads and the invisible assholes) that play out more or less the same way every time.
It's not uncommon to see things like this: The replicas push you into a dead end and pin you down with covering fire, then throw a grenade forcing you out, into the covering fire while also having more replicas go around to flank you. In most other games, if something like that happens, it's because it was scripted to happen that way.
It's not that it has good AI (and in fact it has pretty shit AI), it's just that the AI is given lots of options that all work against the player, and the levels are designed to support them.
@@bepisoilsnake If it has bad AI you have to back that up.
@@Zorro9129 the ai is just really basic, go see the person's mandate expansion for that
F.E.A.R.'s AI excelled when it was given extremely basic systems (seek cover flank, etc) but complex environments to work in
Its not great AI, its okay AI combined with excellent sound, level and physics design
" Don't let anyone tell you it's not" - what does that mean? I will tell you that it's not, just because you are stupid idiot, eventhou I've never played FEAR more than 15 minutes.
@@bepisoilsnake ''it's just that the AI is given lots of options that all work against the player'' The fact that it all works well against the player, isn't that a sign of good AI then?
Legend says everytime you hear someone mention F.E.A.R they'll reinstall
*sigh
Fine I'll reinstall and play it again
Same man. Fucking same.
Im running the install right now actually
Hell yeah!
Yup, 2 years later and I'm about to do another play through.
This and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
"If Dragon's Dogma taught me anything, it's that wolves hunt in packs"
Right there is when I remembered to give the video a like, no matter what comes after.
Seriously though, I love your in-depth reviews of older games that still deserve to be played today. I've had more than enough playthroughs of F.E.A.R. for one lifetime, but you reminded me to go replay the RPG gem that is Dragon's Dogma.
*****ATTENTION******ATTENTION*****
i must inform new players (and veterans) that the 1st FEAR game cannot be bought individually anymore on Steam. now its stuck in a $50 pack with ALL the FEAR games. it's bullshit, i know.
Or just get it on gog
The pack went on sale and I got it for like 5 bucks
Just got it all on sale for 10 bux, it goes on sale at least 4 times a year that I've seen, stop crying.
@@jonnythedemon WAAAAAAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I DONT WANNA! :P
@@jonnythedemon that's stupid. Just because it goes on sale often doesn't justify selling FEAR 1 *exclusively* in a $50 pack. Where's your sense of logic bro?
You could probably buy it for less than 10 bucks otherwise, instead of waiting for a sale to buy 3 games when you're only interested in the first one.
4:34 Watching this review for the 5th time, I heard that "C'mon son" and it cracked me up so bad.
Dear god
I inadvertently read this EXACTLY when it happened in the video.
What the fuck?! I did it AGAIN!!
*SPOILERS* Um, wasn't one pretty obvious reason for the inclusion of the plot twist (about your origin (hehe)) that it explained why Alma didn't just straight up murder you? She would have no reason to be even marginally intrigued by you otherwise. I agree that it grounded the story better with the player, but I also think it made pretty good sense to have it in there.
I'll also admit I am heavily biased in anything I say about this game since I love it. A lot. Mostly for the tone and story, which managed something very few games do well (at least to me), namely being consistent and pretty high-level in its execution. Maybe I didn't really grasp the full implications of all the messages and data the first time around playing this. But I think that if you pay attention, the order in which information is revealed and what it actually contains helps paint a VERY stylistically confident narrative, when it is blended with the tension of the unfolding events. For lack of a better word, I think it is intelligently pulled off. Just... really well done.
It explains why Alma doesn't kill you, sure... but what about the other stuff Mandy mentioned? Why is the Pointman conveniently in the task force going after the company that birthed him and is holding his mother? Seems painfully contrived and with the pointman not having much of, of any character, we don't have answers to this. How did the Pointman get away from the company? Did he escape? Was he let go? We don't know.
A fix for the first issue is to give the Pointman some personality and have him make mention of a reason he joined FEAR and specifically wanted to go after Armachan. Maybe the early sections of the game could hint at his grudge against the company, and Armachan was the reason he joined FEAR, maybe this was the chance he was waiting for or something. At least then it's seems less painfully convenient or contrived. As for how he escaped or was let go... any explanation would've been nice.
The thing is, this story has potential to be great with its twist, but they created the twist without consequence for their action. They didn't realize the massive hole they had just created that recontextualizes the entire game, as well as why you're there...and they don't have an answer for it. Maybe in the later games it does, but it's clear this series wasn't really thought through all the way. It strengths aren't in its story writing ability, but gameplay. Which is a shame because I could see some changes to this story being decently easy to make (on paper anyway).
@@PANCAKEMINEZZ uhm, there is fear 2 and fear 3, you know, which answers all those questions about point mans position
I fucking love the gachimuchi voice clips you sneak into these videos
For me, the canon is:
1. F.E.A.R.
2. Extraction Point.
3. F.E.A.R. 2.
4. Reborn.
5. F.3.A.R.
You can explain that the end of EP was just an hallucination, that’s why Jin Sun-Kwon was alive on F.3.A.R.
"The level designer and the AI designer were probably holding hands the entire time"
Something that clearly didnt happen in Half Life 2 and because of that some people think that the Combine Soldiers AI is from braindead to average
Original HL had great AI. Those soldiers were among best Ive seen.
It's a shame because the combine AI is pretty competent on a technical level considering they work about the same on a random custom map as they do in the campaign. And in some cases better. Not all game AIs can say the same. Granted they would be far more competent if they were designed with the campaign maps in mind, but then they become rather dependant on those maps to be competent.
Honestly I didn't enjoy HL2 at all (and I played it before HL1, which I really enjoyed)
Combine grunts AI doesn't need to be good for gameplay and lore reasons. Your main gimmick is physics, so them being tactical and smart would ruin player's fun ways to kill them by throwing shit across the map. Also they were mainly made to fight civilians and resistance, both are underequipped and uncapable without numbers
The metropolice? Yeah, they weren’t that smart. The elites and shotgunners? Still give me nightmares
This guy is hilarious in a lowkey way. I really enjoyed this review. Subscribed.
I LOVED this game so much. The multiplayer was great (to me), running around the map with your weapon holstered just jump kicking and nut punching everyone... Good times.
The beauty of good small youtubers, you've earned a sub!
They make the world go round.
Whiteleaf Arts wait until they get big. i hate when my small youtubers get too much attention from trash audience
EverlastGX someone's a bit entitled.
EverlastGX care to share some of your good small ones? I promise I'm good audience
2 years later and he's over 200k subs haha
I love FEAR 1's aesthetics
I think it's really cool. Everything looks like a prototype and you're dealing with the paranormal
I loved mandalore's idea of instead of continuing to fight the replicas you went on to something that's also paranormal and strange like a weird cult or aliens or something.
I figure that the Vivendi stuff was wiped from canon for the sole purpose of ownership rights. The publisher didn't want to have anything in future games that would possibly require them to pay a different developer royalties or whatever, so they declared those expansions non-canon and ignored them.
This game needs a remaster so does fear files.
This game actually managed to scare the crap out of me when it first came out!
Wish I can play it once more.
i remember the first time i got to the end game, the final hospital nightmare and the final scene made me jump out of my skin
I've been playing the first fear on ps plus
hey i love F.E.A.R going in i thought it was more horror themed than it was but i really enjoyed the gunplay and really it was incredibly detailed.
Best FEAR review ever! Thank you for making it!
The gun play and vfx in this game are WAY ahead of their time. You can tell the designer was a fan of 90s action movies. Each firefight looks like a goddamn action movie. So good!
Oh man this brought so many memories of my final year of highschool, our IT class finished the curriculum 3 months early, so we just spent hours and hours playing F.E.A.R MP and Halo CE., that nailgun and those kick animations brought a tonne of nostalgia back.
Oh FEAR
A flawed solid game. It's such a shame atmospheric games from Monolith were not celebrated until Shadow of Mordor.
Duy Linh Chu Ha their Alien versus Predator even more of a masterpiece for me. However, despite loving lotr, i just couldnt give a shit about shadow...
flawed? have you even played it? most of what this guy talks is infact his opinion. and its mostly for content im sure.
RuVik Their AVP game was good but it came way too early. If they didn’t make the game on such an outdated engine, the game would have been a masterpiece. But the game is still fun to play.
Condemned and fear are two of the most atmospheric games ever.
@@coconutbliss1444 yeah fuck this guy's subjective opinion, it's MY objective opinion that counts
I love FEAR. My favorite chapter is Urban Decay since it has a sort of Candyman vibe with all the derilict buildings. My favorite Addon is Extraction Point because it might be one of the darkest and most depressing videogames I have ever played. The dark mood really got to me, but it was also because I finished The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone a few weeks prior. But Shooting a bunch of replicants with dual pistols in bullet time while granades and bullets fly through the room and everything breaks or explodes just never gets old. Never finsihed Perseus Mandate tho.
My only complaint is that I feel like the game tries to be too edgy at times. Like all the swearing done by the Replicas. But thats pretty minor.
Kicking flying nades in multiplayer was the shit! best humiliation possible
The best part of FEAR is when the factorio theme kicks in. Ahh, memories.
6:25 "This is why I record in 60fps"; so you can see their soul leave their body.
Would love to see you do Ridick
One of the best games ever for their time. Tried replaying it recently though and just didn't have the patience. The camera cutting every time you climb/mantle drove me nuts
Also on PC you cant have Anti aliasing and AO on at the same time. Stupid console port.
Gay
The game is actually exponentially more fun if played without slow-mo, especially on extreme difficulty.
I think slow mo actually make it way more fun, without it I just feel like my gun is going all over the place.
That said, you're right in that even extreme difficulty isn't that hard thanks to slow mo being that strong.
Without slow-mo it plays like a tactical shooter, and a good one too, especially if you don't use quicksaves and just go on with checkpoints alone. It becomes an incredible tense experience in which you are dealing with Ai that hunts you down and tries to outsmart you, so you have to check your corners, use cover and lean all the time and fire in bursts instead of spraying bullets all over.
It's like it's two games in one, really.
For majority of the game I didn't remember that slow-mo was a portion of the game and forgot the key to activate it so I ended up playing about 75-80% of the game without it. I had a great time and I think it made the horror more intense and immediately dangerous.
I played it on Hard Difficulty. I think this is the best difficulty, between fair but not to hard. And I only used slow motion, when I had to, for example, when I was on very low health and no more medikits. So yes it was really fun to play like this, because I had nice exciting fights with the enemys.^^
Ghost81 not really, no.
Speaking of Monolith, videos on NOLF 1 and 2 would be neat.
Gwynbleidd Man, I loved those!
The two things I remember about FEAR:
1) I was riding in an elevator and the spooky music sting played, meaning something scary was happening. But I was facing the wrong way and missed it. Oh well, moving on, hope it wasn't important to the plot or anything.
2) The final enemy on the last level is ghosts. Which seems nice and scary, but these ghosts are vulnerable to bullets so you just easily shoot them like any other enemy.
Most people haven’t noticed that Paxton Fettel is overseeing the battle at 17:18 before vanishing into thin F**ing air again..
The feel of the shooting combat in this game is unmatched even today. The mix of particle effects, slo-mo, AI, and enemy movement was perfect. The lighting to set the atmosphere was top notch and something game developers today can learn from. Even the sound and feel of the guns. The combat in this game felt so visceral. It's highly disappointing that 12 years later, even with improved graphics, most of the garbage out there feels like a cheap arcade shooter.
Thank you so much for doing this review. I was highly considering giving F.E.A.R. A play through. Good to see it'll be worth my time.
Fear combat by far the best multi-player out there. I use to play with Baxstar, happystick and other old players. Makes me miss the old times of playing this game
yea and I cant find recent games like it, its not just the chaotic gunfights but also the mood of the maps
BTW I think it'd be really interesting to note that the wide variety of enemy callouts was also, strangely enough, a thing in Monolith's more recent games, Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War. If you pay attention during fights in those games, you'll hear the orcs do things like shout "He's on the bridge!" or "He's on the wall!", and if you kill one of the enemy Captains in the second game the nearest orc alert the others that the Captain is dead and will sometimes refer to him by first name.
What you mentioned regarding the AI dev and the Map dev holding hands brings the Combine AI from HL2 to mind. I've seen interesting demonstrations of their pressuring, covering fire, and call out systems that are honestly really cool, but from what I understand, outside of one or two levels, the maps never really were designed to take full advantage of what the A.I. could do.
released in 2005... makes me sad at the crap of shooter we have today
Lord Zephyros it’s because this generation of gamers have an attention span of a peanut. Battle Royals are all they care about.
@@maximusxj13 Feel like people who deride battle royales would hold up arena shooters like quake as the height of multiplayer gaming when battle royales are basically the same shit.
@@doghat1619 guys at epic games pretty much made that switch completely
I mean, there’s still good stuff out there. The modern Doom and Wolfenstein games are incredibly good.
@@maximusxj13 Dude I hat battle royales and I'm a zoomer.
Oh yay, another Mandalore video, you're kicking them out pretty frequently now...
Why do I get the feeling you make them while gas cloud harvesting on the other screen?
You were right about the lighting though, I remember playing this game when it came out and being awe'd by the lighting, the idea of it being so 'natural' (for the time) was amazing, and I don't think the horror elements would've been anywhere near as good without it, which is saying a lot for an FPS - I had no idea real horror aspects in an action game were possible.
16:20
I like how after not hearing it for probably a decade, I recognized the Payon dungeon music. Thanks.
0:53 that is one of the best scares in games though. You see her outside the window and go back out of the office expecting her to be gone, come round the corner to find her right there walking towards you.
You had me with " if dragon's dogma taught me anything" , well even a number of videos before that. But I was still happy to hear you played it.
*WHERE’S THE GIANT MANSLEY?!*
I actually really liked FEAR 2 too, the story is stupid but it has a much more diverse setting and enemies to fight against. The city levels are fantastic and highly atmospheric.
Midnite Reveries Right, but i dont get why fear2 looks much more futuristic than fear1 even though they are happening at the same time
It was mainly like that because of the advance new gen tech that they had making the game so they wanted to make FEAR 2 visually "prettier" than the last hardware it was capable of. It wasn't really all that bad of a new art design choice I'll say, but it takes away from some of the horror with too many shiny lights.
And I'm not seeing how the story was "stupid". Explain!
LudicrousKid I didn’t really mind it. FEAR 3 on the other hand. Why the hell were the replicas friends with Armacham? They were literally massacring each other in the previous 2 games and I’m pretty sure Alma had control of the V7s
@@hydradude3989 I think that by the events of F.E.A.R. 3, they had a decent amount of Replica soldiers that weren't being controlled by Fettel/Alma, either from simply not getting controlled somehow or "losing connection" so to say. It's likely that they activated the Replica soldiers as they were intended, being soldiers fighting for them.
I would love to see you cover the other F.E.A.R games, I bought this one just from the first ten minutes of this video. I was already intrigued about it from the other stuff I have heard but, this sold it for me. That was even before I saw the cool as Kung Fu shit, great video my dude!
ultraboy222 yeah, I have heard that, that's mostly why I am interested in him covering it, to see how it all changed.
This game's theme has captured my imagination so much. I really wanna see the other cases FEAR would tackle. I would love to see a game that's about a small branch of the Army that deals with offensively dealing with affairs that are supernatural.
The team-based multiplayer was actually really good at the time. One of my fondest memories of its multiplayer was where there was a hallway with an offset room in the middle with a weapon, and both teams had started just chucking grenades down the hallway, filling it up with smoke. There were just a ton of people trying to get into that room, disappearing behind the smoke and getting mowed down as the other team was filling the hallway with lead.
would you consider reviewing Eye: divine cybermancy, as I think you mentioned it in an earlier video?
Absolutely
God I really cant wait for that, had this game for a while now but its very confusing.. from what little I understood its a japanese/asian deus ex with a twist.
@@MandaloreGaming Hello there from the future, your video on the E.Y.E game got me to buy it and i'm trying it out as soon as the download finishes
Your reviews over the past year have been truly fantastic Mandalore, good job. FEAR is great despite the offices.
Personally, I never touched EP because I thought they weren't worth going through. I guess it was just PM that was shit. Also, the one thing that I remember bothering me about FEAR was most of the weapon sounds were average.
SPOILER ALERT: in terms of gameplay EP and PM are both perfectly good...they are almost exactly the same as the first one. they just add more enemies and weapons. as for story...the only thing that happens that seemingly doesn't fit with the canon of FEAR 2 and FEAR 3 is that Jin Sun Kwan dies in EP before the Point Man (you) reaches the end...the rest fits entirely with the story. and...considering Jin died during a point when you are hallucinating...it could have been fake...and so i like to think it wasn't real....which is why she is still alive in FEAR 3
"Behind the body pillow!"
"He's behind the Louis XIV Chaise Longue!"
"The K-Mart to Umbrella's Wal-Mart." I love that line, but it does make me wonder who "Amazon" would be. Black Mesa? Abstergo? Vault-Tec?
16:14
I did not expect motherfucking Ragnarok Online OST in a video about F.E.A.R son. You've earned this sub.
What's the title of the song?
@@captloki13 BGM 20 - Ancient Groover
Ahh thank you, it wasn't just me imagining things. Talk about a nostalgia kick in the face
This, I was looking for this.
Aaaah wandering about in Payon...
I just found your channel and I really like it :) I recommend reviewing STALKER next!
2019 and games still dont have that good shadows that particle effects those destructible enviroments
Agreed, not even ai's in modern fps games are as good as these ones.
only game I can compare with this level of detail is Crisis. The first one.
The first time I played through the section with the cloaking dudes I was shitting and pissing myself the whole time; it’s easily one of the best horror segments out of any game Ive played
Playing F.E.A.R. Extraction Point with Snake Eater blasting through my soundboard during the parking garage section was the single greatest feeling of power I’ve had in any game
You forgot to mention the enemies that had reflex too. Also death of characters in Extraction Point.
One of the scariest and most badass games ever. This and Gears of War 1 are perfect examples of how to do awesome gameplay and scary elements at the same time. The gameplay, graphics, scares, and AI still hold up. I wish Aliens Colonial Marines had this level of good game design.
Great review, i ended up buying FEAR on steam right after watching this and i loved it.
FEAR, specifically the first one and its add-ons, is one of the best action horrors out there. I think too many people misunderstand or misuse the definitions of "survival" and "action" horror. Amnesia and Alien Isolation are survival horrors (although you get a bit of shootey-shoot in The Bunker and Alien, it's a tool, not a goal); Doom 3 and FEAR are action horrors.