A 3rd person survival horror thats pretty damn good!
The good:
The graphics are very good, they are getting outdated now but still look fine. The models look cool, the cut scenes are full of action and gore and look great. Cold fear delievers almost everything in the graphical compartment, but comparing it to games that come out now it doesn't look like much, but you can't expect much from a game that came out in 2005.
The plot and setting is just masterful, an old abandoned whaling ship out in the middle of the ocean, the crew are now mindless zombies hell bent on ripping you apart. The setting and all the different levels are very atmospheric, its kind of like doom 3 in 3rd person, but not as good or scary.
This game is full of zombies so expect it to be full of gore as well. Nearly every wall is covered in red and every corpse you come across is drenched in blood and left in a grotesque state. Probably the most gory factor of this game is the headshots, shoot a zombie in the head and be rewared with some brutal grindhouse gore. Everytime you engage into battle with 3 or more zombies expect the fight to have blood spurting everywhere and brain matter flying onto nearby walls. Cold fear does a solid job with the violence.
As mentioned before the camera angles in cold fear are identical to that of resident evil and gears of war. The aiming with the weapons goes over the shoulder and a red lazer sight appears to help even more. It is extremely easy to get head shots thanks to the aiming. Cold fear's controls are very smooth and easy to handle which makes it more enjoyable.
The enemies you face in cold fear are bad ass ranging from psycho zombies to vicious hulking monsters then can break you in a instant. Its also nice to see the inclusion of zombie hounds, they majorly add to the intensity and paranoia. There is one type of enemy that are invisible, so you always have to be prepared and keep your eyes peeled.
The fact that your fighting on a huge ship in a raging thunder storm makes the environment extremely unstable and dangerous, some of the hazards include swinging boxes and hooks attached to long ropes, loose electrical wires that shock you if they come into contact with a body of water that you are in or touch you directly. You can also use these hazards to your advantage by leading zombies into swinging hooks or keeping them in water and then shooting a fuse box sending fatal waves of electric volts towards them.
The bad:
There was not enough weapons for you to experiment with, they only had the basic firearms such as a machine gun, shotgun, pistol and the addition of a grenade launcher and a flame thrower. They did have one interesting weapon, the harpoon gun that was tipped with a gas that attracts zombies towards it leaving them open for several shots.
There wasn't enough bosses at all, there was only about 3 and in a normal game you would expect at least 6 or more. The enemies were good but for the big bad ass guys they really let the gamers down.
They could have had a little more variety in the level designs, after about 4 levels everything starts to look repetitive, they also could have had more colours. I only noticed about 3 colours, metallic, red and blue.
The scares also got repetitive after the first couple of levels, doom 3 and FEAR also suffered the same problem. So I don't know if its common for survival horrors to get repetitive after a while, but everyone I've played has.
Overall cold fear does have a certain charm but misses out on key elements such as a larger variety of weapons, way more boss battles, better scares, more of a variety of different levels and having a little bit more colour so the game doesn't feel dull and depressing. If you are a fan of the RE series then I recommend trying this game out because its not bad it just feels a little repetitive after a few hours of play.