I still remember the first time I went into the train tunnel, and was pinned down by the replicas, Alma shows up, casually walks up to them and turns them into puddles of goo. Then she just whispers in your ear: "You're safe now". Nothing has ever given me that combination of fear, adrenaline, anxiety, and suspense.
I was curious, on one of my playthroughs when I first got the game. What happens if you run up to Alma as she's murdering all of the Replica's? You just die...she vaporizes you ha ha.
I love the different communication between the factions. Replica #1: Do you see anything? Replica #2: Negative. _____________________________________________ ATC Security #1: Anything on your end? ATC Security #2: Nothing here. _____________________________________________ Nightcrawler Merc #1: Do you see anyone? Nightcrawler Merc #2: Shut the fuck up. The nightcrawlers are probably the most disrespectful guys you'd ever meet.
Health Boosters are an armachem product advertised on the subway in Extraction Point. By that logic one can assume so are Reflex boosters. Also the Mercs mention in comms that the situation is "not unique" meaning they dealt with supernatural shit like this before.
Ill say Extraction Point was scarier than both the base game and Perseus Mandate, but the latter gave me a lot to be afraid of with the Nightcrawlers. Also, their voice changers creeped me out! Lastly, throwing a mine into the Scarecrow's void was a fun way of killing them
you missed a bit of dialogue at the start of extraction point: Theres a reflex booster in an ally to the right side of the church entrance (which triggers the following Dialogue): "It's Alma, it's got to be Alma." "The ghost Kid?" "she's a lot more than that, ghosts don't create temporal and spatial anomalies" "looks like our girl's got a new hobby then"
Sarge from PM is likely another clone variant, like the Nightcrawler Elites, which is where he and they get their powers. At one point Fettel even says, "You remind me of my brother..." Also you have visions of future events throughout the campaign, much like Pointman. I love Perseus Mandate for the simple fact that it is one of the only titles in the series with a remotely happy and conclusive ending. Was nice to play an outsider with a sense of agency. It expands nicely on the lore and the level where you are fighting alongside friendly Spec Ops is slick. There are loads of quality set-pieces, like the mech chasing you through the offices by busting through walls, and my favorite jump scare of the trilogy ("is someone there?") PM also shows you the deactivation of the Replicas in a super interesting way: you come across a group execution in progress, with only one survivor because the Replica doing it has stopped responding and is just... Standing there. Really clever.
The trope of the bad/ambiguous ending is so pervasive in this type of media, that having an honest to God, unironic happy ending is incredibly refreshing.
@@H_P_Lovecraft In beginning, right after the part where you fight the first Heavy Replica with a grenade launcher, you go outside the sewers and you go down a ladder. As you descend the ladder, you see the ghost of Jankowski walking behind a corner, Once you enter the corner, you see the dead body of a maintenance guy with a medkit, and then when you turn around, ghost Jankowski is staring at you saying "Is someone there?""
I have the feeling that the Nightcrawler elites are either psychic like Pointman or genetically Enhanced like the Replica Assassins. I mean look at their reflexes and agility, thats above Human
Honestly, Monolith didn't really need to retcon/ignore these games. Both Extraction Point & Project Origin take place after the first game. It also doesn't help that in FEAR 3, we get no explanation of what happened to Holiday (to my recollection). EP & PM would make great episodes on Matt Mcmuscles' What Happened?
"These packs are the greatest example of what happens when creative vision gets fractured between studios, when money gets in the way of creativity." Couldn't have said it better myself. It's a shame how these expansions are probably left to rot for all eternity both storywise and game wise since they weren't made by Monolith. Something about FEAR that you don't mention much is the soundtrack and for me it was one of the best parts of Perseus Mandate. I don't know what they did with the soundtrack for that game but I think it's really good!
I loved Perseus Mandate because it finally gave me AI team mates who would actually fight alongside me every once in awhile and were genuinely likable.
Aaah yes best take... That's it, I'm going to replay the whole trilogy early this year. And by Trilogy I don't mean FEAR 1-3 but FEAR1 + Extraction Point + Perseus Mandate I dunno somehow they feel more legitimate, must be because my favourite character ROWDY BETTERS appears in Perseus Mandate, to my knowledge he does not show up at all in FEAR 2 At least Jin was in FEAR 3 but, come on.. really..
Betters not showing up in F3AR is bad enough, but what about Delta Operators like Holiday from FEAR 1 that died in what Monolith calls the non-canon Extraction Point DLC and Manny the APC driver from FEAR 2 who was on that island facility waiting for Becket and Stokes? Did they get killed off or did the writers for F3AR just forget they existed and just had only Jin survive? Cause you don't see Holiday escape after the helicopter that he along with Jin Pointman was on had crashed according to the DC Comic trailer for FEAR 2 and the Dark Horse prelude comic for F3AR that barely anyone had read.
Honestly I'm not sure how even Jin survived.. Point Man has super powers so we give that a pass.. I guess I was just glad Holiday didn't have to be in F3AR, he was a cool but underused character.
A small note regarding the frame drops and bugs with Extraction Point. Extraction Point is running on an older more unstable build than the base game, likewise due its age, the game is capped at 2gb of memory that it can use. There is a patcher you can find to allow the XP to use 4gb of memory to avoid the running out of memory errors. It's also highly recommend to run the game in Windows XP package 2/3 compatibility mode, and finally, there is a directinput fps fix dll that you can put in the same directory as the executable which should smoothen out any frame dips and stutters
Much like the original game, you’ll also need a fan-made patch to have the subtitles scale correctly with newer resolutions for the expansions. You can also can also brute force the extraction point expansion to run on higher resolutions (C: > Users > Public > Public Documents > Timegate Studios > Settings (should appear after creating a save file). You can manually change the screen height and screen width to your resolution ( *don’t touch “display” in the settings that will reset it* ).
I personally liked extraction point way better then Perseus mandate mostly because extraction point feels like a direct follow up to the first fear game in my opinion.
My personal takeaway when it comes to the FEAR series is that a madman out there should continue the Vivendi Timeline and maybe take the weapons of 1 (including the expansions and console exclusives), Project Origin and 3...
7:00 I'll explain best as I can. Basically, Since Alma was in a coma when she was sealed, her psychic signature (see spirit) was roaming around, but lost access to her body when it was sealed. The little girl is that spirit. When the body was sealed inside, all it had left was hatred and pain and when it was released it sought to hurt everyone, including Point Man. Alma's spirit recognized Point Man as her son and latched on to him, wanting him to lead her to her body so she can reunite with it. Once Alma's spirit reunites with her body she stops trying to kill you. 17:30 Also in Extraction Point, Health Boosters are advertised on the billboards in the subway. It stands to reason then that Reflex Boosters are also a product (which would explain why Nightcrawler Elites can also slowmo)
I think extraction point has the best story with its clover field approach. The moment to moment experience trying to escape is gut wrenching as you’re always one step behind. Having the vacant city early on was unnerving/ vampire man’s return was shocking/ losing are good friend in such a horrific death was disheartening/ being just short of reuniting with our other comrade as she fears dying alone is a gut punch only to be topped off by realizing how fucked we are when the chopper goes down. It’s pacing is incredible. Especially in its last act where you confront these paranormal enemies in the hospital barely making it by.
Personally, I enjoy Perseus Mandate more than Extraction Point. It's my favorite part of the F.E.A.R 1 Saga just in combat experiences and arenas for sure. EP just didn't connect with me, plus that weird Alma merge thing just left me confused.
Some could say Extraction Point was the original F.E.A.R. 2 and it does have better atmosphere chemistry with the first game than the actual sequel, even though I love F.E.A.R. 2 in some ways more than the first, it could have easily been a part of the continuity, as we know Alma has Multi-Presence in Extraction Point due to her child and adult selves being at two places at the same, this could have easily worked with her doing this in Extraction Point and F.E.A.R. 2, as a matter of fact it's arguable she was doing this at the beginning of F.E.A.R. 2 due to Interval 01 taking place on the same time at Interval 12 in F.E.A.R. 1. Not to mention that F.E.A.R. 3 could have also easily set that up after the events of Extraction Point, I didn't care about Jin being alive in the game, especially with how they were willing to kill Becket in one scene, but that's how it is.
it appears google ate my previous comment. But Steve Gaynor (of Bioshock 2 fame) was one of the devs that worked on Perseus Mandate and he did a interview on the making of this Fear expansion which I would link to but I'm thinking that's what caused youtube to make my comment vanish. Anyway he created the bonus missions, interval 1, and all the game's horror moments. the interview can be found on idlethumbs. Anyway from what I recall from the interview, Timegate was a pretty small team and company even for mid to late 2000s. For Perseus Mandate they hired on some modders who had been part of the Fear modding scene at the time including Steve Gaynor. The computers at Time Gate at the time were still windows 2000s workstations and so working on Fear and it's expansions were pushing their own hardware capabilites and they were slowly upgrading their own workstation tech to fix certain bottlenecks like that. Originally the idea was that Extraction Point was going to be focused on the horror elements of Fear 1 and Perseus Mandate was going to be focused on the action elements of Fear. later on those plans changed and so Steve was given the job to add back in some horror to Perseus Mandate after a good chunk of the expansion was already done. Which might explain some of the uneven nature of perseus mandate. He also talked about some other stuff too such as the making of the bonus missions.
Can't say I was expecting another banger this soon, but alas. The man delivers. Ok so after finishing the videos I can add some things to the discussion. Now back in the day I was very into the lore of this game and had written this big as* document of theories on the base + expansions but since I lost it here is a simple but obvious summary. Both DLCs have improved the gameplay at the cost of the story. The problem for which is as Brandoss himself said in the video - they want to have their cake and eat it too(paraphrasing, of course), problem is the cake is a lie. For you see, at the end of the first F.E.A.R. it is made apparent that the whole thing Paxton wanted to do was free Alma and thus have her merge/reunite with her physical body making the whole story of E.P. (Extraction Point) mut; had the "merge" of body and spirit seen in EP taken place during the ending of F.E.A.R.1 (timing wise) from the viewpoint of a secondary team or some altered time moment in a hidden dimension sure but as it is - no. Now Perseus Mandate had a better idea for establishing grounds for a sequel hype, being, trying to expand on the Telepathic commander project. Which from a lore prospect would make sense, you have Paxton who is deemed unstable/unsafe (remember he had "the incident" back in the day where Alma linked with him) so naturally they are trying to form a solution that would negate such an issue. The problem with P.M. , again as the video states, is the execution and timing of this change of focus in the story. It makes sense if you look at it for a time where FEAR2 wasn't out yet. So you get a DLC that continues the main story, cool. The next DLC completely ignores that, not cool. TLDR: All in all great piece of content worth playing if you get your hands on it, albeit it can use some redirection/polish.
My only hope is if some day F.E.A.R will get a reboot/reimagining that sets up the story in a similar direction to what Extraction Point tried to setup. Instead of whatever nonsense F2 and F3 did.
man, absolutely love your f.e.a.r. series! i bought whole new pc around 2004-05 esp to play this game. we wanted to play it together with my friends, but i couldnt help but start alone before the "lets play fear day" date. when i ve seen HER while going down the vertical stairs (guess its circa 20 mins into the game) ive quit in almost panic, switched up every single light source in my apartment and was looking behind my back until the sun went up. great game. oh, and the multiplayer was INTENSE, there even was free version of fear - fear combat, same stuff but without single player. guess there are no servers anymore, but really - that was intense.
Gotta love how Extraction Point Alma just starts physically manifesting DID before just having both personalities walk into each other to cure herself, of course mental health would just be that easy for superpowered psionic dead girls.
Gotta say Timegate did alot more better job with Extraction Point than whatever Monolith did with the official FEAR 2. EP respected and move forward with the foundation of the original game and it's just so fantastic, the thing it did with the atmosphere. it's almost feels like a survival horror at times, its more scarier than the original game. and i felt more with its characters here than anything in the main two games, especially on Jin's death. It's just so sad
And this all gets even more confusing when you learn that Perseus Mandate -has a reference in Project Origin-, but then 3 having Jin being alive but no sign of Holiday. I personally headcanon that Jin's "death" is just a hallucination induced by Alma or Paxton, given we know both can cause those. That way we can all just enjoy the expansions and do a samba dance past the yikes that is Project Origin.
I respect your opinion, but deep down I will always love F.E.A.R. 2 equally as much as F.E.A.R. 1. I love the feel of adrenaline rushes in my games and also love challenging gameplay. So I'll play the 1st one when I'm in the mood for subtle scares and chess-like gameplay and I'll play the 2nd one when I want to have intense scares and "balls to the walls" action gameplay.
I played both of these when they came to Xbox 360 under "Fear Files" I loved them even Perseus Mandate, though I hate fighting the Nightcrawler Elites, they're busted enemies that breaks the games flow. The Instant Action maps these games had are also very fun.
Since we live in a timeline where people discuss their head canon such as disregarding the sequel trilogy for star wars fans, perseus mandate and extraction point are the true sequels to the franchise and nothing else for me. I played both these games after Fear 3 came out and extraction point blew me away as a kid, it genuinely terrified me. Nothing ever will come of Fear anyways since it’s been over 10 years so 2 and 3 goto the trashcan for me. Just a lil note Fear 2 was the first i played because fear was very big on roblox back in 2010 and it was the most recent game at that time Also that Norton Mapes easter egg was the best too
Man I forgot how scary the expansions were!!! Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate to me are the real true sequels to the original Fear despite them being non canon. Fear 2 and Fear 3 are just mediocre trash in my opinion. I hope this franchise comes back with a reboot soon or a remake of the original game.
Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate are great add-ons, on par with Opposing Force for Half-Life. They got their minute flaws, but it's still very minor nuances which only take maybe 1-1.5 points from the score compared to the original. So if FEAR was 10/10 (on my personal subjective scale, at the time of launch - but to be fair it's still on my personal "top shooters I ever played" list, but if you didn't experience it in 2005-2006, the dated aspect will very likely impact you), the ExP is 8.5, PM is 9 out of 10. To be fair, the lower score for add-ons is probably impacted by the fact that I already experienced the original and the "wow" -factor was gone. If they came as a single package I'd most likely rate them equally, and there are some levels in PM that I'd argue are better than the original, but as I said, there are also some flaws which balance out the resulting overall score / impression.
I don't think you give norton being that horrifically fat the credit it deserves. I don't doubt that man survived that gun shot at all, or the explosion. Yes he may have took the shot to the cheek. And yes I want the new model to be modified to show that, and the voice lines to be modified for that.
I've been playing this via the "Complete Edition" Mod lately, which merges FEAR and its expansions into one game and it didn't crash even once. Maybe try that
While I enjoyed Extraction Point as a continuation of the original game, one single line of dialogue from Alma in the early underground area under the church removed all scare from the franchise for me. In the original game you see early on what Alma's mere presence is capable of: literally melting the flesh off of armored soldiers. I have never been as scared in a videogame, as this one sequence in a basement in Interval 2 or 3 where you see her shadow move behind you, accompanied by the sound of a girl giggling. She was innocent terror incarnate. So when I heard this line whispered to me in EP after she kills off some of Fettle's soldiers for you: "You're safe now". All my fear immediately went away, because the game effectly took the most horrifying element of the series, and turned it to YOUR side as a helpful force.
They're not really better than F.E.A.R 2. F.E.A.R 2 gets a bad rep because the prologue teaches you to play in a non fun way. You can be very aggressive and the AI is built around that aggression
On normal mode sure but on hard aggressive play is punished pretty harshly due to enemies being able to randomly one shot you at full health and armor. On top of the reduced hip-fire accuracy on most weapons when compared to F.E.A.R 1. making having to slow down and ADS more necessary.
@@kingdomkey2262 Oh I know what causes the one shot issue because I've ran into it so much that I decided to study it a little. It's very much tied to the heavy soldiers that usually use shotguns. For some reason it seems they're hard coded to have an insane damage multiplier in certain conditions even when they DON'T have a shotgun or they're shooting from long range. It's... strange.
@@PatirroHenry fear 3 is terrible but the only thing Fear 1 related was it's powerful Melee kick. It's weird how that's the only thing they respected and keep from Fear 1. I don't know why.
@v-trigger6137 Mechanically I'd even agree, but the guns feel off. The art design combined with mildly tanky enemies (art design mostly) sucked any flavor left in that game out.
Extraction Point is great, especially as it gives you a minigun. Something that needed to be in FEAR 1. But Perseus Mandate? It's not good. FEAR 2 is better. But I'd still play Perseus Mandate over FEAR 3. 3 is just plain bad. Too bad WB Games will likely never do anything like FEAR today. And God help us if they did as WB loves live service focused crap now. No thanks, bro. Recommend playing Trepang 2. It's a fun spiritual successor. I just wish it wasn't so fast paced like pretty much every so called "boomer shooter" now thanks to Doom 2016/Eternal. You can't even lean like in the og FEAR.
Yeah, Extraction Point is fine, not as good as the original game imo but pretty fun. The hospital was probably the spookiest location the franchise ever had. Perseus Mandate however is a janky mess. The lighting is off, the atmosphere is off, the style is off, new faction is lame and even enemy encounters are botched. It shows because there's like a bazillion of medkits everywhere. Maybe it would have been better if devs had more time to polish it but who knows
Damn shame perseus mandate not only looked worse than original fear but played worse than original as well, speaking of fear 2 they shouldn’t have milked alma and replica soldiers
FEAR 1 - 9/10 FEAR 2 - 7/10 (non-replayable, one & done forever) FEAR 3 - Never finished it... It lost identity DLCs are canon to me, and I'm not interested in true sequels at all.
I still remember the first time I went into the train tunnel, and was pinned down by the replicas, Alma shows up, casually walks up to them and turns them into puddles of goo. Then she just whispers in your ear: "You're safe now". Nothing has ever given me that combination of fear, adrenaline, anxiety, and suspense.
I was curious, on one of my playthroughs when I first got the game. What happens if you run up to Alma as she's murdering all of the Replica's? You just die...she vaporizes you ha ha.
I love the different communication between the factions.
Replica #1: Do you see anything?
Replica #2: Negative.
_____________________________________________
ATC Security #1: Anything on your end?
ATC Security #2: Nothing here.
_____________________________________________
Nightcrawler Merc #1: Do you see anyone?
Nightcrawler Merc #2: Shut the fuck up.
The nightcrawlers are probably the most disrespectful guys you'd ever meet.
To be fair, the Replica grunts have a similar line;
"Squad check in."
"Shut your fucking mouth."
@@GenericProtagonist7 I never ran into that line of dialogue at least not yet, need to do another run of either the base game or extraction point.
@@Happy_Slappy2_0 I think Replica will said that if you decimate his squad or something like that
@@Happy_Slappy2_0I think they say that if they don’t know where Point Man is because there trying to listen for him.
@@czechpatriot2230Yeah, it is a fear response.
Everybody asks how the Sgt knows how to move like the Point Man but no one asks how the Nightcrawler Elites move like that.
Health Boosters are an armachem product advertised on the subway in Extraction Point. By that logic one can assume so are Reflex boosters. Also the Mercs mention in comms that the situation is "not unique" meaning they dealt with supernatural shit like this before.
Ill say Extraction Point was scarier than both the base game and Perseus Mandate, but the latter gave me a lot to be afraid of with the Nightcrawlers. Also, their voice changers creeped me out! Lastly, throwing a mine into the Scarecrow's void was a fun way of killing them
So, you were scared of mercenaries?
you missed a bit of dialogue at the start of extraction point: Theres a reflex booster in an ally to the right side of the church entrance (which triggers the following Dialogue): "It's Alma, it's got to be Alma."
"The ghost Kid?"
"she's a lot more than that, ghosts don't create temporal and spatial anomalies"
"looks like our girl's got a new hobby then"
Sarge from PM is likely another clone variant, like the Nightcrawler Elites, which is where he and they get their powers. At one point Fettel even says, "You remind me of my brother..." Also you have visions of future events throughout the campaign, much like Pointman.
I love Perseus Mandate for the simple fact that it is one of the only titles in the series with a remotely happy and conclusive ending. Was nice to play an outsider with a sense of agency. It expands nicely on the lore and the level where you are fighting alongside friendly Spec Ops is slick. There are loads of quality set-pieces, like the mech chasing you through the offices by busting through walls, and my favorite jump scare of the trilogy ("is someone there?")
PM also shows you the deactivation of the Replicas in a super interesting way: you come across a group execution in progress, with only one survivor because the Replica doing it has stopped responding and is just... Standing there. Really clever.
The trope of the bad/ambiguous ending is so pervasive in this type of media, that having an honest to God, unironic happy ending is incredibly refreshing.
Which one was the “Is Someone there?” Jumpscare
@@H_P_Lovecraft In beginning, right after the part where you fight the first Heavy Replica with a grenade launcher, you go outside the sewers and you go down a ladder. As you descend the ladder, you see the ghost of Jankowski walking behind a corner, Once you enter the corner, you see the dead body of a maintenance guy with a medkit, and then when you turn around, ghost Jankowski is staring at you saying "Is someone there?""
@@bigdumbfatcat2869 Holy shit that was Jankowski?
Dude PM was trash, it felt like non-canon material
I have the feeling that the Nightcrawler elites are either psychic like Pointman or genetically Enhanced like the Replica Assassins.
I mean look at their reflexes and agility, thats above Human
Honestly, Monolith didn't really need to retcon/ignore these games. Both Extraction Point & Project Origin take place after the first game. It also doesn't help that in FEAR 3, we get no explanation of what happened to Holiday (to my recollection). EP & PM would make great episodes on Matt Mcmuscles' What Happened?
"These packs are the greatest example of what happens when creative vision gets fractured between studios, when money gets in the way of creativity." Couldn't have said it better myself. It's a shame how these expansions are probably left to rot for all eternity both storywise and game wise since they weren't made by Monolith.
Something about FEAR that you don't mention much is the soundtrack and for me it was one of the best parts of Perseus Mandate. I don't know what they did with the soundtrack for that game but I think it's really good!
It's nothing new or original from what I can tell, but I do love me some Perseus Mandate.
It has some new tracks that were not in FEAR or Extraction Point
I loved Perseus Mandate because it finally gave me AI team mates who would actually fight alongside me every once in awhile and were genuinely likable.
Don't forget the iconic: "We lost a man!"
Aaah yes best take... That's it, I'm going to replay the whole trilogy early this year.
And by Trilogy I don't mean FEAR 1-3 but FEAR1 + Extraction Point + Perseus Mandate
I dunno somehow they feel more legitimate, must be because my favourite character ROWDY BETTERS appears in Perseus Mandate, to my knowledge he does not show up at all in FEAR 2
At least Jin was in FEAR 3 but, come on.. really..
Betters not showing up in F3AR is bad enough, but what about Delta Operators like Holiday from FEAR 1 that died in what Monolith calls the non-canon Extraction Point DLC and Manny the APC driver from FEAR 2 who was on that island facility waiting for Becket and Stokes?
Did they get killed off or did the writers for F3AR just forget they existed and just had only Jin survive?
Cause you don't see Holiday escape after the helicopter that he along with Jin Pointman was on had crashed according to the DC Comic trailer for FEAR 2 and the Dark Horse prelude comic for F3AR that barely anyone had read.
Honestly I'm not sure how even Jin survived.. Point Man has super powers so we give that a pass.. I guess I was just glad Holiday didn't have to be in F3AR, he was a cool but underused character.
Its so weird that they say the comic is canon yet it NEVER led to anything. At least Extraction led into Fear3 better.
The problem with Extraction Point and FEAR 3 connection is Jin somehow alive during FEAR 3 even she died in EP
A small note regarding the frame drops and bugs with Extraction Point. Extraction Point is running on an older more unstable build than the base game, likewise due its age, the game is capped at 2gb of memory that it can use. There is a patcher you can find to allow the XP to use 4gb of memory to avoid the running out of memory errors. It's also highly recommend to run the game in Windows XP package 2/3 compatibility mode, and finally, there is a directinput fps fix dll that you can put in the same directory as the executable which should smoothen out any frame dips and stutters
Much like the original game, you’ll also need a fan-made patch to have the subtitles scale correctly with newer resolutions for the expansions. You can also can also brute force the extraction point expansion to run on higher resolutions (C: > Users > Public > Public Documents > Timegate Studios > Settings (should appear after creating a save file). You can manually change the screen height and screen width to your resolution ( *don’t touch “display” in the settings that will reset it* ).
I personally liked extraction point way better then Perseus mandate mostly because extraction point feels like a direct follow up to the first fear game in my opinion.
My personal takeaway when it comes to the FEAR series is that a madman out there should continue the Vivendi Timeline and maybe take the weapons of 1 (including the expansions and console exclusives), Project Origin and 3...
7:00 I'll explain best as I can. Basically, Since Alma was in a coma when she was sealed, her psychic signature (see spirit) was roaming around, but lost access to her body when it was sealed. The little girl is that spirit. When the body was sealed inside, all it had left was hatred and pain and when it was released it sought to hurt everyone, including Point Man. Alma's spirit recognized Point Man as her son and latched on to him, wanting him to lead her to her body so she can reunite with it. Once Alma's spirit reunites with her body she stops trying to kill you.
17:30 Also in Extraction Point, Health Boosters are advertised on the billboards in the subway. It stands to reason then that Reflex Boosters are also a product (which would explain why Nightcrawler Elites can also slowmo)
I think extraction point has the best story with its clover field approach. The moment to moment experience trying to escape is gut wrenching as you’re always one step behind.
Having the vacant city early on was unnerving/ vampire man’s return was shocking/ losing are good friend in such a horrific death was disheartening/ being just short of reuniting with our other comrade as she fears dying alone is a gut punch only to be topped off by realizing how fucked we are when the chopper goes down.
It’s pacing is incredible. Especially in its last act where you confront these paranormal enemies in the hospital barely making it by.
The combat was improved too, that office level at the start is epic.
Love the homemade 50 subs plate, good content mate!
Personally, I enjoy Perseus Mandate more than Extraction Point. It's my favorite part of the F.E.A.R 1 Saga just in combat experiences and arenas for sure. EP just didn't connect with me, plus that weird Alma merge thing just left me confused.
I wanted to like EP but i had alot of perfomance issues with that expansion.
Some could say Extraction Point was the original F.E.A.R. 2 and it does have better atmosphere chemistry with the first game than the actual sequel, even though I love F.E.A.R. 2 in some ways more than the first, it could have easily been a part of the continuity, as we know Alma has Multi-Presence in Extraction Point due to her child and adult selves being at two places at the same, this could have easily worked with her doing this in Extraction Point and F.E.A.R. 2, as a matter of fact it's arguable she was doing this at the beginning of F.E.A.R. 2 due to Interval 01 taking place on the same time at Interval 12 in F.E.A.R. 1. Not to mention that F.E.A.R. 3 could have also easily set that up after the events of Extraction Point, I didn't care about Jin being alive in the game, especially with how they were willing to kill Becket in one scene, but that's how it is.
I loved your last Fear 2 video a lot, Im excited to see this one!
it appears google ate my previous comment. But Steve Gaynor (of Bioshock 2 fame) was one of the devs that worked on Perseus Mandate and he did a interview on the making of this Fear expansion which I would link to but I'm thinking that's what caused youtube to make my comment vanish. Anyway he created the bonus missions, interval 1, and all the game's horror moments. the interview can be found on idlethumbs.
Anyway from what I recall from the interview, Timegate was a pretty small team and company even for mid to late 2000s. For Perseus Mandate they hired on some modders who had been part of the Fear modding scene at the time including Steve Gaynor. The computers at Time Gate at the time were still windows 2000s workstations and so working on Fear and it's expansions were pushing their own hardware capabilites and they were slowly upgrading their own workstation tech to fix certain bottlenecks like that. Originally the idea was that Extraction Point was going to be focused on the horror elements of Fear 1 and Perseus Mandate was going to be focused on the action elements of Fear. later on those plans changed and so Steve was given the job to add back in some horror to Perseus Mandate after a good chunk of the expansion was already done. Which might explain some of the uneven nature of perseus mandate. He also talked about some other stuff too such as the making of the bonus missions.
Never knew, explains the weird pacing.
Can't say I was expecting another banger this soon, but alas. The man delivers.
Ok so after finishing the videos I can add some things to the discussion. Now back in the day I was very into the lore of this game and had written this big as* document of theories on the base + expansions but since I lost it here is a simple but obvious summary. Both DLCs have improved the gameplay at the cost of the story. The problem for which is as Brandoss himself said in the video - they want to have their cake and eat it too(paraphrasing, of course), problem is the cake is a lie. For you see, at the end of the first F.E.A.R. it is made apparent that the whole thing Paxton wanted to do was free Alma and thus have her merge/reunite with her physical body making the whole story of E.P. (Extraction Point) mut; had the "merge" of body and spirit seen in EP taken place during the ending of F.E.A.R.1 (timing wise) from the viewpoint of a secondary team or some altered time moment in a hidden dimension sure but as it is - no. Now Perseus Mandate had a better idea for establishing grounds for a sequel hype, being, trying to expand on the Telepathic commander project. Which from a lore prospect would make sense, you have Paxton who is deemed unstable/unsafe (remember he had "the incident" back in the day where Alma linked with him) so naturally they are trying to form a solution that would negate such an issue. The problem with P.M. , again as the video states, is the execution and timing of this change of focus in the story. It makes sense if you look at it for a time where FEAR2 wasn't out yet. So you get a DLC that continues the main story, cool. The next DLC completely ignores that, not cool.
TLDR: All in all great piece of content worth playing if you get your hands on it, albeit it can use some redirection/polish.
My only hope is if some day F.E.A.R will get a reboot/reimagining that sets up the story in a similar direction to what Extraction Point tried to setup. Instead of whatever nonsense F2 and F3 did.
man, absolutely love your f.e.a.r. series! i bought whole new pc around 2004-05 esp to play this game. we wanted to play it together with my friends, but i couldnt help but start alone before the "lets play fear day" date. when i ve seen HER while going down the vertical stairs (guess its circa 20 mins into the game) ive quit in almost panic, switched up every single light source in my apartment and was looking behind my back until the sun went up. great game. oh, and the multiplayer was INTENSE, there even was free version of fear - fear combat, same stuff but without single player. guess there are no servers anymore, but really - that was intense.
For me expansions are the best part of FEAR.
Gotta love how Extraction Point Alma just starts physically manifesting DID before just having both personalities walk into each other to cure herself, of course mental health would just be that easy for superpowered psionic dead girls.
Gotta say Timegate did alot more better job with Extraction Point than whatever Monolith did with the official FEAR 2. EP respected and move forward with the foundation of the original game and it's just so fantastic, the thing it did with the atmosphere. it's almost feels like a survival horror at times, its more scarier than the original game. and i felt more with its characters here than anything in the main two games, especially on Jin's death. It's just so sad
When I read the title, I was expecting to see Trepang 2 on here lmao
Man is treating us with a new vid this quickly
And this all gets even more confusing when you learn that Perseus Mandate -has a reference in Project Origin-, but then 3 having Jin being alive but no sign of Holiday. I personally headcanon that Jin's "death" is just a hallucination induced by Alma or Paxton, given we know both can cause those. That way we can all just enjoy the expansions and do a samba dance past the yikes that is Project Origin.
I respect your opinion, but deep down I will always love F.E.A.R. 2 equally as much as F.E.A.R. 1. I love the feel of adrenaline rushes in my games and also love challenging gameplay. So I'll play the 1st one when I'm in the mood for subtle scares and chess-like gameplay and I'll play the 2nd one when I want to have intense scares and "balls to the walls" action gameplay.
The government being scary makes sense. They do commit lotsa crimes
extraction point is a good ending for fear
perseus mandate is... well not terrible but it does feel like a side quest
I played both of these when they came to Xbox 360 under "Fear Files" I loved them even Perseus Mandate, though I hate fighting the Nightcrawler Elites, they're busted enemies that breaks the games flow. The Instant Action maps these games had are also very fun.
Me too. However, I enjoyed the Nightcrawlers Elites. They were fun to fight.
The only good thing about FEAR 3 is that Jin lives.
Both EP and PM have nice set pieces.
Chris Chan did the FEAR 2 ending to Barb.
Since we live in a timeline where people discuss their head canon such as disregarding the sequel trilogy for star wars fans, perseus mandate and extraction point are the true sequels to the franchise and nothing else for me. I played both these games after Fear 3 came out and extraction point blew me away as a kid, it genuinely terrified me. Nothing ever will come of Fear anyways since it’s been over 10 years so 2 and 3 goto the trashcan for me.
Just a lil note Fear 2 was the first i played because fear was very big on roblox back in 2010 and it was the most recent game at that time
Also that Norton Mapes easter egg was the best too
Man I forgot how scary the expansions were!!! Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate to me are the real true sequels to the original Fear despite them being non canon. Fear 2 and Fear 3 are just mediocre trash in my opinion. I hope this franchise comes back with a reboot soon or a remake of the original game.
Lmaooo idk if anyone got the community reference “there’s other timelines?” But that was perfect😂
Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate are great add-ons, on par with Opposing Force for Half-Life. They got their minute flaws, but it's still very minor nuances which only take maybe 1-1.5 points from the score compared to the original. So if FEAR was 10/10 (on my personal subjective scale, at the time of launch - but to be fair it's still on my personal "top shooters I ever played" list, but if you didn't experience it in 2005-2006, the dated aspect will very likely impact you), the ExP is 8.5, PM is 9 out of 10.
To be fair, the lower score for add-ons is probably impacted by the fact that I already experienced the original and the "wow" -factor was gone. If they came as a single package I'd most likely rate them equally, and there are some levels in PM that I'd argue are better than the original, but as I said, there are also some flaws which balance out the resulting overall score / impression.
LETS GOOO, NEW VIDEO
It's that haunted costume, son. While you're wearing it, you're "condemned" to review every FEAR game for the rest of your life!
Thousand yard stare:
You earn a sub, mate.
I don't think you give norton being that horrifically fat the credit it deserves. I don't doubt that man survived that gun shot at all, or the explosion. Yes he may have took the shot to the cheek. And yes I want the new model to be modified to show that, and the voice lines to be modified for that.
The paper youtube button in the background is worth a sub.
Was looking forward to this!
I've been playing this via the "Complete Edition" Mod lately, which merges FEAR and its expansions into one game and it didn't crash even once. Maybe try that
when your done all the fear games you should play trepang 2
I played F.E.A.R. when I was in fifth grade.
I’ll have to replay this again, last time I felt it had dragged on a little too long.
lovin' this f.e.a.r. series _!!_
Paxton fettel jumpscares at 5:29
While I enjoyed Extraction Point as a continuation of the original game, one single line of dialogue from Alma in the early underground area under the church removed all scare from the franchise for me. In the original game you see early on what Alma's mere presence is capable of: literally melting the flesh off of armored soldiers. I have never been as scared in a videogame, as this one sequence in a basement in Interval 2 or 3 where you see her shadow move behind you, accompanied by the sound of a girl giggling. She was innocent terror incarnate.
So when I heard this line whispered to me in EP after she kills off some of Fettle's soldiers for you: "You're safe now". All my fear immediately went away, because the game effectly took the most horrifying element of the series, and turned it to YOUR side as a helpful force.
They're not really better than F.E.A.R 2. F.E.A.R 2 gets a bad rep because the prologue teaches you to play in a non fun way. You can be very aggressive and the AI is built around that aggression
On normal mode sure but on hard aggressive play is punished pretty harshly due to enemies being able to randomly one shot you at full health and armor.
On top of the reduced hip-fire accuracy on most weapons when compared to F.E.A.R 1. making having to slow down and ADS more necessary.
@@kingdomkey2262 Oh I know what causes the one shot issue because I've ran into it so much that I decided to study it a little. It's very much tied to the heavy soldiers that usually use shotguns. For some reason it seems they're hard coded to have an insane damage multiplier in certain conditions even when they DON'T have a shotgun or they're shooting from long range. It's... strange.
17:45 another question is why nightcrawlers have the powers
and if it's some kinda genetic modification why government agencies don't use it
Can't wait to hear about your opinion on F.E.A.R 3 😁😄😏
You could always just not play FEAR 3. Its an option.
But how can I convince myself that this time it'll be magically better then?!
@@PatirroHenry fear 3 is terrible but the only thing Fear 1 related was it's powerful Melee kick. It's weird how that's the only thing they respected and keep from Fear 1. I don't know why.
It's funny. But the gameplay style of FEAR 3 is actually more close to 1 than anything on 2. And that's probably the only good part about it
@v-trigger6137 Mechanically I'd even agree, but the guns feel off. The art design combined with mildly tanky enemies (art design mostly) sucked any flavor left in that game out.
Extraction Point is great, especially as it gives you a minigun. Something that needed to be in FEAR 1.
But Perseus Mandate? It's not good. FEAR 2 is better. But I'd still play Perseus Mandate over FEAR 3. 3 is just plain bad.
Too bad WB Games will likely never do anything like FEAR today. And God help us if they did as WB loves live service focused crap now. No thanks, bro.
Recommend playing Trepang 2. It's a fun spiritual successor. I just wish it wasn't so fast paced like pretty much every so called "boomer shooter" now thanks to Doom 2016/Eternal. You can't even lean like in the og FEAR.
Great video! Would love it if you checked out the Ace combat series!
Can you Review condemned?
Yep! Right after the FEAR series
@@B4BrandossOG hell Yeah!!!!
@@B4BrandossOGyou should try out Trepang2. It is similar to F.E.A.R game.
Yeah, Extraction Point is fine, not as good as the original game imo but pretty fun. The hospital was probably the spookiest location the franchise ever had. Perseus Mandate however is a janky mess. The lighting is off, the atmosphere is off, the style is off, new faction is lame and even enemy encounters are botched. It shows because there's like a bazillion of medkits everywhere. Maybe it would have been better if devs had more time to polish it but who knows
but the what its are more canon the F2 and F3 lmao this is my canon
5:47 to 5:54 video freeze
"Easier to navigate" booolshet, I can't climb up the stupid catwalk in the sewer cuz the games jumping mechanic doesn't work right XD
Damn shame perseus mandate not only looked worse than original fear but played worse than original as well, speaking of fear 2 they shouldn’t have milked alma and replica soldiers
Bitte bitte Bitte eine Leseecke 😂
Not first this time
I'm sorry but Perseus Mandate was dreadful. I don't know how you're convinced that game is somehow better than FEAR 2.
FEAR 1 - 9/10
FEAR 2 - 7/10 (non-replayable, one & done forever)
FEAR 3 - Never finished it... It lost identity
DLCs are canon to me, and I'm not interested in true sequels at all.