enoonmai
Cyborg Agent
This has got to be the most anticipated demo of any game ever. id and Valve should take a cue from these guys as to how to create a frenzied rush when they release their games. When I tried getting the demo when it went online last Friday at around 10PM PST, I was shocked to see that almost all the servers that were hosting it were at 100% capacity and not taking any more connections. Is the demo worth it? Well, you're about to find out.
The demo is a whopping 647.7 MB in size; yet, is of really short duration. The entire demo consists of a cutscene, an intro and about half a level of gameplay. Of course, like Max Payne 2, it makes up for its short size with some really awesome "Oh my God! This is the best game ever!" moments. Once the demo was in my hands, I began the installation only to get irritated at the very start. The demo insists on installing DirectX 9.0c (the April version), even if you have it installed and choosing not to install it will quit the setup immediately. Once it installs the game, it insists, in typical id Software fashion, on restarting your computer before you can play.
Once the system restarted, it was time to launch the demo. Having turned off all unnecessary programs and antivirus and firewall software, I clicked the icon on the desktop and the game started to load up. After the initial splash screens, the Sierra and the Monolith intros, I was finally presented with the game's menu. The game then automatically proceeded with "Auto-adjusting performance settings" and ended up a resolution and setting that was appropriate for my computer. Of course, what kind of a jerk would I be if I allowed it to pick the settings for me, so I custom-tweaked each setting to my whim (for exact settings details, refer end of post) and then rubbed my hands in glee as the game loaded up. Imagine my utmost horror when the game looked like a badly-pixellated version of Quake II. I quit the demo and restarted it and thankfully, it loaded fine this time around. The loadtimes for the game's cutscenes and the levels are pretty low, less than 10 seconds actually. The game, unlike other games like Half-Life 2, loads the entire level in one go, which is pretty huge actually, and that too, quite fast.
The demo starts off with a cutscene that is absolutely brilliant and a sheer delight to watch, something straight out of a Hollywood movie. According to the game, in 2002, the US Army trains and deploys specially trained personnel to combat the threat of paranormal activities to national security. The team, of which you are a part, is called First Encounter Assault Recon or F.E.A.R.. The demo's level take place a week after you have joined the F.E.A.R. team, and this is your first actual field operation. Needless to say, you are all alone in your quests.
The cutscene shows a character called Paxton Fettel kneeling in a prison cell while the "girl in the red dress" wreathed in flames appears to posess him. A group of elite military clones' minds are then taken control by Fettel and he goes on a killing and feeding rampage, goaded on by the little girl who whispers ghostly nothings about "gardens of the dead." The cutscene is rendered entirely in-engine and manages to look awesome as the credits roll on, accompanied by a wonderfully haunting score that seems to have its inspirations from Japanese movies. Needless to say, the music is probably one of the best I've ever heard in any game. Once the credits finish rolling, you find yourself in the F.E.A.R. headquarters, being briefed on the situation and then thrown into the warehouse to take out Fettel and restore military control over the clones. Thus begins the level called "Interval-01: Inception."
The game takes its cue from the wonderful art of Japanese horror film-making, and borrows settings which are quite urban and mundane, but are so scary that they will make your heart leap into your throat. As you make your way deeper into the building via the drainage system, the lights start flickering, the sound suddenly explodes in your ears and rats come running at you from nowhere. Every time a ghostly presence is felt, the game HUD fills with static and the radio ID unit signals "Incoming: Unknown Origin" just as in the videos. I won't spoil the surprise and fear for all you people playing the game, but the game can get dead scary at times. In one small example, you move towards a corpse lit by a harsh, flickering light and you suddenly see the "Incoming: Unknown Origin" message, the light starts to flicker, and you see your own shadow on the wall and that of a little girl running. You turn around and the little girl in the red dress is right behind you and runs into a wall and disappears. The game responds awesomely at these moments - as the player's fear increases, first his breath starts coming out heavy and as he gets more scared, his pulse increases rapidly and the breath starts coming in jagged rasps. The effect of these settings, plus the feel of these sound effects thumping in my ear thanks to the surround sound headphones nearly sent me over the edge. There are moments where you will see ghosts when you least expect them, and I was so surprised once that I actually started firing wildly into a manifestation, only to have it disintegrate immediately. This looks like it may be the scariest FPS anyone could ever ask for.
Of course, what good is a FPS without some cool combat? There are about five combat sequences in the game and the best thing appeared to be the enemies' AI. The enemies from this game can sure give the Far Cry mercs a run for their money. The first time I played the demo, I barged into the enemies armed with an SMG. While I took three of them down, the fourth and the last one ducked behind some cover. By the time I could reload, he had actually found an alternate route and tried pumping me full of lead. The next time I used a pistol for accuracy and SlowMo (more on that later) and by the time the SloMo meter ran out, there were two guys remaining. While one leaned around a corner waiting for me to poke my head out, one of them issued a command to the other, "Regroup! Flush him out!" and the next thing I know, a grenade was hurtling towards my position, forcing me to abandon it. Of course, I always had the upper hand with SloMo, a take on Max Payne's Bullet Time mode albeit with the Matrix-like bullet paths, that allowed me to boost my reflexes and then hurl a grenade right into a guy, turning him into a cloud of red vapor in an instant and then taking the other guy out before he could even respond. In about three times I've played the demo, I've seen the enemy take different actions, from waiting in ambush, to circling and flushing me out, taking cover and regrouping and peeking around corners and firing. 10 points for the game's AI. The game also features excellent location based damage and two pistol shots to the head in SloMo can work much better than pumping their chests full of machine-gun lead. For the first time, the game appears to have location based damage working AGAINST the player as well, and there are some classes of armored enemies that appear to aim exclusively for your head, making your health drain pretty fast than the others that fire wildly at you. Hand-to-hand combat is another cool aspect of the game that we noticed initially in the videos, but sadly, that's really underused in the demo. By the time you can get near an enemy with SloMo to drop-kick him, your health meter is already halved, thanks to the super-fast SMGs and shotguns these guys are packing. However, if you do happen to land a kick, its a one-hit kill, which can help you preserve some ammo in case you happen to be carrying a couple of spare medkits.
The game's graphics, are top-notch as well and the game features some of the coolest effects you will see in any game. The textures, the lighting and the level of detail is unbelievable even at lower resolutions. Exploding frag grenades will make small chunks of the wall fly out and also cause a huge amount of smoke to blanket the area, making it impossible for you or your enemy to see each other through the thick smoke until it clears. Of course, the shockwave created by the blast of the grenade flattens everything nearby, and any movable/destroyable object is flung clear across the room and the overhead lights shake wildly, casting extremely realistic lighting and shadowing effects. The game also supports soft shadowing, although that should only be probably be turned on for someone with a Radeon 9/10 series or a GeForce 6/7 series card. Water reflections, the effect of lights underwater, the whole spooky Japanese horror movie ambience, the haze of looking through a glass window or through a zoom scope are created to an extremely accurate degree. The game also moves into a red-haze when you activate SloMo, as can be seen in this screenshot. The graphics are incredibly detailed (heck you can literally read the gun's serial number from this screenshot) and would be best appreciated on a medium- to high-end machine. There is no fun playing this game without the effects, the shaders and the shadows even if it scales well to your computer's configuration.
The game features, what seems like, nine weapons including a pistol, an SMG, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a 10mm HV Penetrator, a Repeating Cannon, a multi-rocket launcher and the coolest weapon of all, a Type-7 Particle Weapon that instantly disintegrates your enemy. Check out the screenshot of the weapon firing and its final result.
The demo also features a standard frag grenade and a proximity grenade, and I suspect there may be more types of grenades in the final version of the game. Some of the weapons are pretty realistic, forcing you to duck for cover while reloading your weapon, since some weapons seem to take ages to reload. It can be pretty deadly if you were to run right into the middle of the melee and then getting riddled with holes while you fill your shotgun with shells. However, the game seems to compensate by providing a number of health and reflex boosts, which permanently increase your health and SloMo meters, as well as provide adequate armor and medkits to make the game challenging but not overly tough.
All in all, this is simply one of the best demos I've ever had the pleasure of playing and I am foaming at the mouth, waiting for the final retail version to launch this October 11. This promises to be a classic FPS, one that will be remembered fondly to years to come. For a gallery of 31 screenshots from the game, visit this ImageShack gallery.
Final verdict on the demo?
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Value: 4/10 (what else would you give a 650MB download that gives only about 12-15 minutes of gameplay?)
Fun: 8.5/10
Tilt: 8/10
Overall (not an average): 9/10
MORE GAME RELATED INFORMATION / TRIVIA:
It looks like the game will release on DVD as well, a Director's Cut version which will feature extras such as developer interviews, "Making of" documentaries, a F.E.A.R. Machinima video and a F.E.A.R. comic book created by Dark Horse - all for $49.99. Can't wait for this package to come soon. Hopefully, when it retails in the US on October 11, it should be here by the end of October. That gives more than enough time for the X800 Pro/XT PE to get here. Very Happy If you know anyone coming down to India from the US by the end of October, get this game pre-ordered now, since you also get a free F.E.A.R. preview DVD containing a guided walkthrough, wallpaper, poster art and more. Plus, you'll also get a limited access beta key code, exclusive insignias and skins and and an instant rebate on select Alienware systems. (not that anyone needs the last item mentioned)
From the readme.txt file:
NO ACTUAL DELTA FORCE OPERATIVES WERE HARMED IN THIS PRODUCTION.
EXTRA NOTES:
The following information is ONLY for the enthusiast who wants to know more about the performance details and the settings at which I played:
Test Rig -
Processor: P4E 3.2GHz
Memory: 1GB DDR400 Dual Channel
Video Card: Gainward GeForce FX 5950 Ultra "Golden Sample" (Forceware 71.89)
Hard Disk: 2x Western Digital Raptor @ 10,000rpm. in RAID-0
Sound Card: Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Operating System: Windows XP Service Pack 2
Framerate Information:
(Recorded with Fraps 2.5.1 build 4060)
Max. FPS: 53
Min. FPS: 12
Avg. FPS: 34
Resolution: 800x600x32 (Max Res. Possible: 1280x960x32)
Audio: EAX 2.0 (also supports EAX Advanced HD)
Performance: (Computer)
(Possible Settings: Min/Low/Med/High/Max)
Physics Level: Medium
Max. Hardware Sounds: On
Particle Bouncing: Medium
Shell Casings: On
World Detail: Medium
Corpse Detail: Medium
Performance: (Video Card):
(Possible Settings: Min/Low/Med/High/Max)
VIDEO:
=====
Effects Detail: Medium
Model Decals: On
Water Resolution: Medium
Reflections and Displays: Medium
Volumetric Lights: Off
Volumetric Light Density: Low
GRAPHICS:
========
FSAA: Off
Light Detail: Medium
Shadows: On
Shadow Detail: Medium
Soft Shadows: Off
Texture Filtering: Trilinear
Texture Resolution: Medium
Video Resolution: Medium
Pixel Doubling: Off
DX8 Shaders: Off
Screen Resolution: 800x600
Shaders: Medium
The demo is a whopping 647.7 MB in size; yet, is of really short duration. The entire demo consists of a cutscene, an intro and about half a level of gameplay. Of course, like Max Payne 2, it makes up for its short size with some really awesome "Oh my God! This is the best game ever!" moments. Once the demo was in my hands, I began the installation only to get irritated at the very start. The demo insists on installing DirectX 9.0c (the April version), even if you have it installed and choosing not to install it will quit the setup immediately. Once it installs the game, it insists, in typical id Software fashion, on restarting your computer before you can play.
Once the system restarted, it was time to launch the demo. Having turned off all unnecessary programs and antivirus and firewall software, I clicked the icon on the desktop and the game started to load up. After the initial splash screens, the Sierra and the Monolith intros, I was finally presented with the game's menu. The game then automatically proceeded with "Auto-adjusting performance settings" and ended up a resolution and setting that was appropriate for my computer. Of course, what kind of a jerk would I be if I allowed it to pick the settings for me, so I custom-tweaked each setting to my whim (for exact settings details, refer end of post) and then rubbed my hands in glee as the game loaded up. Imagine my utmost horror when the game looked like a badly-pixellated version of Quake II. I quit the demo and restarted it and thankfully, it loaded fine this time around. The loadtimes for the game's cutscenes and the levels are pretty low, less than 10 seconds actually. The game, unlike other games like Half-Life 2, loads the entire level in one go, which is pretty huge actually, and that too, quite fast.
The demo starts off with a cutscene that is absolutely brilliant and a sheer delight to watch, something straight out of a Hollywood movie. According to the game, in 2002, the US Army trains and deploys specially trained personnel to combat the threat of paranormal activities to national security. The team, of which you are a part, is called First Encounter Assault Recon or F.E.A.R.. The demo's level take place a week after you have joined the F.E.A.R. team, and this is your first actual field operation. Needless to say, you are all alone in your quests.
The cutscene shows a character called Paxton Fettel kneeling in a prison cell while the "girl in the red dress" wreathed in flames appears to posess him. A group of elite military clones' minds are then taken control by Fettel and he goes on a killing and feeding rampage, goaded on by the little girl who whispers ghostly nothings about "gardens of the dead." The cutscene is rendered entirely in-engine and manages to look awesome as the credits roll on, accompanied by a wonderfully haunting score that seems to have its inspirations from Japanese movies. Needless to say, the music is probably one of the best I've ever heard in any game. Once the credits finish rolling, you find yourself in the F.E.A.R. headquarters, being briefed on the situation and then thrown into the warehouse to take out Fettel and restore military control over the clones. Thus begins the level called "Interval-01: Inception."
The game takes its cue from the wonderful art of Japanese horror film-making, and borrows settings which are quite urban and mundane, but are so scary that they will make your heart leap into your throat. As you make your way deeper into the building via the drainage system, the lights start flickering, the sound suddenly explodes in your ears and rats come running at you from nowhere. Every time a ghostly presence is felt, the game HUD fills with static and the radio ID unit signals "Incoming: Unknown Origin" just as in the videos. I won't spoil the surprise and fear for all you people playing the game, but the game can get dead scary at times. In one small example, you move towards a corpse lit by a harsh, flickering light and you suddenly see the "Incoming: Unknown Origin" message, the light starts to flicker, and you see your own shadow on the wall and that of a little girl running. You turn around and the little girl in the red dress is right behind you and runs into a wall and disappears. The game responds awesomely at these moments - as the player's fear increases, first his breath starts coming out heavy and as he gets more scared, his pulse increases rapidly and the breath starts coming in jagged rasps. The effect of these settings, plus the feel of these sound effects thumping in my ear thanks to the surround sound headphones nearly sent me over the edge. There are moments where you will see ghosts when you least expect them, and I was so surprised once that I actually started firing wildly into a manifestation, only to have it disintegrate immediately. This looks like it may be the scariest FPS anyone could ever ask for.
Of course, what good is a FPS without some cool combat? There are about five combat sequences in the game and the best thing appeared to be the enemies' AI. The enemies from this game can sure give the Far Cry mercs a run for their money. The first time I played the demo, I barged into the enemies armed with an SMG. While I took three of them down, the fourth and the last one ducked behind some cover. By the time I could reload, he had actually found an alternate route and tried pumping me full of lead. The next time I used a pistol for accuracy and SlowMo (more on that later) and by the time the SloMo meter ran out, there were two guys remaining. While one leaned around a corner waiting for me to poke my head out, one of them issued a command to the other, "Regroup! Flush him out!" and the next thing I know, a grenade was hurtling towards my position, forcing me to abandon it. Of course, I always had the upper hand with SloMo, a take on Max Payne's Bullet Time mode albeit with the Matrix-like bullet paths, that allowed me to boost my reflexes and then hurl a grenade right into a guy, turning him into a cloud of red vapor in an instant and then taking the other guy out before he could even respond. In about three times I've played the demo, I've seen the enemy take different actions, from waiting in ambush, to circling and flushing me out, taking cover and regrouping and peeking around corners and firing. 10 points for the game's AI. The game also features excellent location based damage and two pistol shots to the head in SloMo can work much better than pumping their chests full of machine-gun lead. For the first time, the game appears to have location based damage working AGAINST the player as well, and there are some classes of armored enemies that appear to aim exclusively for your head, making your health drain pretty fast than the others that fire wildly at you. Hand-to-hand combat is another cool aspect of the game that we noticed initially in the videos, but sadly, that's really underused in the demo. By the time you can get near an enemy with SloMo to drop-kick him, your health meter is already halved, thanks to the super-fast SMGs and shotguns these guys are packing. However, if you do happen to land a kick, its a one-hit kill, which can help you preserve some ammo in case you happen to be carrying a couple of spare medkits.
The game's graphics, are top-notch as well and the game features some of the coolest effects you will see in any game. The textures, the lighting and the level of detail is unbelievable even at lower resolutions. Exploding frag grenades will make small chunks of the wall fly out and also cause a huge amount of smoke to blanket the area, making it impossible for you or your enemy to see each other through the thick smoke until it clears. Of course, the shockwave created by the blast of the grenade flattens everything nearby, and any movable/destroyable object is flung clear across the room and the overhead lights shake wildly, casting extremely realistic lighting and shadowing effects. The game also supports soft shadowing, although that should only be probably be turned on for someone with a Radeon 9/10 series or a GeForce 6/7 series card. Water reflections, the effect of lights underwater, the whole spooky Japanese horror movie ambience, the haze of looking through a glass window or through a zoom scope are created to an extremely accurate degree. The game also moves into a red-haze when you activate SloMo, as can be seen in this screenshot. The graphics are incredibly detailed (heck you can literally read the gun's serial number from this screenshot) and would be best appreciated on a medium- to high-end machine. There is no fun playing this game without the effects, the shaders and the shadows even if it scales well to your computer's configuration.
The game features, what seems like, nine weapons including a pistol, an SMG, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a 10mm HV Penetrator, a Repeating Cannon, a multi-rocket launcher and the coolest weapon of all, a Type-7 Particle Weapon that instantly disintegrates your enemy. Check out the screenshot of the weapon firing and its final result.
The demo also features a standard frag grenade and a proximity grenade, and I suspect there may be more types of grenades in the final version of the game. Some of the weapons are pretty realistic, forcing you to duck for cover while reloading your weapon, since some weapons seem to take ages to reload. It can be pretty deadly if you were to run right into the middle of the melee and then getting riddled with holes while you fill your shotgun with shells. However, the game seems to compensate by providing a number of health and reflex boosts, which permanently increase your health and SloMo meters, as well as provide adequate armor and medkits to make the game challenging but not overly tough.All in all, this is simply one of the best demos I've ever had the pleasure of playing and I am foaming at the mouth, waiting for the final retail version to launch this October 11. This promises to be a classic FPS, one that will be remembered fondly to years to come. For a gallery of 31 screenshots from the game, visit this ImageShack gallery.
Final verdict on the demo?
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Value: 4/10 (what else would you give a 650MB download that gives only about 12-15 minutes of gameplay?)
Fun: 8.5/10
Tilt: 8/10
Overall (not an average): 9/10
MORE GAME RELATED INFORMATION / TRIVIA:
It looks like the game will release on DVD as well, a Director's Cut version which will feature extras such as developer interviews, "Making of" documentaries, a F.E.A.R. Machinima video and a F.E.A.R. comic book created by Dark Horse - all for $49.99. Can't wait for this package to come soon. Hopefully, when it retails in the US on October 11, it should be here by the end of October. That gives more than enough time for the X800 Pro/XT PE to get here. Very Happy If you know anyone coming down to India from the US by the end of October, get this game pre-ordered now, since you also get a free F.E.A.R. preview DVD containing a guided walkthrough, wallpaper, poster art and more. Plus, you'll also get a limited access beta key code, exclusive insignias and skins and and an instant rebate on select Alienware systems. (not that anyone needs the last item mentioned
)From the readme.txt file:
NO ACTUAL DELTA FORCE OPERATIVES WERE HARMED IN THIS PRODUCTION.
EXTRA NOTES:
The following information is ONLY for the enthusiast who wants to know more about the performance details and the settings at which I played:
Test Rig -
Processor: P4E 3.2GHz
Memory: 1GB DDR400 Dual Channel
Video Card: Gainward GeForce FX 5950 Ultra "Golden Sample" (Forceware 71.89)
Hard Disk: 2x Western Digital Raptor @ 10,000rpm. in RAID-0
Sound Card: Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Operating System: Windows XP Service Pack 2
Framerate Information:
(Recorded with Fraps 2.5.1 build 4060)
Max. FPS: 53
Min. FPS: 12
Avg. FPS: 34
Resolution: 800x600x32 (Max Res. Possible: 1280x960x32)
Audio: EAX 2.0 (also supports EAX Advanced HD)
Performance: (Computer)
(Possible Settings: Min/Low/Med/High/Max)
Physics Level: Medium
Max. Hardware Sounds: On
Particle Bouncing: Medium
Shell Casings: On
World Detail: Medium
Corpse Detail: Medium
Performance: (Video Card):
(Possible Settings: Min/Low/Med/High/Max)
VIDEO:
=====
Effects Detail: Medium
Model Decals: On
Water Resolution: Medium
Reflections and Displays: Medium
Volumetric Lights: Off
Volumetric Light Density: Low
GRAPHICS:
========
FSAA: Off
Light Detail: Medium
Shadows: On
Shadow Detail: Medium
Soft Shadows: Off
Texture Filtering: Trilinear
Texture Resolution: Medium
Video Resolution: Medium
Pixel Doubling: Off
DX8 Shaders: Off
Screen Resolution: 800x600
Shaders: Medium
