Demo Impressions: FEAR 2

The demo for FEAR 2 was released today (yesterday by the time this posts). I played it. It didn't do much for me. For one thing, it's got so many soft lighting, film grain, motion blur, and particle effects, that just seeing what's going on is often problematic. Seriously, I haven't had visual effect issues this bad since Conflict: Denied Ops, which I had to put down because everything was shifting in and out of focus, making my eyes hurt.



Nothing's even going on in this shot, and stuff's blurry and out of focus. When the firefights start, it gets worse.



And when you climb into a suit of power armor, there are added video effects which basically make the world look like a YouTube video.



Why do I care about the graphics so much? I don't really. But when the gameplay is unsatisfying, I look to the graphics to compensate. When I did that with the FEAR 2 demo, it made me realize that the graphics were part of the problem.

But what is it about the gameplay that fails to get me going?

For one thing, any time I shoot someone in the head three times with an assault rifle (not an SMG, an assault rifle) and he keeps coming, he better be a boss. I know the game makers want to show off their AI and special effects, and that to do that, the bad guys have to live long enough to do interesting stuff and shoot a lot. But it's not fun.

It feels like a bunch of guys wearing pillows and couch cushions, throwing bean bags at each other. Actually that sounds hilarious, and way more awesome than this game.

I'll probably still play it when it gets under $20, as even a mediocre FPS scratches that itch. But some people regard the FEAR series highly and wouldn't much care to have it lumped in with the likes of BlackSite and TimeShift.

If the combat boot fits. :P