Jeff Buckland reports:
''F.E.A.R. was a great game, but it had a couple of key flaws that held it back from greatness. Monolith is working on a new game called Project Origin, which exists because of a bizarre twist in Monolith's split from publisher Sierra/Vivendi. Sierra got to keep the name F.E.A.R., while Monolith got to keep the story and characters from their game and asked the community to create the name for the new project. For some reason, out of a bunch of great choices, Monolith picked the rather bland name Project Origin. But from my time spent at E3, the game is anything but boring.
I enjoyed F.E.A.R. quite a bit, but I had two major issues with it. One, the level design was horrible, with one basement after warehouse after office complex after another. Two, the horror elements were great, but for almost the whole game, none of the scary stuff could actually kill you. You'd take on these tough commandos with Matrix-like abilities to slow down time and powerful weapons to take out pretty much anything in your way, but then the action would die down, it got very formulaic. Your HUD would flicker and you knew a scary part was coming - a few of those moments were really damn scary, but for the most part you'd get some predictable glances at Alma, the girl that's causing all the craziness in the game world. Only once the horror part was over and you moved away from it would another fight would start up. Even though I felt like F.E.A.R. had much more potential and better fights, I preferred playing their other horror action game, Condemned, simply because you had to actually fight the scary things instead of just having them go "boo!" and fade away.''
WTMG's Kyle Nicol: "Whilst F.E.A.R 2 wasn’t the masterpiece I remembered from ten years ago, with its combat and level design being worse than the original, it is still a fun game that is well worth playing through today. "
PSU writes:
PSU continues its look at the horror genre over the past 20 years on PlayStation platforms, with our latest entry looking at the tail end of the PS2 era and into a new generation with the release of the PS3. Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, Siren: Blood Curse, and F.E.A.R. are just some of the pant-wetting pleasures you'll find in part 3.
Stephanie Burdo from The Koalition writes:
"With Halloween just around the corner, TheKoalition.com has decided to list some horror games which petrified us the most.
Please note that this list is in no particular order. Each selection has been made by individual writers who found their respective choice their most terrifying experience in gaming."
I mostly agree with those except with Alan Wake, it wasnt scary at all.
But a great list overall.
I've played all games on the list. Alan wakes was intense at certain moments not scary. Fatal Frame; I was quite young then it got me scared shit less(damn camera). The evil within was ok but Resident evil scared me more back in the day (maybe its because I got older, dont know).
As for PT? ok...I advice people NOT to use surround headsets whie playing this...Jesus... I could hear her moan behind me right on top of my ear at times and I could for the life of me turn around...mind f***
But my god does Alien Isolation raise my heart beat. When you're being chased by the xenomorph and you know you are totally defenseless against it can scare the bejesus out of you, things get worse when you realize that running for it when you encounter the beast makes things worse, yeah...
That said Silent hill 2 was scary as shit as well, especially when the Pyramid head chased you...
My first playthrough of Alan Wake was without HUD so the first couple hours was kinda kinda scary, occasionally being lost in the woods chased by possesed rednecks.
Alien Isolation was really intense and i'd say it's the scariest game overall i played. Sadly i haven't played PT since im PC only, but watched the first 15min online and it looks sick.
But the scariest moments for me were wandering at night in STALKER games, scarier than all the smeared guts on the walls and closet monsters of Evil Within and Dead Space. It has such an oppressive atmosphere that no game comes close, and that's whats missing in most horror games. Looks like a tough one to successfully pull off.
Real shame such games are so rare, out of hundreds i played only few were scary.
Hmm i need to play STALKER...
As for scary games not being that scary anymore \I thing its that we've seen it all and nothing surprises us anymore...
Now Alien Iso was scary not because it had the new thing, it was a cat and mouse chase on a spaceship again but the devs played with the sound in such a way that they breathed new life to a tired concept (cat and mouse).
Remember that time early in the game after that guy got impaled by the Xenomorph? Now from there we walked in the transit area and called the transit... smoke filled the dark area and a heart-pounding music started while we waited for the train car. Tell me that cant scare the bejusus out of anyone! I was literally waiting to get dismembered by the xenomorph while hiding like crazy! INTENSE. And that was just the start of the game!
Thats ^^^ what we need more of!
''F.E.A.R. was a great game, but it had a couple of key flaws that held it back from greatness"
So we have a 'great' game that failed to achieve 'greatness' ?