Koki on 30/4/2009 at 10:40
Quote Posted by Vivian
story dumb
Well obviously, it wasn't exactly Half Life 2. Where you go to rebelliant's base. And then to a prison to save Alyx's dad. And then to Citadel to save Alyx. And then you push the self destruct button and the game ends.
...
You know what, on a second thought, FEAR's story is quite decent.
Trance on 30/4/2009 at 11:11
Who the heck is Rebelliant?
Vivian on 30/4/2009 at 12:18
Quote Posted by Koki
Well obviously, it wasn't exactly Half Life 2. Where you go to rebelliant's base. And then to a prison to save Alyx's dad. And then to Citadel to save Alyx. And then you push the self destruct button and the game ends.
It was a bunch of stupid, badly thought-out cliches about psychic super-soldiers starring stereotypes and non-characters that hinged entirely on the idea of little girl ghost being so inherently terrifying that it doesn't need convincing writing to back it up. I would say its about on a par with the film 'species'. Anyway, you ninny, what's listing the very basic plot points of HL2 supposed to prove? That you can make anything sound stupid if you strip any and all of the subtleties out? Like Alien 'OH IS THAT THE ONE WHERE THEY GO TO SPACE AND GET EATEN IT SUCKS'.
Or the First Circle - they go to prison and build a voiceprint analyser and then some more people go to prison.
Fragony on 30/4/2009 at 13:08
Quote Posted by Vivian
It was a bunch of stupid, badly thought-out cliches about psychic super-soldiers starring stereotypes and non-characters that hinged entirely on the idea of little girl ghost being so inherently terrifying that it doesn't need convincing writing to back it up.
I wish I could sit on the directors seat to tell them 'not quite lads, not quite'.
I would have implemented noise filters when they are looking for you, and a violent red flash when they spot you, lots of psych-stuff going more visual feedback would have improved the game I think. The soldiers weren't scary, an army of super-soldiers under a psychic commander shouldn't have to talk to eachother, they should have dehumanized them.
Koki on 30/4/2009 at 14:49
Quote Posted by Vivian
It was a bunch of stupid, badly thought-out cliches about psychic super-soldiers starring stereotypes and non-characters that hinged entirely on the idea of little girl ghost being so inherently terrifying that it doesn't need convincing writing to back it up.
Quote:
That you can make anything sound stupid if you strip any and all of the subtleties out?
You're right, I forgot to wrap it up in a dozen or so hollow unfavourable comparisions. Let me rephrase:
Half Life 2 was a bunch of stupid, badly thought-out cliches about aliens taking over the Earth starring stereotypes and non-characters that hanged entirely on the idea of painfully generic FPS plot being so inherently amazing if done by Valve that it doesn't need anything but their logo to back it up.
Vivian on 30/4/2009 at 14:55
Which means what, that FEAR was amazing because you don't like half life 2? What's your point?
I'm afraid a lot of why I don't like FEAR's story will turn out to be ultimately subjective, but I'm pretty sure a retarded 16 year old could have come up with a similar plot.
Lets see, in terms of cliche we have:
Super soldier research gone wrong, one rogue 'good' product of said supersoldier research kicking the rest of everyone's arse (Which is Universal Soldier, and therefore is balls).
A 'scary' little girl ghost jumping in your face (I KNOW NOT REALLY A GHOST BUT WHATS THE DIFFERENCE. I admit, this can work. But it needs way better pacing than her flicking the light switch and lunging about occasionally. Fragony's right, the sound design needed a bit more sublety in that department).
Evil supercooperations that explode (in a lot of good stuff as well, but minus ten for originality)
An untrustworthy fucking FAT HACKER GUY (hollywood bloaters, e.g. Jurassic Park)
Sibulant evildoers (christ, anything).
A child psychic locked in a secret underground vault? Hmm. I'm sure I've seen that somewhere before...
So, the basis of the story is pretty much a low-brow pop culture sandwich. Which can work, but you need some imagination and flair as to how you put it together. FEAR plows us through a series of warehouses and horrible, horrible offices listening to stodgy dialogue and barely interacting with a series of stock characters (the senators daughter! the aforementioned fatso! your gruff partner and his asian tech support!) before finding out that you need to act out a retards version of Akira in order to win.
The firefights were a good laugh, but I stand by my assessment of the story being stupid.
Koki on 30/4/2009 at 15:17
That if you consider HL2's story to be good and FEAR's story to be bad it's quite a case of double standards.
I won't say that I was captivated by FEAR's story(though I did know a lot of spoilers) but it was nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be, especially if you compare it to other FPSes(not even necessarily of that time).
Vivian on 30/4/2009 at 15:21
HL2's world was a lot better presented and consistent, if you ask me. The story was simple, which I actually enjoyed, but the world was straight out of high-class sci-fi; only enough revealed (and done-so stylishly enough) to get your imagination going, without anything obviously stupid to break the suspension of disbelief.
Also, good point - other shooters often have fucking dumb stories as well. I don't really like them either.
june gloom on 30/4/2009 at 15:22
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
FEAR1's usage of EAX effects is fucking incredible.
Also the musical score is great, FEAR 2's is even better (one of the few improvements - FEAR 2 took more steps backward than forward).
psst half of FEAR 2's soundtrack is from FEAR 1.
And goddammit TTLG.
mgeorge on 30/4/2009 at 16:37
I'm another one of those people who never got through the original game. To me the story seemed very convoluted and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Anyway, I got to a point when there was this huge mech coming up from an elevator, (think it was about 1/2 way through the game), and it started to feel like been there done this before in hundreds of other FPS's, so I uninstalled, and sold it on ebay.
I recently got a new comp and saw the package you're talking about at Walmart for 20 bucks so figured fuck it. I'll give it another go. The game, even today looks great with everything cranked up, (way better than the old rig), so I've just started it again, mostly because the game is generally considered very good by this community.
So far, I don't find it very scary (like the last time,) and consider it more of a tactical shooter, but the firefights are amazing, and the AI is some of the best I've seen in an FPS. But does the story ever start to make any real sense? In other words, does the game ever throw you any curves or do you just kill all the evil clones and save the world.
As to HL2's story. I'm in the camp that think HL2 was very overrated. Valve is very good in the gameplay department, (although even that's starting to fall behind some newer games), but for storytelling, pretty lacking. I've played HL1 at least 5 times and couldn't get myself past Ravenhurst in HL2 after completing the game the first time. Why? Because HL2 takes itself way to seriously. HL1 was campy B movie fluff and that's what made it great.
