F.E.A.R. 3

I lament what the game could've been... Years of wanting to know what happened after F.E.A.R. 2 had payed off when the first trailer dropped for the game. The return of F.E.A.R. 1's Point Man paired with Fettel's resurrection from the end of F.E.A.R. 2's short but sweet DLC, what could go wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMcHxdbnFqo A lot went wrong though with the game's long production. No longer headed up by Monolith, WB Games passed the development to Day 1 Studios; who had previously worked on the console ports for the first game and its expansions over to Xbox 360 and PS3. Day 1 worked closely with Monolith to make the game as faithful to F.E.A.R. as possible with its story, settling on the suggestion of focusing on the relationship between the Point Man and Fettel as brothers. Working off of both sequel ideas between Monolith and Vivendi however had early burnout set in for Day 1. With the script unsettled. WB took charge and hired Steve Niles, a comic author and novelist, to write for the game's story and cutscenes against Day 1's objection. Niles recommended getting famous horror director John Carpenter of 'The Thing' fame to help with the game's horror aspects after a failure with another project the two were working on. Unfamiliar with video game design, Niles' approach to the script was more filmic. Day 1, however, was unsatisfied working with the two writers. Associate producer Chris Julian claimed that Carpenter had little involvement with the game and merely stood as a "licensed" selling point and Niles not being as involved with the studio's designers and caused a severe displacement in ideas between the groups, resulting in several years of crunch and delays in development that dragged the game's quality down on release to average and middling reviews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ5l19ZzLD8 The story leaves so much to be desired and, at its worst, feels like an insult to both the senses and respect for the original Monolith plot with how dumbed down and Hollwood-esque it is. Before dipping into the plot summary, there is a prelude comic available that takes place right after F.E.A.R. 1 that you can read through quickly here at the game's Wiki page. https://fear.fandom.com/wiki/DC_comic The game takes place nine months after F.E.A.R. 2, seeing the Point Man in Armacham custody and miles away in South America being interrogated by ATC mercs (which imho is the dumbest idea this script has with a mute character). Paxton Fettel manifests into the room and possesses one of the mercs to free him and the two escape to regroup with Jin Sun-Kwon to figure out a way to stop Alma and her "contractions" from tearing Fairport apart and manifesting her nightmares into the real world. All while a familiar figure known as "the Creep" looms over the brothers that forces the two to confront their past. [b]<(SPOILERS)>[/b] [spoiler] This has to be the most contradicting plot I had to wrap my head around when I initially played the game on my old PS3. Where is the F.E.A.R. organization, coordinator Rodney Betters, or other key figures to the story? Why is Fairport completely intact with an mentally insane civilian population when a nuke-worthy explosion occurred at the center of Project Origin? Why is Jin so useless to the plot? Why does Fettel need to yap in my ear with quips and family like he's Vin Diesel? How do you write a guy like Harlan Wade into a villain like the Creep when he wanted to redeem himself for his abhorrent experiment on his daughter in F.E.A.R. 1??? With all these flaws in the writing, it amounts to just being a short comic action romp with little payoff and middle finger to people who remotely think with the game series. [/spoiler] [b]<(END OF SPOILERS)>[/b] Compared to the Lithtech Jupiter EX engine, the game is visually unremarkable. Using the Despair Engine that Day 1 used for their previous underrated console-exclusive game, Fracture, which utilized physics-based destruction and terrain displacement with weaponry and gadgets. None of the sort is put to use in the game, mainly relying on DirectX 11 exclusive features like 4x MSAA support, better shadow filtering... that's it. For a DX11 era game, it's underwhelming without advancements like tessellation. Results in a game that relies so much on post-processing to hide the ugly texture quality, even at the highest settings, which may as well be a result of console hardware scaling. While the physics retains its use of Havok, the utilization is underwhelming with ragdolls flopping around more than flying off. The AI does make a slight comeback; utilizating the famous GOAP technique from previous games, but the execution is pretty poor as enemies that act like the game is a cover shooter. They'll get stuck in certain spots, stand in place to shoot, or charge the player into their deaths without real coordination as a team. Upsetting to see a great piece of gameplay boiled down into a slo-mo shooting gallery. At least up until the game lets you use various EPA models which ramps up the tensions of being overwhelmed even in heavy armor as your enemies are prepped to deal with it by rocket launcher or other EPA's. The sound design is commendable though with the weapons giving off great punch and music, while not as remarkable as Nathan Grigg's work, gives off a higher budget feel to the game that slightly unnerves and spooks players, but not inherently scare players at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uQ6-85irow Gameplay-wise, it feels schlocky to play solo. You can feel how picked apart the game is when there isn't a second player involved, of which the game shines more in co-op with a friend. The multiplayer modes, while disappointing to see the old modes gone, do provide a fresh take with its unique modes and might need a whole group over Discord to organize a chaotic server. You're better off buying this game on a sale than at full price. You will be disappointed if you go in with your brain turned on and fresh off of the F.E.A.R. 1 and 2, but at least will have fun with the multiplayer components. [spoiler]Great use of Danzig's Mother though for the credits. Still the game I think of when hearing that song now. [/spoiler] [spoiler]The state of Monolith Production's IPs (F.E.A.R., No One Lives Forever and Blood) in a nutshell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZ8hJ3jokg[/spoiler]