It's F.E.A.R. all over again
Ok, I’m not going to go into a whole load of detail on the back-story behind F.E.A.R. as you’d have had to be hiding under the bed clothes for the last two years to have missed it. Suffice to say that if you really don’t know what this game is about, have a look at our F.E.A.R. PC Review for all the info you need on who you are and what you’re up to. For those of you that know all about the game well this is more of the same. In fact it’s not just more of the same, it’s exactly the same... except now you’re using a joypad instead of a mouse and keyboard.To be fair there is one difference, and that’s the extra level and SAS-12 shotgun thrown in for good measure. But, and at the risk of seeming prematurely negative, I would have expected more in the way of new content and weapons. Giving the gamer just one level and one new weapon for a game that’s two years old already is hardly pushing the boat out... The more cynical amongst us might even go so far as to suggest that the PS3 version of F.E.A.R. is just a quick cash-in... But to be fair, launching one of the best shooters on the latest hardware is a logical, if slightly predictable, move. I just think that more could’ve been done to make it a more attractive buying proposition.
Click for larger imageAnyhoo, let’s have a look at the game itself.
Unsurprisingly, F.E.A.R. on the PS3 is almost exactly the same as the PC and Xbox 360 versions. Don’t take this as being a negative thing, unless of course you’ve played previous incarnations of F.E.A.R. If you have, you’re in for a very strong case of déjà vu, but if you’re new to the game then you’re in for a bit of psychological ghostly treat. However, whether you’re new to F.E.A.R. or not, one thing that you will notice is the incredibly long load times. Obviously the PS3 is caching the entire level but even from level two you’ll be sitting around for a goodly long time waiting for that progress bar to move... at one point I even thought the damn PS3 had crashed!
But long load times apart, F.E.A.R., sadly, proves to be something of a disappointment all round, though I’m not sure if this disappointment is down to the game or the hardware... I suspect it’s a bit of both. At times frame rates can drop alarmingly, and I have to wonder if this isn’t a problem at a hardware level or perhaps sloppy coding as I’ve noticed this in other ports. But F.E.A.R. suffers from this slow-down more frequently, especially when a ferocious fire fight kicks up lots of dust... Either the coding for the volumetric fogging is poor or the PS3 is having problems...
Click for larger imageWhen F.E.A.R. came out on the PC it was one of the first games to use pixel-shading to give 3D depth to 2D textures, most notably in the bullet damage to the surroundings. It was fun to blast away at a wall and then admire the apparent mess you’d made in faux 3D. Other than real-time environment deformation, this was the next best thing and it worked well. But even though there’s an NVIDIA based GPU in the PS3 these bullet-holes look much flatter. Now you might think I’m being picky but this niggle isn’t limited to bullets and walls, it’s the entire environment that feels flat, even though it’s in 3D.
At times you almost feel like you’ve been warped back to the days of Wolfenstein or Doom as everything has an artificial ‘flat’ look to it. Surely in the two years since F.E.A.R.’s original release hardware has progressed somewhat? And let’s not forget that other than an 8800 graphics card, the PS3 is the latest bit of gaming kit. Which makes me wonder if this flatness is a limitation of the game or the platform... seeing as folk will have blown roughly £400 on a PS3 I hope to hell it’s not the PS3 and just a case of poor porting...
