Why I prefer FEAR to Half-Life 2
Yes, you read that title correctly. Yes, I prefer FEAR to Half-Life 2, and a microscopic ripple of controversy spreads around the world. Henry Winchester: Does he really prefer FEAR to Half-Life 2?
FEAR is a criminally dumb game. A first-person-horror-shooter set on an unending 80s industrial estate, with an unending supply of identikit bad guys, and an almost unending mildly diverting story. Half-Life 2 on the other hand, offers endless variety of locations, bad guys and a slightly more diverting story.
Why, then, would I prefer FEAR to Half-Life 2? Two words: com-bat. Take a look at the differences in combat between Half-Life and Half-Life 2: there aren't that many. Sure, they improved the AI, and the gravity gun makes things a bit more fun; but other than that it's pretty much the same. Now, compare the combat in Half-Life 2 with the combat in FEAR. FEAR has lean keys, and kung-fu style special moves, and slow-motion. Half-Life 2 has none of these things, in Half-Life 2 it's as simple as aim and shoot. In FEAR, the combat is obviously what they spent most of the development time and money on. And it's paid off. FEAR's combat is actually completely perfect.
Your average FEAR level follows a fairly standard algorithm. You're walking along a seemingly abandoned 80s industrial estate corridor. The lights start to flicker, you get some creepy "origin unknown" static on your radio and a spooky dead girl runs across the screen, sometimes a little too close for comfort. What's going to be around the next corner? Do you really want to know? You persevere, and the tension seeps back in. And then it happens.
FUCK ME! WHAT WAS THAT? A FUCKING SOLDIER!
It's truly gut-churning, but the best bit is your response. A few taps on the keyboard and you're in slow motion, and blam! you shoot him in the head. But maybe he's not dead, so a few taps more and you've flying kicked him across the room. It's a truly beautiful slice of chaos, with clouds of dust and a haze of blood intermingling in slow motion as a limp body cartwheels to its final resting place. This is gaming Evian: a beautiful, clear moment of triumph. Forget Crysis or Alan Wake trying to do beauty; FEAR is everything a game should be.
FEAR does simply repeat this formula ad nauseaum, but the tactile sense of the combat ensured that I never got bored. Half-Life 2, on the other hand, tries to be the jack of all trades but ends up master of none. It does everything mediocrally, but nothing all that well. The driving moments are good, but soon become tiring. Alyx Vance is annoying (I don't remember Tails telling you what to do in Sonic the Hedgehog 2). And the NPC sections are painfully clumsy. This is where Half-Life 2, and the subsequent episodes have really let us down - in Half-Life there was a terrific sense of isolation, of being placed in the centre of a disaster and being utterly alone, save a few feeble scientists and security guards. In Half-Life 2 there's always someone there, watching over you, telling you what to do next. If Half-Life's scientists were signposts directing you to the game's action, Half-Life 2's are puppetmasters telling the player exactly what they must do. FEAR utterly captures that isolation, that panic. And it exploits it masterfully.
Labels: Review
posted by Henry @ 11:13 pm
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