Virtual 100 – Game 9
It’s time to wrap up the trilogy! After playing through FEAR and FEAR 2 Project Origin almost back to back, I was a little hesitant to jump right into the third one. But the great thing about it was that, while Project Origin was “playable” on the Steam Deck, FEAR 3 felt like it was made for it. I played through the entirety of the campaign on the Steam Deck OLED. I’ll give my opinion on that toward the end.
First off, I was really jivin’ with the way FEAR 3 started. It kicked off with a mad shoot-out as the main character, Point Man, blasted his way out of a prison. Yes, that’s his name. Point Man. Granted, it’s not as cliche as any number of ‘80s B-movie action names, but damn. At least put some effort into it.
The reason he has a shit name like “Point Man” is because he is the character from the first game, who never had a name because who the hell thought there’d be three games in this series. He was supposed to be generic because “hey, it’s YOU.” At least I’m guessing that’s the case. But now, not only does he need a name, but he also appears in cutscenes, which means he also needs a face. And man, does he look exactly how you’d expect him to look. This dude is rough. He’s Badass with a capital B, don’t you doubt it.
But that’s all beside the point, no pun intended. As I said, the game starts out with a bang, and the first chapter… or Interval, was fun as hell. It started out way quicker and more exciting than the other two games in the series. It wasn’t until Interval 3 that I realized that this was the only speed the game had. There was no down-time. The Intervals were one shooting gallery after another.
I don’t inherently have a problem with that; it’s a shooter after all. I should shoot. But there’s been a shift here. The previous two games were corridor shooters that sprinkled a handful of enemies at a time. Whether that was a deliberate design choice or a limitation of the hardware is unclear, but nor does it really matter. The fact is, the fights were more impactful because (at least in the case of the first game) one or two guys could lay the smackdown on you if you weren’t careful. This game is still a corridor shooter, it’s just that the corridors are much wider and littered with objects. Similar to how Gears of War telegraphed its fights by leading you into an area with a bunch of low walls scattered around, FEAR 3 kinda does the same thing. There is a cover mechanic at play, and each area is littered with things to duck behind. And they don’t skimp on the enemies. Thus, the game is nonstop action, and honestly it kind of loses its identity in the process. Alma only really pops up from time to time, just to remind you that she’s there.
It’s probably a good thing I played through the first two games before this one, even though I’d technically played them before, way back on Xbox 360 when they came out. The story here is pretty skimpy in terms of new developments. There’s a ton of backstory on Point Man and Fettel, but if you hadn’t played the other two, it would all be pretty meaningless. There is not much explanation on how Alma has gotten as powerful as she has, and why she’s so angry, other than being in an induced coma for most of her life in an isolation chamber, having two children taken from her, and then essentially getting put down like a lame horse. I can see how that might put a chip on someone’s shoulder.
But over the course of the three games, Alma went from “vengeful spirit” to “undead psychic powerhouse” to “harbinger of the apocalypse.”
She’s gone full Alessa, tearing a hole in reality. In fact, if you think about it, Alma’s whole situation can be pretty closely compared to that of the tortured female being in Silent Hill. Not that it matters, just an observation.
As I said, the game has one speed and it gets frustrating in later levels as the challenge essentially boils down to fighting the same enemies, but in greater numbers. Now, you’re not fighting just one annoying bullet-spongy teleporting blue guy, you’re fighting two annoying bullet-spongy teleporting blue guys. It does get old after a bit.
The levels themselves are a bit more varied than in the previous two games. Instead of running around a labyrinthine elementary school for two and a half hours, the game is broken up into proper levels, and each Interval consists of a completely different setting. Which is nice, but at the same time, they all come off as kind of generic. It didn’t help that they had names like “Bridge,” and “Port,” and “Store.” I mean, seriously.
One thing I did find kinda dumb was that the game was built around co-op. And in this co-op mode, there’s a grading system, with each player competing to be the “favorite son.” Which is kinda cool, I guess. The weird thing is that this all still exists while playing single player. While I was playing the game, I was getting points for doing things and finding dead guys to psychically link with, and at the end of the level, the points were tallied and the character would sometimes rank up, which gives them an extra perk. But then they’d get the “favorite son” ranking, which is kinda weird when technically you’re the only son.
That’s a fine and good, but the ending that you get directly pertains to this rating. I could only play the game as Point Man because Fettel would only unlock after I beat the level. When I reached the end of the game, I was treated to a neat little cutscene of the two brothers struggling. The game was whipping through stats and awarding the player with the best scores. I’m assuming that whichever player gets the better scores, or wins the competition in more categories gets the ending. But, again, I could only play as Point Man, so of course Point Man was going to win all the categories. So I got the ending for Point Man.
The ending wasn’t quite what I expected, which was interesting. I can’t say it was “satisfying,” but at least they made an attempt to subvert expectations. They obviously left the door open for a FEAR 4. And apparently another FEAR game is in the works, but whether it’s a reboot or a true sequel remains unknown.
I’m okay if they reboot it. To be honest, the whole premise behind FEAR was kinda dumb. But that was mainly because Alma was mainly this unseen spectre that only popped up to push the story along or make for some gore porn. She was a tragic character that they really could have fleshed out, no pun intended. Again, much like Alessa in Silent Hill, she’s this faceless entity that is the cause of everything, but for 99% of the game, you just to take their word for it.
All that said, up at the top I mentioned that I played the entire game through on my Steam Deck OLED, and man did it perform like a dream. The game ran buttery smooth, it looked great, and the controls translated perfectly. It was kinda weird that the game didn’t have native controller support, because it was released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as well as the PC, so you’d think that would have just been in the game from the start. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Everything feels great; the only nitpick being that I would have preferred the weapon swap to be the Y button and the slo-mo ability to be mapped to LB, but I adjusted and it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m sure if I was really bothered by it enough, I could’ve just remapped it myself.
I played a lot of this in my work truck in the mornings while having my coffee before work, and I had the sound hooked up to the auxiliary port on the dash stereo, and man that was a blast. The sound design does a good job of letting you know where the bad guys are just from their shouting and chatter. Probably not a good strategy for these guys to be telegraphing their position all the time, but hey it worked for me. The shooting and explosions were punchy and I can’t help but wonder if people passing by could hear.
The only downside is that Steam says it supports cloud saves, but it definitely does not. So if you start playing on the Steam Deck, just be aware that when you sit down at your gaming PC to pick up where you left off, it ain’t gonna be there. I’m not holding this against the game itself, just thought I’d mention it.
Steam Deck OLED experience: A
And there we go. Game #9 is in the books. I’ll be honest, as a shooter, it was a fairly good time, with the exception of a few lame cop-out fights to increase the “difficulty.” But as a FEAR game, it kinda sucked. The story didn’t make much sense at all, and aside from providing quite a bit of backstory, it didn’t answer many questions or even attempt to tell a complete tale. It is the third act of a movie, and it shows. It definitely cannot stand on its own merits, and it doesn’t really try.
But that’s all I have for today. I’m almost TEN PERCENT of the way through this whole thing! I’m never going to finish! Until next time, peeps!
