Very nice demo.
First off, I can see it turning off a few players. It is...kind of the combination of something like
Half-Life 2 and
Riddick with some fear tossed in. It seems like a very good game, but not all may like the slower pace, the increased lethality of combat, and other, minor attempts at (FPS) realism.
I am fine with foregoing minor texture res for graphic effects.It is resource heavy, but not insanely so. I can do 1024x768x32 with everything set to maximum barring FSAA (disabled) and AF (set to 2x, though I never did try 4x.) However, that is with a 3500 and a 6800; I can easily see how one of the newer GPUS (especially) or a faster CPU could let you enable or increase those two settings.
It is really fun and really good. It did enjoy the fear aspects, thank god it is psychological fear unlike
Doom 3's "hiding in a broom closet, about to jump out" fear, and cannot wait to see what else the game does. In addition to that, it does stress thinking things through rather than run 'n gun, it has visciously fast, lethal combat, and I am even interested in finding out just who/what my character is.
I think the
style of gameplay will be the biggest negative factor for many people (in addition to performance woes), but I eat this stuff up. My only real gripe is, as ever with a Monolith release, how the input is handled. This is probably Monolith's best attempt at input, but it still feels so off from the
Quake,
Unreal Tournament, or other PC games.
The movement is a tad stiff, but I just had to disable mouse smoothing and notch the head movement to 50% and then it was OK. I still think the worlds in these games are a little too dark, but it does have some lights around the area and you do you have your light (requiring no switching of weapons ;P.)
You can find some gripes, but realitively, the physics in the game are fantastic. The NPCs and subsequent bodies to move with impact, but it often feels right; this is far from the infamous "ragdoll" physics. Otherwise, the particle and slow motion effects are nice, I love the damage (from player to items to walls) that the various weapons have, all the weapons are interesting and powerful when used properly, etc. It does have medkits, up to ten that you can carry, but I did not really think much of them (ie did not take me out of the game.) Along the same lines, though it is a "game" dynamic, I love the idea of the reflex boosters; they give you more of that yummy slow motion and a reason to search through the levels.
This game will definitely give your fingers a workout with switching and dealing with your light, slow motion, grenades, and health packs.
My only one question would be about stealth. For the levels being overly dark like that, I inherintly expect some type of stealth aspect. Only once would I say that I ever felt I was hiding from the NPC, else they would spot me from miles away. I would not expect this to be a stealth game, this would quickly become
Thief or FPS MGS, but just a tad more would make me happy.
The AI is good. If you want to nitpick, I get the feeling it just have a very complex set of instructions rather than having dynamic thought, but that is really pushing it. Again, relative to the market, the NPCs are quite good. The NPCs were not particularly stupid, they reacted well, they are
LETHAL bastards, and will pull some creative tricks on you. I am curious to see how they will react in more varied or open levels.
I still want
Prey like you would not believe, but
F.E.A.R. is definitely my second most wanted game now. I think the gameplay and gun play might turn off some, queue that
Riddick-eque reference, but if you can get "into" the game, it is quite amazing.
Add in the possibility of scaring the sh*t out of me?
YES PLEASE!
Loving those big, bad armored mother f*ck*rs :o,
Ray
Edit: Removed t3h s3><!
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http://www.livejournal.com/users/raymarden/http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMardenhttp://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_mardenI love you, mom.This comment was edited on Aug 5, 16:00.
Everything is awesome!!!
http://www.kindafunny.com/I love you, mom.