It's like when people do playthroughs and they explain/ speedrunning tips and lore alongside (IE: Volvagia with old Zelda games). It just makes it more complete and better.
It's great especially where it matters. Doing a review of games like Spec Ops: The Line or Halo 2 without at least touching on the history of the studio would be making a fundamentally incomplete review, I think, but I'm also very much an author's intent type person.
Are they telepathically controlled or did they just replace voiceomms with telepathy. Because if they are telepathically controlled, all of them, why would they need to talk to each other if it's basically a hivemind
@@eccomi21 they can only receive telepathic orders from Fettel. But the clones themselves cannot send any telepathic messeges. It's a one way thing, clones cannot telepathically communicate.
@@Warhammer_lover @eccomi And when Fettel's killed, the replicas all go catatonic, which seems pretty sensible as a safety feature against him going nuts...
I never completed the game, but I'll never forget the first impression it left when I played it a friend's house. Early on, there is a firefight in an area with a parked semi-trailer. I was chasing down the last clone of this fight around the trailer, but each time I rounded the corner of the trailer to kill him he would retreat on the other end of the trailer. I wizened up and decided to wait until I saw his legs underneath the trailer and shoot his feet. When the moment came and I started firing, the clone stuck his gun underneath the trailer - keeping his head concealed by the trailer - and started blind firing my face! In all the games I've played since, I don't think I've seen an AI actor react as intelligently to the scenario it was in.
It's pretty much down to the AI guy and the level design guy working together like they were a married couple. Combine that with the intelligent choice of voicing way more context-sensitive barks than normal and having really satisfying particle & dynamic lighting effects, and gun battles in this game are just a treat.
I’m gonna point this out because nobody else has. At 2:55, Pat sets up a possible auditory jump-scare. Not only does he not do that (it’s overplayed) but he actually eases the volume of his voice back to it’s normal level, so as to not accidentally jump scare the viewer by revealing there is no jump scare. It’s a minor point but still goes to show the near professional attention to detail that goes into the auditory experience. I hope this didn’t come off as autistic as I think.
One point of contention, F.E.A.R. was a technical marvel in its own right visually. Models didn't look too good but props, walls, and such looked incredible at the time. As well, the game pioneered dynamic visual lightning.
Monolith gave me No One Lives Forever as a kid and Fear as a teenager. Then there was AvP and Blood. Man there will always be a special place for them in my heart.
Hell yeah! The combat in FEAR is probably among the best in any shooter I've ever experienced. It's fast-paced (if you opt to not use the slow-mo most of the time) and brutal, I love it. The horror scared me, so I appreciate that part and the combination of the two genres they went for a lot, but then again I was pretty young when I first played through it for the first time
Have you ever played Ultrakill? If you have not, and you can at least tolerate PS1-esque style, consider to give it a go. It's cheap, short, but boy oh boy it's amazing. It's densely packed with action, dynamic, kinda brutal and hella fun to play. It's feels like DOOM (2016) but on steroids
I found the horror parts pretty decent in the main game. Because it's so dark and so quiet in those sections it kinda feeds into that fear of the unknown that's so potent, it tricks you into scaring yourself, plus the audio logs you'd find would flesh out the story of the environments you'd be roaming. It's similar to Amnesia TDD and SOMA in that sense, both great horror games. I really don't get why you call the horror elements "bad", especially since you don't really seem to like horror in games. Just because it doesn't scare you "because you have a quicksave button", that doesn't mean it's bad (nor good, really) it only means you are biased and believe that the horror elements are bloat and only serve as short breaths in between the action segments (which they are very good at). I appreciate the fact that you refrain from elaborating on the horror, it makes me think you are aware of this bias.
@@eccomi21 Your personal experience is irrelevant to the discussion (as is mine). What makes SOMA great is the superb lighting and environments mixed together with the enemy design and exploration. Wanting to discover more about Pathos II and the people there while hunted by creepy monsters in the dimly lit station makes for quite a tense atmosphere. Frictional preferred playing with people's minds more than showing jumpscare after jumpscare (at least before Rebirth...) and it shows in SOMA, their main goal was the story and having it and the questions it raises linger in your mind long after you stop playing. If Amnesia TDD profited most from game play (light management, mostly), SOMA profits far more in literally every other department since visuals, monsters, story and puzzles were all greatly improved, but light and inventory management were dropped (one could argue it made the game less "gamey" and more immersive as a result). I think those improvements more than made up for that relative lack of game play depth. It seems to me that SOMA wasn't really a game for everyone, as pretentious as that may sound. What is undeniable is the fact that it flew over a majority of reviewers heads who then made crap videos about it which in turn misled their audiences, and Frictional suffered as a result.
@@totallynuts7595 soma is a great game especially story wise, but what i mean to say is that it is not a great horror game. mainly for the reason that it is easy to avoid enemies, and even if you get caught you just wake up where you got caught. there is no penalty, there is nothing to be scared about if you will. i want to compare that to subnautica, a game that is not necessarily marketed as a horror game but leans into it in the later stages of the game. what makes it scary is that theres actual meaning to getting caught and dying, you can lose progress in form of farmed ressources, vehicles or simply distance travled. pair that with the deep sea swimming which means you dont only need to worry about what is in front or behind you, but also what is above and below you. What i am trying to say is, Risk=scary, no risk=not scary that is sort of factual. if you are still scared by soma, you are probably just easily scared and then even exploring a cave in minecraft can be unsettling, but at least even there is risk of dying/losing progress involved.
@@eccomi21 Shouldn't the fear for your life be enough for you to want to not be caught? And as I previously said, the risk you take during a monster encounter is that you go out of your way to play the encounter for longer in order to explore. You actively put yourself in danger for that. You are penalised when you get caught. You start limping. You move slower. If you get caught again, before you get a chance to heal, you die and have to reload a save. How hard should it be to avoid enemies? Gimme another game for comparison's sake. In SOMA I distinctly recall enemies "guarding" the places I needed to get to and most of the time those places weren't simply exits, you couldn't just run past them. Anecdotal evidence, but towards the end of the game there is an encounter with what seemed to me to be a monster in a diving suit, in a very cramped space and it first spawns pretty much in front of you. You have 3 or so distinct areas that you have to get through while hunted by this foe, but the exits are slow to open. What I ended up doing was run around with that guy on my tail waiting for the doors to open. This was a far more aggressive enemy compared to the others, hiding was not effective for very long. If you care, what I find unsettling about Minecraft is how lonely and lifeless the caves feel, I find losing my items frustrating, if anything. Again, an important thing to note is that Frictional are well aware that death in games is more frustrating than scary, they don't want you to fail every section of the game because that would likely not be engaging. Instead, they play with your mind, as I said, using the atmosphere.
It reminded me alot of the Matrix lobby scene while playing. Just amazing gunfights, dust and debris flying all around, blood and bullet casings, slow motion. Add some above average A.I. enemies, fucking awesome.
This may be the first time I've ever heard another human being reference 'Section 8', when not directly responding to me mentioning it. I loved that game's multiplayer.
I bought it yeeeears ago and 1 or 2 friends got it alongside me, but never wanted to play. So alone I went. Aaaand it was dead lol, barely anyone playing. The concept of changing objectives mid mission was so cool, too bad it didn't last. ps.: and he's probably only mentioning it because he researched the studio lol.
this game is so obscure, that googling 'Section 8' will return some legal stuff occupying many first entries. The game doesn't appear until result 5 or 6.
I played the multiplayer demo back in the day. The game definitely intrigued me, but the gameplay didn’t really grab me, IIRC. I do wish the unique spawning system and changing objectives were implemented in a better game. Like, imagine having ODST-style drop pods for a Halo game type. Like, if you could turn that on as a Custom Games setting, or have it be something you can Forge with.
My favorite most underrated aspect are the insane melee moves that point an can do, with the sliding kick you can knock out three enemies at once if you time it right (it also looks very funny)
Pretty surreal that just a week ago I finished this game for the first time ( I had tried two times before but got distracted) and here you are, out of the blue, making a review on it and expressing a lot of the same ideas I was having while playing it.
It was pretty scary back in 2005 when I first played it at my buddy's house. I think the only way the original would have been more scary is if they incorporated more jump scares and absolutely nobody wants that. I replayed it 6 months ago on my own computer and every combat encounter had me on the edge of my seat and I was basically playing it blind after 16 years. The combat mechanics had something that I think actually makes horror better: giving you the resources to overcome the somewhat unpredictable situation you just stumbled into. In classic horror the audience likes it when they overcome their enemy temporarily through sheer will and adrenaline. If you try to play FEAR like halo you're going to die a lot. Lastly: the first expansion ramps up the scary shit a lot and throws in a handful of jump scares that enhances the story and personally made me stop and wonder if I'm ready for what I'm about to go up against next. If you're playing the Vivendi timeline of expansions it slowly ramps up the scary till the last expansion and then dominates the casual player into submission. I think a game can still be horror without rendering the player completely helpless.
As far as upcoming F.E.A.R. inspired games go, aside from Trepang2, there's also Selaco, which is on the surface more of a boomer shooter but was actually more heavily inspired by F.E.A.R. and playing it like a boomer shooter on higher difficulties will get you killed quick.
I liked the horror a lot in the first fear until I realized that no enemies appeared during "scary" sections until the end of the game so at that point I just treated it like a free space. I do sill adore how they made the enemy AI work though. Very impressive for its time and even still today. The story in the 2nd one is...interesting. I don't recall them getting a lot of backlash for it maybe it's just double standards.
I'm glad to see you working on other new videos regarding certain games, and I hope to see more content like this outside of your usual long format videos.
I grew up playing Fear multi-player. The jump kick is op. I never knew people complained about the claustrophobic horror game was claustrophobic. But then again I hate that water is wet.
It was 2009...I was recovering from a very invasive surgery involving a bone graft from my hip to my upper jaw..... what a special unique game With the overall landscape of the military shooter genre in the late 2000s I'll never forget throwing that first grenade with slow motion...simply amazing watching that plume of blood.
I unironically like Perseus Mandate, it fills in a lot of the blanks from the base game and adds a cool new faction to fight. The levels are well paced and it has an actual final boss fight unlike the other games. It also has a the only happy ending in the series, where the player-character doesn't get screwed over at the end. The sidekicks are funny and likable. It's pretty much my go-to when I am in the need for some FEAR gameplay without it dragging on forever like the first
@@MrStinkels Betters is obviously dead too, but it could be continuity mistake. Betters was on that Military plane that crashed down the street where you can access the subway entrance in both Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate.
5:24 exactly how I feel. I've seen so many people complain about the environments looking the same and being "boring" and it's just sad to see people who can't enjoy some of the best ever fps gameplay, level design & atmosphere all in one just because the walls don't have different fucking colours on them. Dunno wtf happened at 5:35 though
I played this in early 2006 and this game actually made me upgrade my computer and invest into Shader Model 3.0 graphics card (GeForce 6600 LE). "Shaders" were bane of many of my neighbors, the game would simply fail to launch if your graphics card didn't supported those. This card was good enough to run Oblivion at a manageable framerate too. Definitely one of the most hardware-demanding games of late 2005. Expansions were clearly inferior to base game, but still provided a fair bit of fun. Hospital level in one of them was geniuinely spooky, new guns were fun to use, especially the laser cannon from Perseus Mandate. Notice how this weapon is essentially a graphite brick with red display that displays ammo in plain Arial font. That's not half-assing, that's quarter-assing or even one-eighth-assing it. But hey, it functioned well. Aliens that drag you underground into their dimension tried to be spooky but they telegraph themselves so well that you'll never be attacked by one. Fear 2 is okayish to play, but Fear 3 is a skipper.
I completed the first game of the FEAR series and I love it. Something that strikes me about is how they utilized horror and gameplay (i.e. Leaning and Bullet-Time) to create scary and immersive gameplay aspect. Plus, even if horror in this game isn’t fully processed to some player, the background lore (i.e. audio logs) and story are very interesting to listen to.
I just came here today to say that I'm so excited for you to release your next video. You very quickly projected me into rush of watching game analysis videos. After finishing everything in your channel Ive found that It is far and few in between where I find videos which encapture me even a fraction as much as your videos. Thank you for putting so much effort into your art.
Wanna point out that when this game was released, some of us were still using big 4:3 CRT monitors with excellent response time, blackness and gamma. The game looked way better and felt more claustrofobic and responsive on these screens compared to the very poor 16:9 TN panels that were starting to pop up.
FEAR: a shooter so good it got me to play Doom 3 chasing that same experience. Needless to say, I remember FEAR quite well but can't recall Doom 3 at all aside from the vague feeling of "wow I just wasted a weekend playing this?"
Fear's horror is stylish before its effective, sure the style is seeded in the mid-naughties' brief fascination with j-horror, but its given the game an identity which has distinguished it over time. Also it scared me back the day.
also the horror and paranormal is the part of the story. there's no "you're hallucinating" it is happening in their world because of alma so yeah when phantoms are rushing towards you it's not scary but it is happening as well as irritating and apparently they can hurt you people tend to say "yeah there's horror and it doesn't work" but horror is like nudity or harsh language - it doesn't have to fuck your mind and you can tell a story without them but when you add them it's a delicate balance between making it a part of the world and story or being cringe while of trying to be edgy for the sake of being edgy.
I got a theory that the Skyrim video is not only a stout 16 hours long but it’s already recorded and edited and ready to publish but you’re just fucking with us for funny release date
I'm with you on the horror part in games in general and DOOM3 was a brilliant tech demo back when but was overhyped. I 'member the videos that popped up with it of people screaming their head off and throwing away the mouse, shoving away the keyboard, etc. while I was bored to tears. Enter room - lights go out - zombies spawn - duct tape does not exist, so you have to constantly switch between your weapon and your flashlight so I adopted the "12 o'clock - shoot, 3 o'clock - shoot, 6 o'clock - shoot, 9 o'clock - shoot, lights back up - move on, else, switch to flashlight and search for the bugger that had the audacity to sidestep from its spawnpoint. I didn't finish the game, which rarely happens, but Doom3 was crap, period. F.E.A.R. on the other hand did actually manage to rattle me a couple of times. While the "dream" sequences were rather dinky, Alma running across the screen behind you and you only see the shadow, or Alma popping up, just standing there, flicking the lightswitch with her mind, those instances got me a couple of times. As for the DLCs/Add-Ons and sequels, EP was ok, PM was meh, F.E.A.R. 2 was barely worth the effort and I consider myself lucky that I only got F.3.A.R. when it was on sale, played for 82 minutes, deinstalled the crap.
Tell me what U want but the dynamic lightning all over FEAR and the particles and destructible environment made FEAR look really good from a graphical standpoint imho
I've barely heard of this game, it's not a genre that appeals to me, and I really enjoyed this video -- interesting & informative, and entertaining too. You do good stuff!
what they did with extraction point was pretty cool. it does get a little over the top ridiculous, but it's true enough to feel like a proper second half for the base game. i played both for the first time this halloween and they instantly made the replay list. good video man. subscribed
@26:35 well that explains the lack of a third Section 8 game. I unironically really liked those games course I was young and if a game had a botzone and sci-fi armor I was all in on it. So not much has changed in ten years really. But honestly, orbital dropping onto the battlefield as a respawning mechanic and trying to nail down the perfect time to slow your descent was a part of that game I never got bored of.
9:12 AI rely quite alot on level design, having worked with the map editor, its like a sandbox of mini scripted events where the AI decides to use it or not, The objects they can interacts or the animation they use to traverse an obstacle are scripted and specified by the level designers, This is why to make a varied arena where it will plays differently, work must be done by the level designers, the AI itself wont know what to do if there are no covers, you even have to specified what type of cover, the cone of vision etc. it is fun to do but alot of work
I find that the horror works in the first game and EP not because it's scary, but it does create a great sense of dread for me, like as the game progresses, the walls close in on you. EP also has some of my favorite horror setpieces, particularly with Holiday's death. Just my two cents on that.
Can anyone recommend said permanent Blood Splatter mods he talked about in the video? The FEAR modding community seems to really like providing as little information as possible.
It's probably a game you haven't played, _maybe_ you might have seen, called Viscera Cleanup Detail. It has blood, gore, bulletholes, etc. that paint the scene of what happened. Of course, you're not the one that caused the scene, you're the one that has to clean it up. It's a slow, methodical, almost meditatively calming game, and it has a lot of amazing attention to detail in its visceral and gorey scenes.
Tbf the SPAS-12 was originally designed as a military shotgun, not a sporting one. It originally stood for special purpose automatic shotgun. This was changed to sporting purpose automatic shotgun in response to some US import restrictions, along with decreased magazine size and fixing the stock in place. Love your work though.
"Flashlight!" I always feel a bit of shock whenever I heard an enemy call out my flashlight. It felt like I was really fighting soldiers instead of AI. Getting into fights with the odds stacked against me. They'd blind fire behind cover, they'd throw grenades, call out how many men i'd killed. They'd show genuine fear and yell "We can't stop him!" "He's too fast!" Oh and by the way. I played it for the first time this month. And I genuinely enjoyed the game. Oddly I felt Blair Witch vibes from the horror parts. Haven't done the expansions yet. Kinda wish Alma got a better ending. I genuinely feel bad for her about what she was put through.
horror is made perfectly in this game you played it once so you know "oh now is gonna be scary" - in theory in practice the firefights are taking your focus and when you get to "oh scary now, i remember" and you're off by mere seconds you doubt yourself and that doubt turns into actual unsettling atmosphere "was i wrong? where's the scary? something's gonna kill me?" and then boom the scripted scares happen and you're caught. also the 10 medkits are perfect for making you play aggressively and they don't heal you fully so you can either ace the game or suck completely wich is where fear 2 failed miserably with 3 medkits that heal you fully literally limiting your aggressivness and it is said that replica has battalion sized force and you never kill a full battalion
I never got caught off by the horror moments in FEAR, they only bored me because you get slowed down, and sometimes I wasn't even looking in the right direction
I just found your channel and this video was great. Keep up the good work. I did really like what they did with lotr nemesis system. I remember spending hours replaying the demo for this game.
Game Pedigree sounds like a really interesting series. Like creating a big family tree to see why games in entirely different genre and studio feel 'similar'.
At first I was worried about how short this review would be. Then at the end it all made sense. Also; I'd happily sit down for a few hours to listen about studio missmanagement and absorption resulting is weird game releases.
I love the first FEAR game. I never beat it because unlike Patrician, I am NOT a big strong man; I'm a weak and cowardly person. But I would replay the opening few hours all the time, because the gunplay and shootouts in the office were so, so good. The Alma bits scared me but I'd power through them for the fun gameplay.
The AI itself is cool but what elevates it to legend status is the call outs the replicas give to each other. Also Extraction Point is genuinely great but Perseus Mandate is horrible. Extraction Point had actual good lighting as you can see idk what happened with Perseus Mandate. No idea how the same devs made something so bad.
Some people like to talk about what their dream game would be. Like if they had a billion dollars and a studio full of developers at their disposal to make whatever they wanted. Mine would be F.E.A.R. Just make F.E.A.R. again. But this time with more levels and more guns so I could play more F.E.A.R. because it rocks.
It is a genuine crime not every Fear 1 player today runs the game with the Rivarez Mod. Rivarez just adds so much more to the gameplay and its aftermath.
"Instead of focusing on amazing lighting, physics, or character animation..." - Yet F.E.A.R. Still has better environments than a lot of AAA titles that came out after.
I've played it (the 1st base game only) back the day. Basement flat near a large forrest. Of course alone at home because I was single. In the night like 1 am, 2 am. Totally stoned. With a 5.1 Dolby Surround Headset and a freaking door to a storage room behind me. Then please tell me again F.E.A.R. is not a horror game lol. I never shit myself as much as in this game. I had to continue playing it in daytime with speakers. Was too intense. Ok I was much younger. Still. The most horror experience I ever had in any game. Period.
This games horror aspect didn't age well but that's kinda because so many games copied it. Its old hat at this point because it made... or popularized the concept of hats. Yes it's formulaic. But a blind first play through was fantastic in the day and it was scary. But absolutely the combat is orgasmic.
Honestly, the history behind the studio is something I'd like to see for every review.
Agree. It definitely helps define Pat as a more research-focused reviewer, something that really shouldn't be a USP, but here we are.
It's like when people do playthroughs and they explain/ speedrunning tips and lore alongside (IE: Volvagia with old Zelda games). It just makes it more complete and better.
Im not a fan of it personally, but it doesn't put me off or anything. Personal preference I suppose
It's great especially where it matters. Doing a review of games like Spec Ops: The Line or Halo 2 without at least touching on the history of the studio would be making a fundamentally incomplete review, I think, but I'm also very much an author's intent type person.
@@eazyv2069 I totally understand the appeal, just not high on my personal priority list for whatever reason
Well, about the call-outs, only Fettel was telepathic, the clones could only receive orders, but among themselves they had to use voice commands.
Are they telepathically controlled or did they just replace voiceomms with telepathy. Because if they are telepathically controlled, all of them, why would they need to talk to each other if it's basically a hivemind
@@eccomi21 they can only receive telepathic orders from Fettel. But the clones themselves cannot send any telepathic messeges. It's a one way thing, clones cannot telepathically communicate.
@@eccomi21 it's not a hive mind
clones might recieve orders but they can't send anything
that's why squads use radios
and why they have command clones
@@Warhammer_lover @eccomi And when Fettel's killed, the replicas all go catatonic, which seems pretty sensible as a safety feature against him going nuts...
I never completed the game, but I'll never forget the first impression it left when I played it a friend's house. Early on, there is a firefight in an area with a parked semi-trailer. I was chasing down the last clone of this fight around the trailer, but each time I rounded the corner of the trailer to kill him he would retreat on the other end of the trailer. I wizened up and decided to wait until I saw his legs underneath the trailer and shoot his feet. When the moment came and I started firing, the clone stuck his gun underneath the trailer - keeping his head concealed by the trailer - and started blind firing my face! In all the games I've played since, I don't think I've seen an AI actor react as intelligently to the scenario it was in.
You should have finished the game.its worth it ✌️
It's pretty much down to the AI guy and the level design guy working together like they were a married couple. Combine that with the intelligent choice of voicing way more context-sensitive barks than normal and having really satisfying particle & dynamic lighting effects, and gun battles in this game are just a treat.
I’m gonna point this out because nobody else has. At 2:55, Pat sets up a possible auditory jump-scare. Not only does he not do that (it’s overplayed) but he actually eases the volume of his voice back to it’s normal level, so as to not accidentally jump scare the viewer by revealing there is no jump scare. It’s a minor point but still goes to show the near professional attention to detail that goes into the auditory experience. I hope this didn’t come off as autistic as I think.
analytical doesn't mean autistic
hihi anal
It came off as severely autistic my dude but it was also super cool and wholesome. I'm glad you pointed it out
super autistic
it does
I find that neat personally, don't really care if you came off as autistic or not, liking the small details is always a good thing.
One point of contention, F.E.A.R. was a technical marvel in its own right visually. Models didn't look too good but props, walls, and such looked incredible at the time. As well, the game pioneered dynamic visual lightning.
i like that not only does alma turn people into deepfried skeleton blood balloon explosions, but the game gives you a gun that lets you do it too
Monolith gave me No One Lives Forever as a kid and Fear as a teenager. Then there was AvP and Blood. Man there will always be a special place for them in my heart.
Hell yeah! The combat in FEAR is probably among the best in any shooter I've ever experienced. It's fast-paced (if you opt to not use the slow-mo most of the time) and brutal, I love it. The horror scared me, so I appreciate that part and the combination of the two genres they went for a lot, but then again I was pretty young when I first played through it for the first time
Have you ever played Ultrakill? If you have not, and you can at least tolerate PS1-esque style, consider to give it a go. It's cheap, short, but boy oh boy it's amazing. It's densely packed with action, dynamic, kinda brutal and hella fun to play. It's feels like DOOM (2016) but on steroids
@@VasiliyOgniov Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds very interesting, I might actually try it out
@@VasiliyOgniov I assume by uberkill you mean ultrakill, right?
@@ijones36 Yeah, im sorry. Dumb mistake, fixed
I found the horror parts pretty decent in the main game. Because it's so dark and so quiet in those sections it kinda feeds into that fear of the unknown that's so potent, it tricks you into scaring yourself, plus the audio logs you'd find would flesh out the story of the environments you'd be roaming. It's similar to Amnesia TDD and SOMA in that sense, both great horror games.
I really don't get why you call the horror elements "bad", especially since you don't really seem to like horror in games. Just because it doesn't scare you "because you have a quicksave button", that doesn't mean it's bad (nor good, really) it only means you are biased and believe that the horror elements are bloat and only serve as short breaths in between the action segments (which they are very good at). I appreciate the fact that you refrain from elaborating on the horror, it makes me think you are aware of this bias.
I think a decent summation would be that the horror doesn't touch the mechanics, and is instead purely aesthetic.
You are the first person I know to call soma a great horror game. I appreciate its story and there certainly is body horror. But it never scared me
@@eccomi21 Your personal experience is irrelevant to the discussion (as is mine).
What makes SOMA great is the superb lighting and environments mixed together with the enemy design and exploration. Wanting to discover more about Pathos II and the people there while hunted by creepy monsters in the dimly lit station makes for quite a tense atmosphere. Frictional preferred playing with people's minds more than showing jumpscare after jumpscare (at least before Rebirth...) and it shows in SOMA, their main goal was the story and having it and the questions it raises linger in your mind long after you stop playing.
If Amnesia TDD profited most from game play (light management, mostly), SOMA profits far more in literally every other department since visuals, monsters, story and puzzles were all greatly improved, but light and inventory management were dropped (one could argue it made the game less "gamey" and more immersive as a result). I think those improvements more than made up for that relative lack of game play depth.
It seems to me that SOMA wasn't really a game for everyone, as pretentious as that may sound. What is undeniable is the fact that it flew over a majority of reviewers heads who then made crap videos about it which in turn misled their audiences, and Frictional suffered as a result.
@@totallynuts7595 soma is a great game especially story wise, but what i mean to say is that it is not a great horror game. mainly for the reason that it is easy to avoid enemies, and even if you get caught you just wake up where you got caught. there is no penalty, there is nothing to be scared about if you will.
i want to compare that to subnautica, a game that is not necessarily marketed as a horror game but leans into it in the later stages of the game. what makes it scary is that theres actual meaning to getting caught and dying, you can lose progress in form of farmed ressources, vehicles or simply distance travled. pair that with the deep sea swimming which means you dont only need to worry about what is in front or behind you, but also what is above and below you.
What i am trying to say is, Risk=scary, no risk=not scary
that is sort of factual. if you are still scared by soma, you are probably just easily scared and then even exploring a cave in minecraft can be unsettling, but at least even there is risk of dying/losing progress involved.
@@eccomi21 Shouldn't the fear for your life be enough for you to want to not be caught? And as I previously said, the risk you take during a monster encounter is that you go out of your way to play the encounter for longer in order to explore. You actively put yourself in danger for that.
You are penalised when you get caught. You start limping. You move slower. If you get caught again, before you get a chance to heal, you die and have to reload a save.
How hard should it be to avoid enemies? Gimme another game for comparison's sake. In SOMA I distinctly recall enemies "guarding" the places I needed to get to and most of the time those places weren't simply exits, you couldn't just run past them. Anecdotal evidence, but towards the end of the game there is an encounter with what seemed to me to be a monster in a diving suit, in a very cramped space and it first spawns pretty much in front of you. You have 3 or so distinct areas that you have to get through while hunted by this foe, but the exits are slow to open. What I ended up doing was run around with that guy on my tail waiting for the doors to open. This was a far more aggressive enemy compared to the others, hiding was not effective for very long.
If you care, what I find unsettling about Minecraft is how lonely and lifeless the caves feel, I find losing my items frustrating, if anything. Again, an important thing to note is that Frictional are well aware that death in games is more frustrating than scary, they don't want you to fail every section of the game because that would likely not be engaging. Instead, they play with your mind, as I said, using the atmosphere.
Now we need a Viva Piñata review as a palate cleanser
I would actually second this.
@@danielfarr1971 Viva Piñata is unbelievably underrated and needs attention
Always love to hear Pat talking about the context behind the companies behind those games. Pretty amazing video as always.
It reminded me alot of the Matrix lobby scene while playing. Just amazing gunfights, dust and debris flying all around, blood and bullet casings, slow motion. Add some above average A.I. enemies, fucking awesome.
Check out John Woo
This may be the first time I've ever heard another human being reference 'Section 8', when not directly responding to me mentioning it. I loved that game's multiplayer.
I bought it yeeeears ago and 1 or 2 friends got it alongside me, but never wanted to play. So alone I went. Aaaand it was dead lol, barely anyone playing. The concept of changing objectives mid mission was so cool, too bad it didn't last.
ps.: and he's probably only mentioning it because he researched the studio lol.
this game is so obscure, that googling 'Section 8' will return some legal stuff occupying many first entries. The game doesn't appear until result 5 or 6.
I played the multiplayer demo back in the day. The game definitely intrigued me, but the gameplay didn’t really grab me, IIRC. I do wish the unique spawning system and changing objectives were implemented in a better game. Like, imagine having ODST-style drop pods for a Halo game type. Like, if you could turn that on as a Custom Games setting, or have it be something you can Forge with.
Patrician and Mandalore video on the same day, very blessed.
My favorite most underrated aspect are the insane melee moves that point an can do, with the sliding kick you can knock out three enemies at once if you time it right (it also looks very funny)
Pretty surreal that just a week ago I finished this game for the first time ( I had tried two times before but got distracted) and here you are, out of the blue, making a review on it and expressing a lot of the same ideas I was having while playing it.
It was pretty scary back in 2005 when I first played it at my buddy's house. I think the only way the original would have been more scary is if they incorporated more jump scares and absolutely nobody wants that. I replayed it 6 months ago on my own computer and every combat encounter had me on the edge of my seat and I was basically playing it blind after 16 years. The combat mechanics had something that I think actually makes horror better: giving you the resources to overcome the somewhat unpredictable situation you just stumbled into. In classic horror the audience likes it when they overcome their enemy temporarily through sheer will and adrenaline. If you try to play FEAR like halo you're going to die a lot. Lastly: the first expansion ramps up the scary shit a lot and throws in a handful of jump scares that enhances the story and personally made me stop and wonder if I'm ready for what I'm about to go up against next. If you're playing the Vivendi timeline of expansions it slowly ramps up the scary till the last expansion and then dominates the casual player into submission. I think a game can still be horror without rendering the player completely helpless.
As far as upcoming F.E.A.R. inspired games go, aside from Trepang2, there's also Selaco, which is on the surface more of a boomer shooter but was actually more heavily inspired by F.E.A.R. and playing it like a boomer shooter on higher difficulties will get you killed quick.
I liked the horror a lot in the first fear until I realized that no enemies appeared during "scary" sections until the end of the game so at that point I just treated it like a free space. I do sill adore how they made the enemy AI work though. Very impressive for its time and even still today. The story in the 2nd one is...interesting. I don't recall them getting a lot of backlash for it maybe it's just double standards.
I'm glad to see you working on other new videos regarding certain games, and I hope to see more content like this outside of your usual long format videos.
I grew up playing Fear multi-player. The jump kick is op.
I never knew people complained about the claustrophobic horror game was claustrophobic. But then again I hate that water is wet.
It was 2009...I was recovering from a very invasive surgery involving a bone graft from my hip to my upper jaw.....
what a special unique game
With the overall landscape of the military shooter genre in the late 2000s
I'll never forget throwing that first grenade with slow motion...simply amazing watching that plume of blood.
Play Fear in mixed sessions with Condemend criminal origins and clive barkers Jericho, is glorious
I unironically like Perseus Mandate, it fills in a lot of the blanks from the base game and adds a cool new faction to fight. The levels are well paced and it has an actual final boss fight unlike the other games. It also has a the only happy ending in the series, where the player-character doesn't get screwed over at the end. The sidekicks are funny and likable. It's pretty much my go-to when I am in the need for some FEAR gameplay without it dragging on forever like the first
It's a drag until the bomb drops and then it picks up from there.
That is until you realize you are on the chopper by end of extraction point that got you killed
@@Frostwolf_103i dont think it s the same chopper but thats a cool idea
@@MrStinkels Betters is obviously dead too, but it could be continuity mistake. Betters was on that Military plane that crashed down the street where you can access the subway entrance in both Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate.
5:24 exactly how I feel. I've seen so many people complain about the environments looking the same and being "boring" and it's just sad to see people who can't enjoy some of the best ever fps gameplay, level design & atmosphere all in one just because the walls don't have different fucking colours on them.
Dunno wtf happened at 5:35 though
I played this in early 2006 and this game actually made me upgrade my computer and invest into Shader Model 3.0 graphics card (GeForce 6600 LE). "Shaders" were bane of many of my neighbors, the game would simply fail to launch if your graphics card didn't supported those. This card was good enough to run Oblivion at a manageable framerate too. Definitely one of the most hardware-demanding games of late 2005.
Expansions were clearly inferior to base game, but still provided a fair bit of fun. Hospital level in one of them was geniuinely spooky, new guns were fun to use, especially the laser cannon from Perseus Mandate. Notice how this weapon is essentially a graphite brick with red display that displays ammo in plain Arial font. That's not half-assing, that's quarter-assing or even one-eighth-assing it. But hey, it functioned well. Aliens that drag you underground into their dimension tried to be spooky but they telegraph themselves so well that you'll never be attacked by one.
Fear 2 is okayish to play, but Fear 3 is a skipper.
I completed the first game of the FEAR series and I love it. Something that strikes me about is how they utilized horror and gameplay (i.e. Leaning and Bullet-Time) to create scary and immersive gameplay aspect. Plus, even if horror in this game isn’t fully processed to some player, the background lore (i.e. audio logs) and story are very interesting to listen to.
Back in the day it was running gag within community that FEAR stands for "Fu*ck Everything And Run"
I just came here today to say that I'm so excited for you to release your next video. You very quickly projected me into rush of watching game analysis videos. After finishing everything in your channel Ive found that It is far and few in between where I find videos which encapture me even a fraction as much as your videos.
Thank you for putting so much effort into your art.
Wanna point out that when this game was released, some of us were still using big 4:3 CRT monitors with excellent response time, blackness and gamma. The game looked way better and felt more claustrofobic and responsive on these screens compared to the very poor 16:9 TN panels that were starting to pop up.
It looked pretty good on my modern display, but yeah I remember when digital monitors were first popping up and noticing how bad black spaces looked.
4:05 why bloodless Halo and more static elements hurt modern halo's enjoyability.
Edit: Immediately after it gets used as an example, just perfect.
FEAR: a shooter so good it got me to play Doom 3 chasing that same experience. Needless to say, I remember FEAR quite well but can't recall Doom 3 at all aside from the vague feeling of "wow I just wasted a weekend playing this?"
You still don’t get enough traction. I fucking love your reviews. Criminally underrated
Hadn't been here in a hot minute and was happy to see you up about 20k subs. Good work as always, Pat.
This game is particularly nostalgic for me because it takes me back to days where I would come home to watch G4 and play nothing but PC games.
2:42 where do you even get keys like that?
God I love the 1st fear game so much that it hurts knowing that it never truly got be iterated properly on
also slo mo does make the game kinda easy, but also maximizes the destruction and lets you appreciate the wanton chaos of the firefight all the more.
How close are we to Skyrim brother-cousin?
looking forward to that video this man makes the best reviews I've seen ever.
also he sais he is aiming for 11/11 date to realise skyrim vid
@@roach7191 That's gay. I want it this month.
Fear's horror is stylish before its effective, sure the style is seeded in the mid-naughties' brief fascination with j-horror, but its given the game an identity which has distinguished it over time. Also it scared me back the day.
also the horror and paranormal is the part of the story.
there's no "you're hallucinating"
it is happening in their world because of alma
so yeah when phantoms are rushing towards you it's not scary but it is happening as well as irritating and apparently they can hurt you
people tend to say "yeah there's horror and it doesn't work"
but horror is like nudity or harsh language - it doesn't have to fuck your mind and you can tell a story without them but when you add them it's a delicate balance between making it a part of the world and story or being cringe while of trying to be edgy for the sake of being edgy.
I got a theory that the Skyrim video is not only a stout 16 hours long but it’s already recorded and edited and ready to publish but you’re just fucking with us for funny release date
I'm with you on the horror part in games in general and DOOM3 was a brilliant tech demo back when but was overhyped. I 'member the videos that popped up with it of people screaming their head off and throwing away the mouse, shoving away the keyboard, etc. while I was bored to tears. Enter room - lights go out - zombies spawn - duct tape does not exist, so you have to constantly switch between your weapon and your flashlight so I adopted the "12 o'clock - shoot, 3 o'clock - shoot, 6 o'clock - shoot, 9 o'clock - shoot, lights back up - move on, else, switch to flashlight and search for the bugger that had the audacity to sidestep from its spawnpoint. I didn't finish the game, which rarely happens, but Doom3 was crap, period.
F.E.A.R. on the other hand did actually manage to rattle me a couple of times. While the "dream" sequences were rather dinky, Alma running across the screen behind you and you only see the shadow, or Alma popping up, just standing there, flicking the lightswitch with her mind, those instances got me a couple of times.
As for the DLCs/Add-Ons and sequels, EP was ok, PM was meh, F.E.A.R. 2 was barely worth the effort and I consider myself lucky that I only got F.3.A.R. when it was on sale, played for 82 minutes, deinstalled the crap.
Tell me what U want but the dynamic lightning all over FEAR and the particles and destructible environment made FEAR look really good from a graphical standpoint imho
I've barely heard of this game, it's not a genre that appeals to me, and I really enjoyed this video -- interesting & informative, and entertaining too. You do good stuff!
what they did with extraction point was pretty cool. it does get a little over the top ridiculous, but it's true enough to feel like a proper second half for the base game. i played both for the first time this halloween and they instantly made the replay list.
good video man. subscribed
@26:35 well that explains the lack of a third Section 8 game. I unironically really liked those games course I was young and if a game had a botzone and sci-fi armor I was all in on it. So not much has changed in ten years really. But honestly, orbital dropping onto the battlefield as a respawning mechanic and trying to nail down the perfect time to slow your descent was a part of that game I never got bored of.
i’ve been hanging out for a FEAR review, thank you based patrician
9:12 AI rely quite alot on level design, having worked with the map editor, its like a sandbox of mini scripted events where the AI decides to use it or not,
The objects they can interacts or the animation they use to traverse an obstacle are scripted and specified by the level designers,
This is why to make a varied arena where it will plays differently, work must be done by the level designers, the AI itself wont know what to do if there are no covers, you even have to specified what type of cover, the cone of vision etc. it is fun to do but alot of work
A multiplayer game where something dynamic happens leaving aftermath where players have to be detectives sounds interesting
I find that the horror works in the first game and EP not because it's scary, but it does create a great sense of dread for me, like as the game progresses, the walls close in on you. EP also has some of my favorite horror setpieces, particularly with Holiday's death.
Just my two cents on that.
Surprised the incredible sound design didn't get a mention. Shell casings never sounded so good hitting wood floors.
But it did
Thank you Patricia!
Can anyone recommend said permanent Blood Splatter mods he talked about in the video? The FEAR modding community seems to really like providing as little information as possible.
It's probably a game you haven't played, _maybe_ you might have seen, called Viscera Cleanup Detail. It has blood, gore, bulletholes, etc. that paint the scene of what happened. Of course, you're not the one that caused the scene, you're the one that has to clean it up. It's a slow, methodical, almost meditatively calming game, and it has a lot of amazing attention to detail in its visceral and gorey scenes.
Ahh...Fear...first played it when i was around 10 years old......not the smartest choice perhaps, but many years later I still love this game....
Aw, i was hoping the GDQ paper you mentionned would be in the description
2:40
"I can quickload"
That line killed me xd
Mah man, its good to see ya
Ive never played this game before can someone explain to me why this dude is dancing at 12:08
Did you use footage from those QnA streams a while back?
Tbf the SPAS-12 was originally designed as a military shotgun, not a sporting one. It originally stood for special purpose automatic shotgun. This was changed to sporting purpose automatic shotgun in response to some US import restrictions, along with decreased magazine size and fixing the stock in place.
Love your work though.
Why hasnt goal oriented ai been used since?
"Flashlight!"
I always feel a bit of shock whenever I heard an enemy call out my flashlight. It felt like I was really fighting soldiers instead of AI. Getting into fights with the odds stacked against me. They'd blind fire behind cover, they'd throw grenades, call out how many men i'd killed. They'd show genuine fear and yell "We can't stop him!" "He's too fast!"
Oh and by the way. I played it for the first time this month. And I genuinely enjoyed the game. Oddly I felt Blair Witch vibes from the horror parts. Haven't done the expansions yet.
Kinda wish Alma got a better ending. I genuinely feel bad for her about what she was put through.
Correction: The game studio's name is Monolith Production, not Monolith Software; a different game studio.
I watched my uncle play FEAR online as we listened to Scandinavian black metal. some of my favorite memories
Holy shit that's so cool
horror is made perfectly in this game
you played it once so you know "oh now is gonna be scary" - in theory
in practice the firefights are taking your focus and when you get to "oh scary now, i remember" and you're off by mere seconds you doubt yourself and that doubt turns into actual unsettling atmosphere "was i wrong? where's the scary? something's gonna kill me?"
and then boom the scripted scares happen and you're caught.
also the 10 medkits are perfect for making you play aggressively and they don't heal you fully so you can either ace the game or suck completely
wich is where fear 2 failed miserably with 3 medkits that heal you fully literally limiting your aggressivness
and it is said that replica has battalion sized force and you never kill a full battalion
This
I never got caught off by the horror moments in FEAR, they only bored me because you get slowed down, and sometimes I wasn't even looking in the right direction
Anyone happen to know what the game is at 3:20?
Project Warlock
@@Patrician thank you!!! ^>^
yet another patrician W
Weren't monolith also involved in making stalker?
I just found your channel and this video was great. Keep up the good work. I did really like what they did with lotr nemesis system.
I remember spending hours replaying the demo for this game.
Game Pedigree sounds like a really interesting series. Like creating a big family tree to see why games in entirely different genre and studio feel 'similar'.
Great vid, good job patty, keep it up, proud of you.
I liked sticking enemies to ceiling fans. Love this game back in the day. May have to play it again.
I did play fear as a kid, and that double ladder thing scared me a lot.
At first I was worried about how short this review would be. Then at the end it all made sense.
Also; I'd happily sit down for a few hours to listen about studio missmanagement and absorption resulting is weird game releases.
This is my favorite game of all time and I always enjoy people bringing attention to it
since you didn't mention NOLF in the bit when you were talking about monolith, i'll take that as confirmation you're making a NOLF video.
Excellent video with a great look behind the scenes. Thank you
Great god, do you play this with a controller!?
really recommend playing this game without using slow-mo / bullet time. Much harder and satisfying fights.
I am TIRED of the Doom 3 slander.
Silver play button imminent....!!!!
I love the first FEAR game. I never beat it because unlike Patrician, I am NOT a big strong man; I'm a weak and cowardly person.
But I would replay the opening few hours all the time, because the gunplay and shootouts in the office were so, so good. The Alma bits scared me but I'd power through them for the fun gameplay.
The AI itself is cool but what elevates it to legend status is the call outs the replicas give to each other. Also Extraction Point is genuinely great but Perseus Mandate is horrible. Extraction Point had actual good lighting as you can see idk what happened with Perseus Mandate. No idea how the same devs made something so bad.
Some people like to talk about what their dream game would be. Like if they had a billion dollars and a studio full of developers at their disposal to make whatever they wanted.
Mine would be F.E.A.R. Just make F.E.A.R. again. But this time with more levels and more guns so I could play more F.E.A.R. because it rocks.
How did you get the game to run so good? I’ve tried a few methods but the game always tanks to 10fps after ~10 minutes
It is a genuine crime not every Fear 1 player today runs the game with the Rivarez Mod. Rivarez just adds so much more to the gameplay and its aftermath.
Thanks for the cool video Mr. P
Literally one of the best shooters ever made!, love the expansions ngl its more fear!
"Instead of focusing on amazing lighting, physics, or character animation..." - Yet F.E.A.R. Still has better environments than a lot of AAA titles that came out after.
oh man, November 11th hype!
I’m excited for this video!
I've played it (the 1st base game only) back the day. Basement flat near a large forrest. Of course alone at home because I was single. In the night like 1 am, 2 am. Totally stoned. With a 5.1 Dolby Surround Headset and a freaking door to a storage room behind me.
Then please tell me again F.E.A.R. is not a horror game lol. I never shit myself as much as in this game. I had to continue playing it in daytime with speakers. Was too intense.
Ok I was much younger. Still. The most horror experience I ever had in any game. Period.
OK but when are you going to do a Daggerfall video?
Also has this joke been run into the ground yet?
getting turbo button vibes from that outro
>Fear doesnt focus on amazing lighting
Did you just turn off the graphics? That was why it aged so well
Patrician tier content, as always
I NEVER GET TIRED OF F.E.A.R. BREAKDOWNS!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
This games horror aspect didn't age well but that's kinda because so many games copied it. Its old hat at this point because it made... or popularized the concept of hats.
Yes it's formulaic. But a blind first play through was fantastic in the day and it was scary.
But absolutely the combat is orgasmic.
Good video mate