I’ve decided that my praising things is far too unlike me. Sure, I talk about how awesome things that I love are, but I think that the true draw of a relationship is not everything that you LIKE in common. No, common likes get old. It’s the things that we HATE together, that really bring us together. I mean seriously, how many wars oppressions have been stamped out because people were motivated by their love of freedom? None, because the drive was not how free they could be, but how much they hated their oppression (or oppressors).
Political insights aside, let’s get to the topic at hand: Whining Wednesday. On Whining Wednesday, I’m going to do much like the Angry Videogame Nerd or Zero Punctuation, I’m going to bitch and whine about something that I don’t like. On top of that, to hold your interest, for awhile I’m going to bitch and whine about games, because I’m in a helluva gaming mood lately (what with all the Star Trek Online and Quake I’m playing).
A few years ago, a sequel that few people heard about hit the shelves. It was called “Quake 4″, a direct sequel to the events of Quake 2, and the first sequel in the series. I had preordered it and planned to enjoy it. I talked in my local gaming community about my anticipation for this title, I got into the Quake 4 community, and then something started to get in my way: criticism. Now of course, not everyone can like everything, but the anticipation for this went along the lines of “Oh look, they’re going to rehash Doom 3, great, hey, you should check out this other game that’s coming out. It’s gonna be 10x better, it’s going to be what Doom 3 should have been”.
F.E.A.R.
I did some research and it looked like it had promise, but I couldn’t understand where the immense support was coming from. Few standalone titles garnered this much hype before release, especially P.C. titles, so what was going on here? I decided that the matter didn’t require further investigation, and I’d just wait until it comes out. This turned out to be the better route
Quake 4 came out and for a week, I was immersed in a game that my system could only barely play. Like most games that cause problems on my computers, it even required me to get ahold of some money, to upgrade the video card (this, in turn, is the purchase that made me dislike nVidia, but that’s another story altogether). I then went onto the rest of the internet and began to talk about Quake 4… but to my surprise, people had stopped badmouthing it, they didn’t have time. They were too busy jizzing themselves over the “ABSOLUTE AWESOMENESS” of something else, something that they just wouldn’t shut up about, something that silenced everything I had to say about the game I had pre-ordered for $60, that they had been whining about, before.
F.E.A.R.
So lemme tell you something, ladies and gentlemen; I was still skeptical, but how can you resist overwhelming praise like that? I searched my local download site and found F.E.A.R., my interwebs connection was immediately tied up with the download, and I went on with my daily life. Upon completion, I installed it and readied it to run on my brand new nVidia 7600 GS. Opened up the game, set my settings and…
…was disappointed. I played through the first level, the introduction, before deciding to go downstairs and watch The Shining. The most ridiculous cliché’s popped up at every opportunity the developers’ had. Walk into a room, OH NO, SCREEN GOES BLACK AND RANDOM GHOSTS ACROSS THE SCREEN, I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING! Turn a corner of a big empty area that looks safe, SOMEONE HITS YOU WITH A PIPE, HOW SURPRISING! Step through a door, into a room with an operators’ bed OH NO, A DEAD BODY THAT WASN’T THERE A MOMENT AGO FLASHES ACROSS YOUR SCREEN, THE HORROR!
I decided that the best plan was to ask people, “WTF is so great about this game?” and was promptly told that I just “didn’t get it”. That’s the most terrible excuse I’ve ever heard. That’s exactly why 2001: A Space Odyssey is a dull, uninspiring movie. Cinematically, it’s phenomenal, but it’s a two-and-a-half hour long tribute to cinematography, not a movie. The problem being that this game.. is not brilliantly executed. I played it again this summer and simply could not finish it. The unbearable predictability of the story/script was painful to pay attention to, and the gameplay was the same as any FPS, which didn’t add or take away from F.E.A.R., it was just… there.
Another thing that they told me was phenomenal about this game were the graphics. Why? I really didn’t see it then, and I still don’t see it. When I play Doom 3, I see the beginnings of this generation’s level of graphics. When I play F.E.A.R., I see Source at best. Maybe that could be because it’s a number of years old now, but even the Source engine wasn’t that phenomenal looking for its time, it was “good”, and that’s about all. It was well-executed though, but F.E.A.R. made me get really tired of offices and 1940s styled hospital rooms. I severely doubt THAT many buildings are still standing, by the same designer, seriously.
So if any of you know why F.E.A.R. is so great, please, tell me. Thus far, I’m experienced a dull and predictable script/storyline, that’s as uninspired as current horror films are (and even turns into a blood/gore orgy at a few points), and a decent game engine that wasn’t really pushed to its potential by environments that you saw coming from miles away. In all honesty, there are multiplayer maps for Half-Life 2 Deathmatch that creep me out more than this game did.
Oh, and for the record, Quake 4 wasn’t phenomenal and id ruined the big surprise in the storyline before the game was released – but it made damn good use of the Doom 3 engine and felt like a Quake game. Remember how in Quake, except for the grunts, nearly every enemy seemed like a challenge, hard to kill because they were big and had abilities/moves that could rape you, no problem? Yeah, same idea, it was hard. Go play that instead!
–Jeff “DanyLektro”