I'm starting to think I'm a bit of a screen junkie. Yesterday I watched two movies, an episode of Stargate, a few hours of videogaming, plus some time spent fooling around on the computer on Gamespot and youtube. And then I've done almost the same today. Granted, I have also read a few chapters of Without Remorse (only a few chapters left to go, slow going for the first 150 pages but draws you in after that), did a little clean up around the house, and some scant exercise, but I feel like I'm spending too much time in front of one screen or the other. I think it is a little worse now that I have an office job and look at a screen for most of the day. At the end of the day I'm feeling like my eyes are tired, but not necessarily my body which makes it hard to sleep (and for that reason I hopped on the exercise bike while watching the last movie).
In any case, I've finally started Fallout 3. Thus far it is pretty promising, but I'm finding the inventory system a little cumbersome. I don't seem to be able to go very far without having to figure out what to drop next. There is also the fact that if you try and sell stuff to people, they can only buy with what money they have. This makes perfect sense, obviously no merchant is going to have bajillions of bottle caps to buy everything you find, and I've often pondered this in other games. Now that this realistic restriction has been implemented in a game... time will tell whether I think this was a good addition or not. The other thing that is daunting me at the moment is the radiation. I assume you just get in the swing of things, eating radiated meat and then spending some money to get rid of it. I'm also wondering about the armory in Megaton. I waltzed up to the door and pressed the A button just as the message appeared, not seeing that it was red (meaning danger or unable to access for those who haven't played it) and got blasted by the robot. I assume this is something that unlocks later on, as I got my ass shot to hell by the townsfolk as I tried to retreat.
Last week I also finished F.E.A.R. Files. I think it was RK-Mara who told me to steer clear in an earlier blog of mine, but I was in a shooter mood and it was about the only one on my shelf that I hadn't played. It was competent, but fell short of the original. Full review below. I just got Gears 2 for my shooting fix, but I'm saving that experience for co-op. I hired it a couple of times in the past couple of months for that purpose, and finally bought it. Thus far a great experience, but the section where you have to plant the bomb at the door was a bit tedious. If you were both strafing in the same direction, why couldn't you strafe? The turning mechanic in that section was annoying. On with the F.E.A.R. Files review.
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F.E.A.R. Files contains two expansions for the original F.E.A.R. which are Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate. These play almost identical to F.E.A.R., and while they include a few new enemies and weapons, they seem to fall just short in other areas.
The story in each of these expansions follow a different F.E.A.R. team, offering a different perspective of the story as you travel through different locations. However, I didn't find myself drawn in to the story element in either of the expansions, and just worried about where I was headed next. You don't need to play F.E.A.R. to play these expansions, but it will help to understand some of the story elements, and the interactions with some of the characters. Generally they play out with much the same pacing as F.E.A.R. with various gunfights, attempts at scares, supernatural foes, hallucinations, and some tense battles against more heavily eqipped foes.
For some chapters of these expansions, you will be accompanied by a team mate or two which was rarely the case in the original. However they don't often add to the gameplay, and best as I could tell they were invincicble and didn't need protecting when you got into gunfights. That said the majority of your time will still be spent fighting alone. The mechanics and gunplay are exactly the same as before. There are a few new weapons to play with in the expansions, with the VES Advanced Rifle becoming one of my favourites, a scoped rifle that enhances low light conditions. The minigun churns up ammo, but can make mince meat out of your enemies in no time. Another nice addition are turrets that you can lay down, which can be helpful in more open areas to help prevent from being surrounded.
New enemies come in the form of armoured minigun toting super soldiers, soldiers that have reflexes like that can 'slide' when they are shot at to avoid your fire, and a few new supernatural enemies. However, what has been made up for in variety has been more than lost in artificial intellgience. The original game had great squad tactics, and all of that seems lost in these expansions. There were a few times when I saw some intelligence, such as a soldier knocking over a box for cover, but these moments were fleeting. Here, the enemies are much more inclined to come through a doorway one at a time, and their flanking tactics are almost nonexistent, though the level design doesn't allow them much opportunity to do so this time around. Also, some of the enemies are just annoying and feel cheap rather than genuinely challenging. In particular are the enemies that wield grenade launchers or percussive weapons, as they rarely miss whether you are strafing normally or in reflex mode, despite the same weapons feeling useless in my hands. One 'boss' fight in Perseus Mandate is of particluar note in this regard, and I almost stopped playing the game at that point as I mashed the medikit button every few seconds until I managed to beat the fight several tries later.
Graphics are the same as F.E.A.R. so they are dated but still look decent. The main detractor graphically is when there is smoke caused bu explosions or by bullets hitting objects and raising dust, which is on the blocky side. Shadows are inconsistent, with some being solid black (mainly your own) while effective in other areas, such as a 'scare' moment where a light has been knocked and shadows play around a room. Soundwise everything is the same with the weapons packing the same punch, and enemy chatter as it was before. There are some fights that are accompanied by tense music, which then drops off after you kill the last enemy. I don't recall whether this same tactic was used in the original game, but I felt it did the game a disservice. The moment the music dies down, you know you can relax, and relaxation is not the tone these games are going for. I felt it would have been better to continue wondering whether you really had cleared out the area, staying on your toes as you progressed. Unfortunately the game was a bit on the glitchy side. Nothing game breaking, but it broke the immersion. Things such as ambient noises continuing to play after you had left an area, dropped guns rattling on the floor uncontrollably instead of coming to a complete stop, and enemies yelling out they could see a flashlight when I didn't have it on.
The scares that the games throw at you are hit and miss, and after a while you just go through the motions when visions appear, as they aren't often threatening. There were still a couple of times when I jumped, and I did find one of the scenes where you witness the death of a team mate entertaining. Some of them can be a bit disorienting (to the games credit) as you enter into a hallucination, continue travelling, and then come back in to the real world in a different place, wondering how you got there. The level design takes you to a few new places, though in Perseus Mandate you will find yourself travelling backwards through a few locations that were in Extraction Point.
If you haven't played F.E.A.R., I recommend playing that first as it is the better game. F.E.A.R. Files is a mild letdown as it doesn't quite reach the level of the first game, but is still enjoyable in its own right.
Score 7.0