O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Monolith Productions has remained one of the most important studios for me for the longest time. I liked Blood as a teen, but my own proper PC wasn’t a thing until 2001, which was just about the time The Operative: No One Lives Forever got released. That classic, which is still sadly not re-released due to rights issues, was just the beginning. Fantastic Aliens versus Predator 2 followed with its 3 story campaigns that constantly cross over – something that is still a rarity for games. Then, of course, a long expected sequel No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way. Then one of the best movie license games ever – Tron 2.0. And then, in a single year, two amazing games got released – F.E.A.R. and Condemned: Criminal Origins. I am not listing a couple of other games they developed, just due to not playing them myself (though I did play Contract J.A.C.K., which isn’t worth mentioning), but point is – Monolith never disappointed me.
F.E.A.R. was the point where everything started changing. With the game itself, as it was a unique blend of ideas from classic FPS titles and the more “modern” ideas for the genre. For the company, since after this year their projects started getting less praise. And even for the company focus – a switch from their PC-centric development (LithTech engine was specifically designed to be a showcase of DirectX), to a far larger emphasis on consoles. 8 years after F.E.A.R. was originally released, a lot of its faults are more obvious. Yet, it still never fails to amaze.
I suppose, this game could be described as a military shooter, but with elements of horror and without all those terrible tropes that make you roll your eyes when you hear “military shooter”. You do play as a serious soldier dude in a serious special forces team which are super serious, gritty and realistic, except they deal with supernatural threats. You kick doors open, lean around corners, listen to enemy squad communications, follow a very linear story along pretty linear levels, which are full of somewhat more open for exploration arenas. Melee kills enemies in one hit, you can carry only 3 weapons on you, get on-screen hints and there’s even a health regeneration system (though only the critical minimum gets restored). Sometimes you also depend on NPCs to progress, or on the fact if all enemies in the area are dead or not. This is pretty generic for a modern shooter, yet F.E.A.R. manages to still retain a lot of older FPS concepts that make the game far more exciting than what we tend to have nowadays.
For example, despite the linearity of everything, you barely ever need to watch the full scene or wait for an NPC to open the door for you. If you can avoid the enemies, do it, no one’s stopping you. If you know where to go and don’t need other NPCs to tell you, go ahead. So even though there are occasional scenes you must go through, or wait for an enemy to open the door (or more likely break the wall), the player sets the pace of the game most of the time. And the action is a perfect blend of fun and challenge. To this day, the AI in this game feels extremely smart. Enemies communicate, know when to gang up on you, know when to wait in ambush or when to get to you from behind. Of course, this occasionally leads to Benny Hill style chases around a shipping container or something as silly, but these blunders can be easily forgiven. I still adore how stupid and outsmarted it makes me feel if I forget to turn off the lights when casually exploring a new location only to hear a “Flashlight!” from somewhere in front of me. It’s in these details the game shines the most.
And there’s a lot of shining in the game. Monolith aimed at reproducing the feel of John Woo movies (and The Matrix, of course). And approached this in the same simple yet smart way as Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life did years before – by inserting a lot of tiny interactions into the world. Things that are insignificant on their own, but in motion make this game feel amazing. Levels in F.E.A.R. look bland, boring and minimalist, yet when a shootout starts, when you see all the sparks, blood, dust, all the paper flying around, the glass breaking, the explosions and shock waves they produce, it’s just… beautiful. You can capture a screenshot of an enemy meeting your shotgun blast behind a glass wall that’s slowly turning into a scattered puzzle and it can look kinda nice. But in motion, especially with you in control of this horribly astonishing ballet of violence and blood, it feels like nothing else. Especially since the slow-mo the game has works well, both visually and gameplay-wise. Because, apart from it looking amazing, it also allowed for the game action pace remaining as quick as what you’d expect in an older FPS, with no need to slow things down – players can do that when they feel like it. And when you don’t feel like it, levels fly by just as if the game was from the 90s. This pace and excitement is something that has been missing in FPS of this generation.
Two expansions, Extraction Point & Perseus Mandate, were developed by the team at TimeGate Studios, which is now unfortunately shut down after going through the horrible situation with Aliens: Colonial Marines. This team tried their best. They tried to make levels more varied, add more enemy types, more weapons, tell a more gripping storyline (at this they failed astonishingly bad), create visually memorable scenes (like the one in the header from Extraction Point) and be scarier than the original. While they have achieved some of these goals, the expansions actually feel much less fun to play. First expansion, for example, just feels boring due to lots of action in rather uninteresting locations. While the second aims to be something akin to Half-Life: Opposing Force, yet instead feels like a bad retelling of the main game and cannot keep its horror and action bits balanced. Also, it looks very ugly with its attempts to make more “open air” levels, despite the engine not handling it well, and later by going for a very Quake-ish look that doesn’t fit the game at all. Both of the expansions add those dreadful “wait for the NPC to do their thing” moments that the main game tried to avoid. Oh and there’s a final boss in the second expansion that is just plain bad.
Luckily, the expansions are currently sold as part of the package with the main game and there’s no need to pay extra to check them out, in case you’re still curious. The main game itself, though, is fantastic. It hasn’t been a visual benchmark for years now and it does have some things that are simply outdated. And maybe this playthrough I’ve done will be the last and I won’t replay this game again. But just in case no other game recreates the beauty of these shootouts in slow-mo, I will know where to find Paxton Fettel and his wooden plank to the face.
P.S. I kinda wish the game had a bonus mode with cheats on, though you can use actual cheat commands via the “say” prompt. It’s incredibly fun to run around with infinite ammo for the gun that melts all enemies into skeletons.
P.P.S. Oh and the game intro is still one of my absolute favorites. Also, despite its minimalist ambience, the soundtrack is super awesome as well.