A pretty intense & freaky game that has a low price tag (contains spoilers)
Although most of the game & story is on the ship, dont think this is the only place you will be fighting on. You'll wind up on an oil rig where the entire story comes together.
Cold Fear utilizes a lot of the same game play mechanics that Resident Evil 4 used. You collect a small armory of weapons including a flame thrower, shotgun, MP5, etc. The aiming is works with the camera allowing you to see over your shoulder, so you can have the full effect on the aim. Although there is no jumping, you can run - and oh boy will you be running.
What seperates Cold Fear from Capcom's top selling game is that Cold Fear has a lot of enviromental hazards. Since you are on a ship in a very bad storm, the boat rocks which makes aiming hard. And adding to the whole ship rocking thing, waves can hit the boat and in turn hit you which will hurt you over even knock you off the frigate. On the oil rig you must watch for trip lasers, explosive barrels, and since it IS an oil rig - falling off the edge and into a watery grave.
There are a lot of enemies to fight ranging from armed paranoid Russians, Mutants/Zombies, parasites, and these monsters with big arms. There are more, but I don't want to really ruin it too much for you.
The music is pretty good, I mean it builds tension in dark hallways, adds suspense & helps pump the blood in intense battles, etc. For the most part the sound effects are good, like the zombies and stuff screaming and whatever, but the gun shots for the handgun sounds SOOO weak... but it's just the handgun so I guess I can overlook it. The voice acting is good, whoever played Hansen did a great job adding some personality to his character.
I hate to admit, but the graphics feel pretty outdated. Some things are blocky, others are grainy...the cutscenes don't look much better. What IS good is the fact that the stages are really big and interactive, and the character models look cool - both human and monster, but more on the monster side.
Having said that, I will add that although I had a great time playing it I think the game was FAR too short and pretty easy for the most part. The hardest thing was learning your way around the ship & rig. What really ticked me off was you could save only after you have done a certain amount of things to progress the storyline, and on top of that, the ending was...very....VERY! weak and I felt a bit ripped off.
Even with it's problems however, Cold Fear provided me with a lot of fun and quite a few scares, not to mention a nice low price tag. I suggest if you want some thrills with easy gaming then go for this title.