F.E.A.R. Sp DEMO OMG!

[Bluepixie]

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

I just finished the demo. holy shit. I'm actually sitting here, sweating, with fear. I'm actually shaking. Fuck me. Doom 3 is NOTHING compaired to this. This is ACTUALLY scary. Fuck me. I'm gonna have to play Sonic or something for awhile.

Oh my god.

[YegaDoyai]

Currently downloading the demo at 16kb/s should be done by tonight. I shall also have the Multiplayer demo and will post a copy and 5 CD keys to the pixie.

[Bluepixie]

Thanks man, I shall look forward to that! :)

Here be a little more on FEAR, seeing as I've calmed down, and had time to sleep and reflect a little....

My conclusion? Absolutely terrifying. I don't know if I was just expecting it to be scary, and therefore, let myself fall for it or if it really was. Never the less, I was scared to death last night. The sound and music are expertly laid out, making the place incredibly foreboding, and the dark!
The dark! Deep, black shadows! So, you get out your flashlight, and it only shines so far, only beating back the shadows slightly. It’s like they actually have a substance, and refuse to be removed completely. Kept feeling that as soon as I turned my light away, that something moved. The level itself is claustrophobic and dripping with atmosphere. The enemy soldiers are fast, well organised and fisted me on my first couple of attempts. No running about guns blazing here, need a little bit of tactics. The first time I saw a guy pull a book shelve down to protect him self from my grenade, was impressive. What also impressed me was what happened when I saw a guy get caught in a grenade, man that was messy.
And the victims of the girl. Wow, not seen anything that horrendous in a game. The way that the pixel shaders are used makes the blood look wet and liquid. Especially when you see blood fly through the air and hit a wall, in slow-mo. I didn’t actually use it that much in my first time through the demo, so I’m not going to pass judgement on it. However, I will say it’s not like Max Payne. In Max Payne, everything slows down, your vision is just as clear, and you can place your bullets in your enemies heads at leisure. Well, that’s what I do anyway. Not in FEAR though. The Slow-mo is just as frantic as being in real time, your vision goes blurry at the sides, only leaving the centre of your view clear. Well, not entirely clear, your enemies get this strange blue aura around them, and your bullet trails cuts through the air, ripping up your view. Firefights are very involving, and totally chaotic. Smoke everywhere, blood and debris flying about all over the place. Watching the dust settle after a fight is just stunning.
Now, the way your player handles. With your super-human reflexes, you’d think that he would be much the same as any other fps hero, but no. To me, it felt more like YOU were the character. You are inside, controlling a person, a full model. Look down, you can see your legs, jump up and kick, you see yourself kicking. This may feel clumsy as first because we are so used to smooth running, ghost players * Cough Mr. Freeman * but in actual fact, it makes you feel more immersed in the game. The first time I jumped up and kicked a guy in the face, after running out of ammo, was so satisfying. You even cast a full shadow as you move around which looks great (reminds me of New World Order) and is pretty damn creepy, maybe this will be the first time in a game were you be scared of your own shadow.
I’m not going to talk about the, “shit your pants� bits because you really have to experience them for yourself. Don’t look at me like that! It REALLY is that scary. I was playing it at midnight, with all the lights off and my headphones on. Haven’t been this scared since the first time I played Doom or Silent Hill 3.
If you are scared easy, play this during the day, ok? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But otherwise, play it like a man, like I did.

Roll on October.

[Exuus]

I did warn you it was brown trouser scary, didn't I?

Imagine if they can keep it up for a 20-30 hour game. :D

[Bluepixie]

I think I may explode if it keeps that pace up.

[Tiberio]

I tried the demo aswell and i must admit that you guys are right, it is SO FREAKING SCARY!!!
The enemies were almost human-like in their attack style, on the first go the bastards flanked me, hmm, never happened to me before in any game!
And the Nail-gun has got to be the sweetest piece of hardware you can get 8)

[Sideshow]

I'm not reading this thread, I'm just posting to it ;) My computer doesn't work fast enough to play the demo, so I only got to see the first couple of minutes (just up to where you have to shoot someone). Little girls scare the shit out of me, and I did in fact discharge my pistol long before I was supposed to :) I want to play this at some future date, when I have access to better hardware. So don't spoil me!

[YegaDoyai]

did you ever play half life? They flank in that. Also Farcry, operation flashpoint, the list goes on. Please do not overhype this game, Halo _should_ have been a great game, Deus Ex 2 _should_ have been a great game. FEAR probably will only be as good as other monolith titles (Blood2, AvP, AvP2, NOLF etc) i.e FANTASTIC idea, pretty good execution but flawed in a way that no id/valve game is. I think the FEAR element in the game is good, but overall I've not seen anything that beats the scare factor of doom (3, obviously). The moment on the ladder is about as good as it got for me. However, I will say that it's on preorder for me and I intend to play through it.

[Bluepixie]

I tried the demo aswell and i must admit that you guys are right, it is SO FREAKING SCARY!!!
The enemies were almost human-like in their attack style, on the first go the bastards flanked me, hmm, never happened to me before in any game!
And the Nail-gun has got to be the sweetest piece of hardware you can get 8)

Yip. I love shooting them in the legs just to watch them shuffle around and scream a bit. :) Then pin them to a wall. Brutal, but oh so much fun. :D

Yega has a point with the flanking, lots of games have attempted tactical movement with AI. It is pretty good in this game, as I said earlier, they gave me a swift beating the first few times I tried it. However, I'm interested to see how they perform in larger, open areas. The AI in Farcry was well suited to this kind of play (unlike the indoor areas) and was very impressive.

Oh! And welcome to the forums. Shall look forward to seeing you at the next LAN.

[DAve]

I'm actually too scared to play this game again.
No, really.

It's really, really frightening.

[Tiberio]

Ok, i admit there's flanking in other games aswell but i just didn't really notice untill FEAR, in Half-life i was to busy shooting the people :twisted:
In FEAR it just seemed so much more creepy in a sense, in Half-life the enemies were smart but in FEAR they just seem too smart in a way (toppling bookcase to avoid bullets anyone?).
As soon as i get my bank account sorted out, i will go and preorder this game, i just hope that there wont be too many outdoor areas as my laptop tends to lag a bit on the high graphics settings.
But thats when the graphics really impress though :)

[Strings]

Ive just tried playing CSS and I cant. Its actually impossible for me to keep a steady aim with the AWP. I keep twitching like a dead daddy long legs.

Never playing that at night again. Ever.

[YegaDoyai]

See, I don't get this at all. When the dude pulled the book case down I side stepped him waited till he crawled under and took his head off with my gun. Thing is, he had to stop that animation BEFORE he died. That kind of lousy ass animation pisses me off. In HL2 and this game, oh hell, even Max Payne 2 does it sometimes, when I shoot someone LET THEM DIE, don't finish thier scripted animation, don't make them invulnerable until they have finished thier scripted 'peice'. If I want to nail someone in the head at point blank range while they are telling me how the story goes THATS MY DECISION! You could even cover it with a voice over like Max Payne but come on, give me some freedom to hurt folk.
Nor did I think it was all that clever. Remember wathcing the HL2 demo where you could barracade a door with physics objects? Yea, THAT would cool. But scripted animation like that has been around for ages, good level design though. Still think the story is going to be worthwhile but the combat etc will only be so so.

[Bluepixie]

Still think the story is going to be worthwhile but the combat etc will only be so so.

You see. I'm going to disagree with you here.

*puts up defensive stance*

Everytime I play through the demo, which I have done about 5 or 6 times now, I try different tactics. It's really interesting to see how the soldiers react to your method of attack. For example.

First combat scene.

Peek round the corner, shoot the first guy in the head with the pistol when he stops. Now the guy inside the control room does different things. If you run up, making lots of noise, he generally jumps through the window and starts shooting. However, if you sneak up quickly(crouch/walk) to the door, he don't hear ya. You open the door slightly and lob a grenade in, or run in and kick him in the face (my favouriate :) ) Leave it a bit longer, and he will come out catiously, and hide in the area next to the door.
But if you just run into that area, sort of how I did the first time I played it, they mess you up.
The guy on the walkway runs for cover, shooting as he goes. The other teds to come round behind you if you go past the door, or blast you from inside. It seems so simple, but i've been reading about who it works. They actually "see" what's going on and can position themselves accordingly.

Check it out
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/fear/preview_6133519.html

Be excited. Be very very excited.

[YegaDoyai]

oh wow, they do different things!! The first run through the guy I met first ate the pistol and the second guy jumped through the window while i was still crouched. As I rounded the corner he shot at me while moving and jumped BACK through the window. Sadly he did not notice my grenade waiting for him. Every other time has been a variation on a theme. They just have slightly more options than the scripted bad guys in halflife. With marginaly better animation. They NEVER just go 'fuck this I'm off to the next room where me mates are' which I would, if I were them. The game still forces the AI to be constrained in ways that is not strictly nessessary. Do you remember the E3 demo of Quake 2? I do, they said teh AI in that game was truly amazing. Why did they say this? Well the enemy could.......... duck. That's right he could crouch down so a rocket or whatever would go over his head. The Navmesh system is not any different to the Ghost recon navspace or Farcrys for that matter. When the game world is 'built' the computer runs several passes of lighting and ai traces etc. Just because they use triangles rather than nodes does not make any real difference. The nodes that are normally used have a 'fuzzy' factor involved so they don't have to be exactly in that position (this part is NOT used in Ghost Recon - just leave your ai buddies somewhere to find out where the nodes are.) The game FEAR still seperates rooms into game logic and I doubt you can coax guys from one set piece room to another, but I shall try this tonight.