Saturday Morning Gaming: F.E.A.R.
There was a short period of time in the oughts where we had movies with undead little kids and this resulted in people sleeping with the lights on for months.
The Ring was really good and really, really creepy and I believe that it’s the last horror movie I’ve ever watched. I got home, took more of the blanket that night, asked Maribou to come to bed early, and never watched a horror movie ever again. As such, I never saw The Grudge but I’m told that it was *EVEN WORSE*. (The Grudge 2, I’m told, was much less scary because it played like a parody of The Grudge. Open the cabinet? AAAA A GHOST! Take a shower? OH NO A GHOST! I think I’ll get something from the fridge… HOLY COW IT’S A GHOST AGAIN!)
Well, back in 2006, an intrepid video game company said “DUDE WE SHOULD DO THAT!!!” except, instead of horror, they went with the whole “let’s give the player a machine gun” thing. There is still a zombie kid who shows up and sets everything on fire but, for the most part, you’re running around and throwing grenades.
As part of the runup to Halloween, Steam put the entire F.E.A.R. series on sale for cheap and I picked it up and, holy cow, how did I miss these games the first time?
You are Protagonist, a member of the F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) unit. A top secret research program intended to create supersoldiers has gone all pear-shaped and it’s up to you, Protagonist, to Put Things Right. By shooting them.
The game does a great job with lighting and does give you some jump scares from time to time… here’s an overhead light that broke one of its moorings as I walked up the stairs, giving me a start:
It was nice and creepy.
The game is somewhat fast-paced, as good FPSes are, and it’s got some vaguely irritating puzzle platforming from time to time, but it’s mostly a fun flashback to the joys of just blowing stuff up between cutscenes with a little zombie Firestarter.
It has humor (or “humor”) thrown in:
I mean, if you’re running around with a zombie child chasing you while you shoot up an opposing army of enhanced army dudes, you’d think that you’d enjoy some levity. (Remember the “I could set the building on fire” scene? Well, the zombie kid does that more than once too.)
If you’re looking for a fun, mindless shoot-em-up that leans *FAR* more into the “here’s a machine gun” than the “Remember the girl in The Ring” stuff, you need to pick this game up. It’s, seriously, a treat.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is the TPS Report. All screenshots taken by the author.)
