So, about 5 years ago now I happened to meet a dev from FEAR 3 on a beach not far from here. His name was either Tim or Tom and he was a really nice guy. I felt kinda bad because when I asked him what games he'd worked on, he said "Do you know the FEAR Franchise?" to which I replied "Dude you work for Monolith?!" and he went "No I worked on Fear 3" I immediately said "I'm not going to hold that against you". He basically explained to me that after working on the Xbox exclusive expansion packs, they were hired to do FEAR 3 and randomly one day a WB exec walked in and said "My kid's playing this game called Call of Duty and we have to make our game like that if we wanna make money!" Long story short: They did not make money. I really wished I'd kept in contact with that guy; he even worked on the Mechwarrior series
@@planescaped It's an obvious trend with WB specifically; their film franchises haven't been bringing in the money they were back in the 90's and thats why they constantly push this "Games as a service" BS like with Mortal Kombat, Shadows of War and now Suicide Squad. They're so desperate for a hit they'll risk ruining every franchise they own
It's unfortunate but alot of good video game franchises during that time also tried to become cod due to how much money it was making. Heck even Resident evil wasn't immune to it, seeing how influenced it was by re6
@@brunovance8101It seems like WB is just constantly behind on the times. Even EA is now making decent singleplayer games without micro transactions or battle passes.
FEAR 1 had atmosphere and level design (even though it was too realistic to the point some people said it gets boring after a few hours, it created the impression of a *real* office / slums / laboratory). It also had high-end graphics *at the time* to further the immersion. FEAR 2 tried to follow that path with ruined city, labs, underground complexes. But it was flawed by a more futuristic / cartooney design (especially enemies with all the glowing bits on their equipment) and almost no graphical upgrade, I would argue it borders on visual simplifications (no soft shadows, ugly SSAO which is better turned off / replaced with ReShade, I think there was no parallax mapping anymore, at least not where it matters). FEAR 3... Just look at the textures. Everything but few select shader effects is a downgrade. And to top it off it runs like crap. When use VSR to run FEAR 2 at 7680x4320 for supersampling it spits out 90+ FPS no prob. Could probably hold 120, but I don't want to torture my GPU with 100% load / 85°C all the time I play. FEAR 3 drops under 120 FPS at 5760x3240 already.
@@HL3AlcAida i saw it, but never played it. but there were alot of good mobile games i played. yeah those times were so much better. wtf happened these days with mobile adds
Finally someone mentions how good of a villain Phase Commander could have been. I just love a villain that has a personal beef with you, I'm pretty sure exploring the reasons to why he hates us so much could make a better story than entirety of FEAR3, and his "I erase failures" monologue is cold af
As the guy who wrote most of the FEAR 3 Wikipedia entry, I agree about the quality of the Dead Domain documentary. It's virtually the only source available for all the back stage problems and it's exceptionally thorough. Ordinarily, I'd never use a single source that much (I think I cited it 22 times), but in this case, it's pretty much a necessity. My initial draft of the wiki page didn't include the documentary, and the development section was just a bog-standard, "it was announced...", "the designers decided...", "John Carpenter turned up..." etc etc etc. Watching that documentary completely changes your whole outlook on the game and the impossible task the designers faced (and the parts when they talk about John Carpenter's 'involvement' are hilarious).
"john carpenter served as idea man, only giving input to story notes and cutscenes". look, i know the studio went through a broken dev cycle. but what were they expecting? carpenter was presented with a fully formed fictional universe, he's not gonna make fundamental changes. and of course he wants to direct cutscenes. that's literally what his job for the last 5 decades was!
Fear 3 is such a tragedy. I'm still feeling the burn that we haven't had a traditional sequel in a decade. A remake or reboot with refreshed and refined gameplay, levels and enemies - keeping the same AI of the first two - would for sure make a splash in the survival horror boom. Alma and Pointman will be missed. I would love to see your thoughts on the Little Nightmares series, Brandoss. Your Evil Within video makes me feel you'd enjoy how surreal the games are. They're horror platformers, akin to Limbo, but have such gruelling visuals. The series has no formal dialogue but it has so much world-building through visual storytelling. Would really like to see you analyse them.
Fear isn't a SURVIVAL HORROR game you FKNG smoothbrain. It's a pure run/gun FPS. As much as a SH title as Dark Souls. What's next? Bioshock is survival horror as well?
@@duncanfirth Trepang2 is as much of a "successor" as Dead 2 Rights is to Max Payne. A run and gun FPS that is inspired by the likes of FEAR. Has nothing to do with the IP, & doesn't involve the devs. What's next? Evil Within being a successor to RE, because it's a horror game that Mikami developed?
I just realized that F.3.A.R. actually seems more like a more serious and edgy sequel to the Gamecube game Geist. Hear me out, ghost possession powers and a strangely good multiplayer on a mechanically good (for the time in Geist's case) singleplayer campaign
I was thinking that was the only good thing about 3's mechanics, it was Bullet Time Geist. Fucking easy at a glance, but that isn't entirely mutual from fun.
@@cappedminer369 I couldn't find any direct connections between projects, N-Space (devs of Geist) shut down in 2006 and the dev of Fear 3 was Day 1 studios which seems to have rebranded
One thing that always bothered me about F3AR regarding Jin having survived is that you don't see the Delta Force soldier, Douglas Holiday from FEAR 1 being referenced at all. Did the writers forget about him or did they kill him off in the helicopter crash that happened in the prelude comic for F3AR that almost nobody had read because it wasn't advertised as much as the game itself?
Douglas Holiday was a cool character. Even when experiencing supernatural craziness, he kept a cool head and looked out for Jin and Pointman. It also helps that he's voiced by David Scully (Johnson from Halo). Seeing that Extraction Point isn't canon (Thus, him not being dead), it would've been cool to see him in the later entries - probably working alongside Jin and Pointman in continuing their mission.
The only thing more depressing than the tale of Alma in this series is the tale of the series itself. Very nice video! It's a shame to look back on things and see how they ended. If you want something FEAR-Like but with their own twist I suggest taking a look at the Half-Life 2 mod Underhell. It's criminally underrated for how high quality it is, genuinely freaked me out sometimes!
So, apparently (not sure if this is mentioned in the video). Monolith gave the dev studio for this game a rundown of the plot they wanted the devs to go with. The devs ditched it, and went with their own thing. Also fuck WB, all my gamers hate WB.
WB Games is a terrible publisher. They own a bunch of good franchises and won't remaster them. Plus, they only want live service focused crap now. Hard pass.
@@cappedminer369 Funniest part is that *disney* of all companies, realized that the game industry wasn’t worth it, and abruptly ditched it after Disney Infinity. WB still has yet to learn this.
@@cappedminer369Disney had their own game studio (Disney interactive). And that’s where most of Disney’s games came from for a long while. Eventually they gave up and shut down the studio after a couple waves of Disney Infinity products. Now they just work with other game studios whenever it comes to making games based off their IPs. WB often slurps up studios, get very hands on with the projects, and that is typically what leads to most of their games flopping (Back 4 Blood, Suicide Squad, Gotham Knights, and a plethora of other forgotten games I’m sure). *Disney* realized that having their own game studio and acquiring other studios to make games for them (even for exclusively game-related IPs), was too much of a losing battle to continue pouring money into it. So they just took the easy route, and somehow WB has yet to learn this.
I liked Trepang 2, but without going into plot spoilers, I preferred the world FEAR 1 set up. The idea of being a military special forces unit that tackles paranormal threats was neat. Like a militaristic take on X-files. Only other AAA FPS I can think of that tried this was 2007's Clive Barkers Jericho. It definitely wasn't as good as FEAR.
@@Gruntvc Well, Trepang2 can't take much from FEAR without running into legal issues, so it's the closest there will be. A FEAR remake will follow in the original game's story, especially with Alma to go the modern audience direction. These AAA game companies want investment money, which means DEI/ESG pandering, possibly Sweet Baby Inc. It's best it died where it has and not see a worse amalgamation emerge.
@@smugplush I don't know what you meant by your statement then. I never said 1 for 1, you made that assumption and you don't need to directly copy in order to run into copyright issues. The use of one thing can do that, strange exaggeration on your part. The very fact it was created in inspiration of FEAR is inspiration, down to the gameplay and concepts that FEAR used.
@blumiu2426, I would not trust a new FEAR or remake from WB Games. The very idea that Sweet Baby could get their hands on it is more horrifying than any horror in game. I'd settle for a great remaster from Nightdive Studios like they did for Turok 3. Now if only someone could make a cross between Black and Soldier of Fortune 2.
Giving FEAR 3 to another dev was a gigantic mistake. They tried to beat Call of Duty and failed miserably. AAA gaming... Glad we got Trepang 2. I just wish it wasn't so fast paced like pretty much every FPS these days thanks to Doom and boomer shooters. The original FEAR plays more like an action focused tactical FPS. And franchise killers are interesting, especially when you've got multiple ones in the case of 343I's Halo games. I miss the Bungie years.
@slowmercy310, There actually isn't a Trepang 1. It isn't even Trepang 2, it's Trepang Squared if you look at the listings for the game on consoles or pc. Trepang doesn't even refer to any organization or unit in the game unlike FEAR did back in 2005. I dunno why they went with that name for Trepang. Still I recommend checking it out. Supposed to get dlc this year that'll add a katana to the weapon roster.
Lmao, yeah, Trepang is like real F2 When all that happened in F1 was happening, other Armacam's branches succesfully created super humans with unknow abillityes And then F3 wouldve been about such superhumans fighting paranormal monstrosities that Alma opened dimensional doors for
If your not too burnt out about talking about FEAR, it would be interesting to hear you thoughts and ideas about a "what if" scenario if you were in charge of the OG trilogy. Or going with the idea of rebooting/remaking the originals. Also, I agree about the sentiment's with what happened with Beckett, FEAR 2 was my introduction to the series, then after that I played FEAR 1 and only had a brief moment playing FEAR 3 and I really did feel bad for the guy, don't know if this is true or a made up theory but apparently the dude had ONE kind moment with Alma when they were kids and that sparked the interest, then the whole weird psychic pizza shiz happened and the dude lost his whole crew, had to fight through nightmares to reach that core thing and then got betrayed and R-worded in the end, then to top it all of in FEAR 3 they end up torturing the guy and then killing him right after. I kept on thinking that all of this was a bit much and out of his control, and IF the theory was true, DAMN, imagine being just a decent dude and all of a sudden because of that your life gets screwed. You really weren't kidding when you said the guy got the short end of the stick.
I remember playing FEAR 3 with my cousin when we were young. It's another one of those games like Dead Space 3 and Resident Evil 5 and 6 that we love way more than anyone else, it seems. And it could be bias due to playing these games together, he and I are closer than even my siblings and I, but we always seem to love games others hate.
Fear 3 did not kill the franchise to me, it was not the last game. FEAR online did. Despite its issues FEAR 3 is a lot of fun especially with a friend and while the story is really meh, I like the concept it offers.
Fear 3 failed to meet WB's sales expectations. Many don't even know FEAR Online existed. I only learned about it years after being shut down. So, Fear 3 often gets the blame for killing the franchise.
The game was fun as a coop-Online-Shooter, but that is not was FEAR was ever about. The concept of coop alone will always reduce any horror tension, even if the single player would have been good. Imho FEAR 3 would have been better without the name and expectations of the FEAR franchise. Just put the game in its own universe and go with it.
Fear Online ALSO never happened. That game is now dead and what TRULY killed the franchise, even as going far as to ruin the experience by bringing up the events of the second game.
It is really sad for me, as you said in the video. F.E.A.R. is not about Alma and only that. They are operatives who are dealing with paranormal, right? Imagine the amount of stories they could have told and maybe connecting them somehow. Something like an anthology. But I think that will never happen now... Edit: literally posted this before you said it :))
You said about a possible potential reboot of FEAR, I would love that honestly. I would also love to see some sort of sequel to FEAR: Perseus Mandate, I know its not the best out of the expansion packs but I honestly LOVED Perseus Mandate, especially with the introduction of the Nightcrawlers, see more story about this rouge mercenary group going after Alma's DNA.
4:53 Fears 360 port was not rubbish, it ran very well on the system, so much so its an excellent way to still play the game via Xbox Series backwards compatibility, which ups the resolution and FPS, also having access to unique Instant Action maps, the Machine Pistol and the Holiday bonus mission gives this port of the game an edge over the pc version. It's the PS3 version that ran poorly, not both.
played through this game with my boyfriend when it first came out and it was super fun glad to see i wasnt insane in enjoying it. been enjoying your streams too thanks for the content
32:00 Kid Alma actually looked spooky as shit in the original game with her face that was covered in shadows. Here... I don't know what the fuck went wrong. They wanted to show her face more clearly to show how great their facial texture technology had become, but then realized that removed all the spookiness from her, and thought it was enough to just smear her eyes with black ink, making her look like a discount superhero. Honestly I think she'd look scarier without it.
Currently bookmarking this video for later, recently got the fear collection on steam and only have the fear 2 DLC to go before I get to 3, can't wait to finish 3 and see how my experience aligns with the points made in this vid
Don't remind me. The sheer travesty that is the direction the FEAR franchise took. The second one, which I admit grown has on me with mucho time, was just not as good as the first. Okay big stompy bot was fun, the sky boxes and over all fidelity increase was nice. But when my first encounter with the enemy resulted in me breaking it when I simply refused to advance. Wot! Say wot! They did nothing but shuffle between 2 pieces of the same cover each and plink at me as I crouched by some cover. No flanking, no nade and rush. No chance to hide either as they were scripted into awareness and stayed alert put did not fan out or anything. Yeah. That was not going to be a SWAT mimicking stalked by Ringu FEAR 1 experience. I mean, they don nerfed my bicycle kick and slide tackle. Utter blasphemey. Next I won't be able to roundhouse kick a fool so hard it breaks the phsyics engine even as I catch his gun mid air and kill his mate with it. And then the squad commander radios in asking if everything is okay. A common occurrence in FEAR 1. Not so much inFEAR 2. Unlike many however I applaud it's ending. The moment during the boss battle, that I realised what Alma was doing to my character and why. That creeped the ever loving bejesus out of me. Such a violation...and the implications. Crazy ghost GF that ,ahem, forced you into fatherhood? Possibly making you the father of the apocalypse. I mean, would you just ctrl alt del or try and avert the apocalypse by stepping up to tame the most cray of cray of women. That also sometimes appears as an 8 year old girl in a red dress. That would be awkward around the family dinner table. Wait she was how old when they pulled the plug? Ermmm. (sound of banging on the door.) FBI OPEN UP! So overall, despite how frustrating the final boss battle can be, good horror in my book. And I suppose the AI does have it's moments to shine, like when the replicants first pop out of their pods and there's a brief bit of that FEAR 1 combat magic to be had. Also the underused puppeteer enemies, especially the piano man, are great bits of horror and indeed gameplay. So while it's grown on me it's still not what I wanted from the franchise. To many set pieces, grand environments, lights that highlight and not enough playgrounds to toy with a well scripted AI and scares that scare. But then Freer. Because I refuse to indulge that bit of myopic and cringe advertising. FEAR 3. What were they smoking? From the coop focus, to the weird point system all the way to the almost comedic attempts at horror most of the time. Fear 2 with the clingy Alma was pushing it, indifferent pregnant Alma was just meh. I just don't understand how they thought people that liked FEAR would like Freer. Once again it had some pretty cool moments, the supermarket level being a standout for people starved of a bit of genuine horror in their FEAR game but the combat was just weird in the campaign. The guns feel right, the melee feels better, the AI is more responsive and has some new moves as well as some interesting enemies. But the tone of the game, combined with the point system and a combat system that could do much more than a, then, COD style shooter? Total fail. Who else learnt you could use the cover mechanic that allowed you to partially look over cover but the game still allowed you to ADS? Who else kept a pistol on them ever after? Who then systematically ticked off the per mission objectives like achieve X number of headshots, X number of environmental kills and whatever else you could? From nigh on perfect safety cos cover shooters. Who else had their FEAR experience ruined by it becoming a laundry list of to do items even if you never discovered the cover exploit? Who else couldn't care less which brother was more favoured at the end? One was always looking to do this or that rather than it organically happening. And it ruined the vibe. There are however 2 things I offer as redeeming qualities of FEAR 3. A. That menu animation yo. Now if there had been more that in the game then my horror itch would have been better filled. B. The multiplayer. They sure expected FEAR 3 to be more popular when you look at the wierd and wonderful multiplayer modes that replaced ye olde deathmatch with some strange soul seeking game of glorified dog tag mode. Then there was The Wall. An advancing wall of screaming tortured souls (suprisingly nice horror touch by the devs there) that you have to run away from, kill along the way and hopefully make it to the end zone. Good honest gamer fun with friends. But then there was the wave survival mode which personally, I think is one of the better examples out there to this day. From the atmosphere to the mechanics of it all, I really enjoyed the time I spent playing with randoms or friends in that mode. But other than that, I'd just stick with the first 2 FEAR games. Fear 1 is a pretty much a masterpiece of gaming. Fear 2 is a (gritted teeth moment) game. Freer is an insult to anyone that liked FEAR. Even Perseus Mandate is better. There, I said it. Well that turned into a longer rant than I expected but in my defense I'm still salty about the fact I bought a new graphics card purely for FEAR 2 releasing. It was the first time I had installed my own graphics card into my own PC that I bought as a working man. I bought it between night shifts. I had scant few hours before I absolutely had to get some sleep but hey, at worst an hour to get things set up and installed. Right? I was right but then the installer said it needed to download steam. And steam then said the game had to update before running. Update time was something like 6 hours on my pre broadband let alone fiber optic internet. Just enough time for me to rage, go to sleep, go to work and come home to write a scathing review of steam and forced online nonsense. Little did we know the direction gaming in general would take, would make Freer look like a normal and everyday thing. Amma shut up now. Peace!
I saw two guys do a let's play of this game and they nicknamed it "The disconnection zone." they where making fun of it and said pointman looked like a caveman.
It's depressing hearing F3AR's awful dev cycle because of corporate publisher meddling and thinking of the current Coyote vs ACME movie situation, which is a completed animated film that Warner Bros want to shaft for a tax write off Absolutely no respect for media and the people working their ass off to make it happen unless it lines their pockets in the stupidest way possible
pointman in fear 3 is the worst example of silent protagonist, i`m not saying him being mute is a bad idea it`s just being mute doesn`t mean being devoid of all life, he could respond to fettle using body language and some various expressions which clearly didn`t happen in fear 3 and it was the reason why everything was so awkward in story, as for cut script it could have been such a great idea with little bit of rework, and yes that script needed to rework some things...overall fear franchise relied on whole armacham replica soldiers and alma, it would have been cool to see fear 1 and fear 2 characters cast teaming up to put and end to fettle entirely but than again, it was going to rely on the same protagonist first fear created, fear 2 and 3 not only should have featured entirely different cast of characters (well fear 2 did that at some degree but replica and alma was still there) but also should have had different abilities for characters, not everyone gotta have bullet time because they are protags of game called fear, whatever it is i still grieve downfall of fear as a new comer, however i remember playing fear 3 as a little kid for some reason and i didn`t know it was series killer installment of a great franchise
Pointman looks like one of steps in the evolution of manki... Oh someone already said it. Honestly Paxton's character and Becket's possession and death scene are the only things that I loved about the game. It's kinda funny that the whole 'family' theme only happens in Paxton's ending. He possesses Pointman, eats Alma, and raises the baby so technically they're all together at the end.
Trepang2 is more a combination of Doom, Crysis and F.E.A.R. than a real F.E.A.R. sequel. Yeah I played the demo. AI is not so good. Action is great but you go waay too fast in that game. Also slowmo is not coded so good as in F.E.A.R.
god, Harlan Wade having a biased psionic version would have worked, if the "real" one was given references, like how he was remorseful. Maybe give audio recordings, camera footage of him arguing with Genevieve. Stuff that makes the real one look more nuanced than the fake one, as Alma lacked the context that her father was remorseful.
Honestly, having some recordings of Harlan and his ghost making some appearance where he really sees just how deep his actions are to the point of how Alma saw him as a monster would of also been a good way to have the character other than just having an "Evil Harlan simulacrum."
41:40 Playing as Jin and Stokes makes sense for co-op horror as you're both normal soldiers going up against a physic sociopathic family. Maybe using wits and teamwork to survive.
F.E.A.R 1: lost count of how many time I played through it and its expansions.. F.E.A.R 2: I was one of those wierdos who enjoyed it more than the first, Also played to death and still in my Steam favorites. F.E.A.R 3: I didn't even finish... Says it all.
I do not care about Harland Wades "character assassination". What we see about Harland is only a fraction of what Alma saw, and went through. A last second pang of guilt doesn't absolve him, nor is his physical death. I do not recall if it is literally a manifestation of him, or a manifestation of him created by Alma.
Unironically this game was very fun to play. Yeah it's nothing like the first or second games and is in fact such a departure from the original formula but it was still very fun, especially when you play co-op with a friend. I will die on this hill.
It always struck me as a disjointed mess of a game. Now it makes sense why and how. Thank you Brandoss for providing your insight into this tragic end of what could have been a great franchise.
The Xbox 360 port is good. Plus it is backwards compatible on Xbox One X and Xbox Series X and gets to run in 4K at 60 FPS. Closest thing to an actual remaster for FEAR. The PS3 port is not good. It suffers a lot of FPS drops and Sony has done nothing to fix this.
Yeah the 360 port isn't bad at all,its not the ideal way to play but it was definitely serviceable, it even had the cool exclusive dual smgs, the PS3 version was terrible though.
9:40 B4Brandoss: "[...] you get told you're doing it wrong every step of the way by people who probably think that Tetris is still next gen." Tetris Effect: "Am I a joke to you?"
17:48 Okay to be fair, Paxton also ambushed Point Man at the beginning of FEAR 1 with a board in the face. But I'm glad that you also brought up how off all the characters look in-game. Point Man looked so perfect in the first game! They massacred my boy!
I've yet to watch this video but going by how much I enjoyed this whole FEAR series so far I know it'll be fantastic. I wonder if you'd consider doing one on Trepang2? It's the closest thing to a true follow-up and even though it's an indie game it's far far better than FEAR 3. It's got slow-mo, spookiness, evil corporations, and oh yeah a shotgun so powerful it almost rivals the one from FEAR 1.
You seemed to have quite a bit of fun playing this with a partner. You failed to mention that it's ass-on-toast without a partner. Extolling how great Paxton is, don't mention that you have to play through the game as Point Man to unlock Paxton, who, without the support of Point Man dies very quickly.
And comes the end of the FEAR series reviews for this channel. The main takeaway I get from this review series is that if the FEAR series needs a spiritual successor that takes its good elements and refines some of the rougher elements. Straight up, I would enjoy a game series these days that's just about encountering spookiness and being able to stomp or shoot their faces in. And FEAR really scratched that itch and it's a shame how the series went the way it did. Now then, would you try your hand on the Condemned series also by Monolith?
im so happy i found this video, one one i talk to ever knows what FEAR is, the first two games where so fun for me as a kid. I would get scared shitless xD but still love playing it. never rememebered the 3rd one, and i guess thats for a reason.
I don’t understand how Fear 3 can be a bad game when you say minutes later that the gameplay is fun, isn’t gameplay like 90% of why people play games? Regardless I still like the video and what you had to say. Personally I really like fear 3 and would rank it above fear 2
Think you should cover Monolith's two Condemned games? I don't know if they're meant to be in the same world as F.E.A.R., but the first Condemned game is either in the same world or Monolith was just reusing a lot of graphical assets from F.E.A.R.
@@B4BrandossOG Nice :) Although I was probably about 35 at the time (I'm 54 now), I played Condemned as a 360 launch title and found it just about the creepiest, scariest game I'd ever played. There was something about the frantic, in-your-face melee combat with those crazed homeless people, about those dark, abandoned, decaying buildings, about the light (and sometimes gruesome) CSI detective work - about the entire atmosphere and game structure - that was so unsettling. It transcended the game and felt very real. And the department store mannequins. The mannequins. I don't want to remember them, but I can't not remember them. I don't retain strong impressions from Condemned 2. I do remember I liked it, but also that it wasn't as compelling or as memorable as the first one - or at least that's what I thought at the time. It could be different now if I revisited it. Wish they would've given that one a PC release, too. ✌🏻
I finally got around to buying and playing F3AR in its entirety online with a friend last year. It was just bad as I had been lead to believe but we had so much fun laughing at it. The whole "faVoUrItE sOn" thing was goddamn hilarious.
I will admit, I enjoyed playing F.E.A.R. 3 when the only PC I had on me for a time was a laptop that wasn't built for gaming but even with all the enjoyment I had from playing the game, it was nowhere near as good as F.E.A.R. The most memorable part I can say was the last phase commander fight. And I say it was memorable simply because of how poorly done the last commander was in that one can simply just spam shield bashing against the boss. And for the organization of F.E.A.R. not being in F.E.A.R. 3 is disappointing. They could of at least throw in a few red shirt operatives that would of just explained to Point Man what was going on after escaping the Walmart or had Betters speak through a radio in trying to get a hold of any surviving operatives. Edit: just to say on Pointman in the game, the reddit post summed up his appearance perfectly, looking like the father of the baby from Ice Age.
Fear 3 is non-canon. It never happened. It was made by a lesser development team who barely knew anything from the last two games, had no idea on what made the first Fear game so iconic and incredible and discredited the expansion packs, Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate, as unrelated to the first and second games. And there are even some parts of the game that don't make sense. Such as Paxton being able to phase through a wall in the first cutscene, and yet doesn't do so in the actual gameplay. Say what you want about Fear 2, but that game has some interesting stuff to bring up, and some good parts that I like, such as the Hammerhead gun, the sniper rifle, the destruction of Fairport and the Auburn District, Michael Becket and the Dark Signal team, Genevieve Aristide's involvement in the second game, and the ending being a sinister and shocking cliffhanger.
I genuinely will never understand the blind fury Fear 2 tends to get when this pile of shit exists. Fear 2 tried, yea it wasn't great and the Fear 1 expansions do absolutely have some stuff better, but it still left me wanting to know what was going to happen next. The only thing this game made me feel at the end is that it never should have been made at all
@@Tycholarfero I dislike fear 2 more cause I had so many issues running it and wasn't that entertained by it but playing that, I figured the franchise was going down in flames. Fear 3 confirmed that but it's better for mindless fun
I disagree. Fear 3 didn’t kill fear, it was the lack of games afterwards and army game fatigue in the end of Xbox 360. People were getting sick and tired of shooting games. Fear 3 was mostly positively received by most people, and was fairly polished and well made. They abandoned the series but the last game was a fun coop game like Dead Space 3, minus the dumb gun paywalls. If Fear 4 expanded the coop and fettel’s ghost mechanics, I’d be sold. That’d be great.
Calming F.E.A.R 3 killed the franchise and saying F.E.A.R 2 is masterpiece when compared to is quite the exaggeration because i actually remember having way more fun playing F.E.A.R 3 over 2 and dare i say even the Original and this is solo btw. Maybe it's because the controls actually feels tight,responsive and refined with the combat being super heavy heated thanks to AI finally being decent again unlike F.E.A.R 2's brain dead ones and the arenas for the most part were actually solid. and of course the extra fact that you can replay the entire game as THE Paxton himself just straight up felt like playing a different game entirely.I just love how he play so different to his brother. Overall the game was extremely fun as hell,Heck I'd even dare say it's the most fun out of the Franchise and you could pretty much 1up that by simply playing with a buddy. Sure you could say it's not a 'FEAR' game because it lost all of the horror factor but I do feel like this is the kinda of franchise for me personally where the Combat and Gameplay and the AI caries over the Horror elements. My only con with the game is that its a bit too short and i guess replaying as Paxton probably makes up for it. Thank heavens we got Trepang 2.
The sad story of FEAR isn't entirely unpredictable, or unexpected. Whenever you get some dumbasses from the corporate world who think they know better than devs how to make a game, usually that series ends up becoming shit. FWIW FEAR 1 was, and still is one of the GOATs when it comes to classic games. People may have different opinions on whether the Timegate addons or FEAR 2 are any good. Personally I first got into FEAR by playing FEAR 2, I played FEAR 2 when it first came out, and thought it was really good, and then I went back and played the originals, and enjoyed them just as much if not more. Shortly thereafter when FEAR 3 came out I was kinda blinsided by how much more nerfed it felt compared to FEAR 1 & 2. I think a big part of the problem was that FEAR was always about the horror, terror, action adventure fps elements. When they made it too much about nukes and bombs going off in the streets of Fairport, and made it too much some pissing contest between Alma's shadow world, the FEAR ops, Armachan, and the US military where it was just chaos and people shooting one another (and not soo much about the supernatural horror elements), I think FEAR lost too much of its identity. The thing also that made it compelling was its absolutely stellar AI for enemies. In the first games enemies really could fuck with the player, based on the tactical situation. There just aren't a lot of games nowadays where care was taken to design an environment where there are sometime as many a 6 different ways to reach the same location, enemies can duck, go prone, crawl through vents, under garage doors, tactical dive across banisiters and through windows, jump, scale walls, and use environmental objects to their advantage).
The gameplay ideas for the co-op are at leas pretty interesting, and in a better game which aggressively pushed cooperation and where the arenas were actually designed to work with the AI, it might be better.
What you described at 1:30-1:50 is literally what I've been going through for a while now ever since I started using steam since around 2020/2019 (freshman year of high school) Not really gonna complain though since the older titles are pretty good games
Jin hiding because she has "intel" on Armacham is a stupid plot point. In FEAR 1 you spend the whole game finding intel laptops and sending the data to Betters who in turn strongly suggests that Armacham is as good as fucked by the time Point Man enters the Vault. All this shit is stuff FEAR and the Feds should know already. Armacham should be a completely ruined and gutted company by the end of FEAR 1 & 2, not fielding entire mercenary armies and hunting down U.S military personnel with near impunity. Edit: Also a co-op DLC where Jin and Stokes team up could've been badass. One issue though is that while Stokes is clearly seen shooting enemies and being a skilled soldier to survive all the way till the end of the game, Jin is never seen holding a weapon in FEAR 1 and just gets shouted at and ordered around like some annoying maid half the time.
This! That's the whole point of them sending men into the vault aswell. The objective was never to kill Pointman but erase all evidence before Pointman got to it. That's why Norton Mapes was there with the ATC Guards. This plan failed because Pointman was simply too fast. Armacham should've been burnt and assets seized at the end of FEAR 1 given how every cleanup attempt they attempted failed miserably. Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate both wrapped it up nicely and didn't stray too far from what could've happened at the end of FEAR 1. Perseus Mandate has its own version of a 'clean-up'. But it's more like the Senator hired Morrison & the Nightcrawlers to infiltrate the city and secure what was left of Armacham's research while Point Man fought the Replicas to get to the extraction point. So it's overall more believable.
@@FrostbiteDigital I don't think so. The game was flawed but it was still FEAR at its core. Something you cant say about FEAR 2 or FEAR 3. The new content was interesting to see even if the game itself was not made with Extraction Point quality and can still be enjoyable. Just mid.
Just like Dead Space series, EA killed it after the 3rd one. But at least in Dead Space, the 3rd one still acceptable to a certain degree compares to F..E.A.R 3.
For me It was just the fact the mechanics of Fear3 were a call of duty clone. That's how it played and felt. If it had played and felt like a Fear game I would have ignored all of the bad story elements. The Dues Ex prequels had terrible stories too but they had implemented enough of the game mechanics and fun elements from the first game that it was still an enjoyable game play experience. I don't know why they changed the format so much. I don't know why they didn't get advice from the original devs to help them replicate it but that is where they went wrong. With the story it still would have been a mediocre game but I think it was the gameplay that killed the franchise, You can survive a bad story but you cant survive a bad gameplay experience.
i know this is late but warner brothers literally became more involved taking most of the control, they hired Steve niles who made a lot of scripts that came late into development, and they forced the game to be like call of duty
This was one of the funniest co-op experience i've experinced and there is bit of competition/tactics to get different endings. I would't recommend this for solo-play, the paranoral shit happens only when co-op.
So, about 5 years ago now I happened to meet a dev from FEAR 3 on a beach not far from here. His name was either Tim or Tom and he was a really nice guy. I felt kinda bad because when I asked him what games he'd worked on, he said "Do you know the FEAR Franchise?" to which I replied "Dude you work for Monolith?!" and he went "No I worked on Fear 3" I immediately said "I'm not going to hold that against you". He basically explained to me that after working on the Xbox exclusive expansion packs, they were hired to do FEAR 3 and randomly one day a WB exec walked in and said "My kid's playing this game called Call of Duty and we have to make our game like that if we wanna make money!" Long story short: They did not make money. I really wished I'd kept in contact with that guy; he even worked on the Mechwarrior series
Game development run by old guys in suits who've never played a game. Gotta love it.
@@planescaped It's an obvious trend with WB specifically; their film franchises haven't been bringing in the money they were back in the 90's and thats why they constantly push this "Games as a service" BS like with Mortal Kombat, Shadows of War and now Suicide Squad. They're so desperate for a hit they'll risk ruining every franchise they own
It's unfortunate but alot of good video game franchises during that time also tried to become cod due to how much money it was making.
Heck even Resident evil wasn't immune to it, seeing how influenced it was by re6
@@brunovance8101It seems like WB is just constantly behind on the times. Even EA is now making decent singleplayer games without micro transactions or battle passes.
Every time you cut from a fear 3 to a fear 1 shot it’s amazing how much better fear 1 looks
Or FEAR 2 the lightning etc was on point FEAR3 just looks like a cashcrab mobile game ;)
FEAR 1 had atmosphere and level design (even though it was too realistic to the point some people said it gets boring after a few hours, it created the impression of a *real* office / slums / laboratory). It also had high-end graphics *at the time* to further the immersion.
FEAR 2 tried to follow that path with ruined city, labs, underground complexes. But it was flawed by a more futuristic / cartooney design (especially enemies with all the glowing bits on their equipment) and almost no graphical upgrade, I would argue it borders on visual simplifications (no soft shadows, ugly SSAO which is better turned off / replaced with ReShade, I think there was no parallax mapping anymore, at least not where it matters).
FEAR 3... Just look at the textures. Everything but few select shader effects is a downgrade. And to top it off it runs like crap. When use VSR to run FEAR 2 at 7680x4320 for supersampling it spits out 90+ FPS no prob. Could probably hold 120, but I don't want to torture my GPU with 100% load / 85°C all the time I play. FEAR 3 drops under 120 FPS at 5760x3240 already.
@@HL3AlcAida idk, mobile games these days are MUCH worse than before
@@cappedminer369 they are evolving but backwards.
Remember the Dead Space for Mobile Phone.
Good old times.
@@HL3AlcAida i saw it, but never played it. but there were alot of good mobile games i played. yeah those times were so much better. wtf happened these days with mobile adds
I bet a single person could make a sick fan project of jin going through the city with good scares and scarce ammo while she fights cultists
Finally someone mentions how good of a villain Phase Commander could have been. I just love a villain that has a personal beef with you, I'm pretty sure exploring the reasons to why he hates us so much could make a better story than entirety of FEAR3, and his "I erase failures" monologue is cold af
As the guy who wrote most of the FEAR 3 Wikipedia entry, I agree about the quality of the Dead Domain documentary. It's virtually the only source available for all the back stage problems and it's exceptionally thorough. Ordinarily, I'd never use a single source that much (I think I cited it 22 times), but in this case, it's pretty much a necessity.
My initial draft of the wiki page didn't include the documentary, and the development section was just a bog-standard, "it was announced...", "the designers decided...", "John Carpenter turned up..." etc etc etc.
Watching that documentary completely changes your whole outlook on the game and the impossible task the designers faced (and the parts when they talk about John Carpenter's 'involvement' are hilarious).
"john carpenter served as idea man, only giving input to story notes and cutscenes". look, i know the studio went through a broken dev cycle. but what were they expecting? carpenter was presented with a fully formed fictional universe, he's not gonna make fundamental changes. and of course he wants to direct cutscenes. that's literally what his job for the last 5 decades was!
That's really the only thing you could EXPECT him to do - direct cutscenes, pitch script ideas, or compose music.
Fear 3 is such a tragedy. I'm still feeling the burn that we haven't had a traditional sequel in a decade. A remake or reboot with refreshed and refined gameplay, levels and enemies - keeping the same AI of the first two - would for sure make a splash in the survival horror boom. Alma and Pointman will be missed.
I would love to see your thoughts on the Little Nightmares series, Brandoss. Your Evil Within video makes me feel you'd enjoy how surreal the games are. They're horror platformers, akin to Limbo, but have such gruelling visuals. The series has no formal dialogue but it has so much world-building through visual storytelling. Would really like to see you analyse them.
Look up trepang 2 it’s the successor to fear
Fear isn't a SURVIVAL HORROR game you FKNG smoothbrain. It's a pure run/gun FPS. As much as a SH title as Dark Souls. What's next? Bioshock is survival horror as well?
@@nottheatf6129 Trepang2 has nothing to do with Fear. It isn't even as good as F2.
Trepang 2 is not a direct sequel different developers it is the spiritual successor to fear 1 imo.
@@duncanfirth Trepang2 is as much of a "successor" as Dead 2 Rights is to Max Payne. A run and gun FPS that is inspired by the likes of FEAR. Has nothing to do with the IP, & doesn't involve the devs. What's next? Evil Within being a successor to RE, because it's a horror game that Mikami developed?
I just realized that F.3.A.R. actually seems more like a more serious and edgy sequel to the Gamecube game Geist. Hear me out, ghost possession powers and a strangely good multiplayer on a mechanically good (for the time in Geist's case) singleplayer campaign
I was thinking that was the only good thing about 3's mechanics, it was Bullet Time Geist. Fucking easy at a glance, but that isn't entirely mutual from fun.
was it made by the same devs ?
@@cappedminer369 I couldn't find any direct connections between projects, N-Space (devs of Geist) shut down in 2006 and the dev of Fear 3 was Day 1 studios which seems to have rebranded
@@Voidianknight i know this is late but i didn't know dayone rebranded, what are they known as now
@@cappedminer369 Wargaming Chicago-Baltimore, they seem to be part of the World of Tanks devs
One thing that always bothered me about F3AR regarding Jin having survived is that you don't see the Delta Force soldier, Douglas Holiday from FEAR 1 being referenced at all.
Did the writers forget about him or did they kill him off in the helicopter crash that happened in the prelude comic for F3AR that almost nobody had read because it wasn't advertised as much as the game itself?
The guy explained in the video why the story was a mess
Douglas Holiday was a cool character. Even when experiencing supernatural craziness, he kept a cool head and looked out for Jin and Pointman. It also helps that he's voiced by David Scully (Johnson from Halo). Seeing that Extraction Point isn't canon (Thus, him not being dead), it would've been cool to see him in the later entries - probably working alongside Jin and Pointman in continuing their mission.
The only thing more depressing than the tale of Alma in this series is the tale of the series itself. Very nice video! It's a shame to look back on things and see how they ended. If you want something FEAR-Like but with their own twist I suggest taking a look at the Half-Life 2 mod Underhell. It's criminally underrated for how high quality it is, genuinely freaked me out sometimes!
So, apparently (not sure if this is mentioned in the video). Monolith gave the dev studio for this game a rundown of the plot they wanted the devs to go with. The devs ditched it, and went with their own thing.
Also fuck WB, all my gamers hate WB.
WB Games is a terrible publisher. They own a bunch of good franchises and won't remaster them. Plus, they only want live service focused crap now. Hard pass.
why the fuck would a movie studio try to buy games or run a game ??? it just seems so weird to me
@@cappedminer369 Funniest part is that *disney* of all companies, realized that the game industry wasn’t worth it, and abruptly ditched it after Disney Infinity.
WB still has yet to learn this.
@@Dr.Oofers damn really ??!! It’s surprising since Disney is trying take over everything
@@cappedminer369Disney had their own game studio (Disney interactive). And that’s where most of Disney’s games came from for a long while.
Eventually they gave up and shut down the studio after a couple waves of Disney Infinity products. Now they just work with other game studios whenever it comes to making games based off their IPs. WB often slurps up studios, get very hands on with the projects, and that is typically what leads to most of their games flopping (Back 4 Blood, Suicide Squad, Gotham Knights, and a plethora of other forgotten games I’m sure).
*Disney* realized that having their own game studio and acquiring other studios to make games for them (even for exclusively game-related IPs), was too much of a losing battle to continue pouring money into it. So they just took the easy route, and somehow WB has yet to learn this.
I think you forgot Trepang2 is the successor to F.E.A.R. and is pretty much an operative going through scenarios, a good deal paranormal.
I liked Trepang 2, but without going into plot spoilers, I preferred the world FEAR 1 set up. The idea of being a military special forces unit that tackles paranormal threats was neat. Like a militaristic take on X-files.
Only other AAA FPS I can think of that tried this was 2007's Clive Barkers Jericho. It definitely wasn't as good as FEAR.
@@Gruntvc Well, Trepang2 can't take much from FEAR without running into legal issues, so it's the closest there will be. A FEAR remake will follow in the original game's story, especially with Alma to go the modern audience direction. These AAA game companies want investment money, which means DEI/ESG pandering, possibly Sweet Baby Inc. It's best it died where it has and not see a worse amalgamation emerge.
@@smugplush I don't know what you meant by your statement then. I never said 1 for 1, you made that assumption and you don't need to directly copy in order to run into copyright issues. The use of one thing can do that, strange exaggeration on your part. The very fact it was created in inspiration of FEAR is inspiration, down to the gameplay and concepts that FEAR used.
@blumiu2426, I would not trust a new FEAR or remake from WB Games. The very idea that Sweet Baby could get their hands on it is more horrifying than any horror in game. I'd settle for a great remaster from Nightdive Studios like they did for Turok 3.
Now if only someone could make a cross between Black and Soldier of Fortune 2.
Spiritual successor.* It's not a literal new entry in the franchise.
Giving FEAR 3 to another dev was a gigantic mistake. They tried to beat Call of Duty and failed miserably. AAA gaming...
Glad we got Trepang 2. I just wish it wasn't so fast paced like pretty much every FPS these days thanks to Doom and boomer shooters. The original FEAR plays more like an action focused tactical FPS.
And franchise killers are interesting, especially when you've got multiple ones in the case of 343I's Halo games. I miss the Bungie years.
I have a question about Trepang 2. Is there a Trepang 1?
@slowmercy310, There actually isn't a Trepang 1. It isn't even Trepang 2, it's Trepang Squared if you look at the listings for the game on consoles or pc.
Trepang doesn't even refer to any organization or unit in the game unlike FEAR did back in 2005. I dunno why they went with that name for Trepang.
Still I recommend checking it out. Supposed to get dlc this year that'll add a katana to the weapon roster.
I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, their version of FEAR 2 sounds cool but Warner brothers just got way too hands on and made it follow trends and etc
These FEAR video essays really taking me back to my youth hahaha. One of my favorite game series. Loved your videos man.
Crazy timing, I just finished your review on origins and looked for your review on 3 and it just came out
For me, FEAR ends with Extraction Point. Perfection. Then Trepang2 happened.
🖤
Lmao, yeah, Trepang is like real F2
When all that happened in F1 was happening, other Armacam's branches succesfully created super humans with unknow abillityes
And then F3 wouldve been about such superhumans fighting paranormal monstrosities that Alma opened dimensional doors for
The look you give someone who keeps yapping and expecting you to say something knowing that you are canonically mute.
Funny how they kept Pointman in tactical gear for 9 months after his capture
Love the retrospective! Also I love Fear 3, it got me in a bad moment of life and kept me going so it's a lovely sight to see you review it
Same here dude, I have a soft spot for fear 3
If your not too burnt out about talking about FEAR, it would be interesting to hear you thoughts and ideas about a "what if" scenario if you were in charge of the OG trilogy. Or going with the idea of rebooting/remaking the originals. Also, I agree about the sentiment's with what happened with Beckett, FEAR 2 was my introduction to the series, then after that I played FEAR 1 and only had a brief moment playing FEAR 3 and I really did feel bad for the guy, don't know if this is true or a made up theory but apparently the dude had ONE kind moment with Alma when they were kids and that sparked the interest, then the whole weird psychic pizza shiz happened and the dude lost his whole crew, had to fight through nightmares to reach that core thing and then got betrayed and R-worded in the end, then to top it all of in FEAR 3 they end up torturing the guy and then killing him right after. I kept on thinking that all of this was a bit much and out of his control, and IF the theory was true, DAMN, imagine being just a decent dude and all of a sudden because of that your life gets screwed. You really weren't kidding when you said the guy got the short end of the stick.
I remember playing FEAR 3 with my cousin when we were young. It's another one of those games like Dead Space 3 and Resident Evil 5 and 6 that we love way more than anyone else, it seems. And it could be bias due to playing these games together, he and I are closer than even my siblings and I, but we always seem to love games others hate.
Fear 3 did not kill the franchise to me, it was not the last game. FEAR online did. Despite its issues FEAR 3 is a lot of fun especially with a friend and while the story is really meh, I like the concept it offers.
Agreed. The game isn't bad; just different. But negativity generates traffic.
Fear 3 failed to meet WB's sales expectations. Many don't even know FEAR Online existed. I only learned about it years after being shut down.
So, Fear 3 often gets the blame for killing the franchise.
The game was fun as a coop-Online-Shooter, but that is not was FEAR was ever about. The concept of coop alone will always reduce any horror tension, even if the single player would have been good. Imho FEAR 3 would have been better without the name and expectations of the FEAR franchise. Just put the game in its own universe and go with it.
I expected fear online to be really really bad but my God it was worse than I thought
Fear Online ALSO never happened. That game is now dead and what TRULY killed the franchise, even as going far as to ruin the experience by bringing up the events of the second game.
Gonna talk about Trepang² and if it's a good FEAR spiritual successor?
If you can afford it that is.
It is really sad for me, as you said in the video. F.E.A.R. is not about Alma and only that. They are operatives who are dealing with paranormal, right? Imagine the amount of stories they could have told and maybe connecting them somehow. Something like an anthology. But I think that will never happen now...
Edit: literally posted this before you said it :))
You said about a possible potential reboot of FEAR, I would love that honestly.
I would also love to see some sort of sequel to FEAR: Perseus Mandate, I know its not the best out of the expansion packs but I honestly LOVED Perseus Mandate, especially with the introduction of the Nightcrawlers, see more story about this rouge mercenary group going after Alma's DNA.
Yes. You will do F.E.A.R. 3 content and nothing else. Dance monkey, dance!
4:53 Fears 360 port was not rubbish, it ran very well on the system, so much so its an excellent way to still play the game via Xbox Series backwards compatibility, which ups the resolution and FPS, also having access to unique Instant Action maps, the Machine Pistol and the Holiday bonus mission gives this port of the game an edge over the pc version. It's the PS3 version that ran poorly, not both.
played through this game with my boyfriend when it first came out and it was super fun glad to see i wasnt insane in enjoying it. been enjoying your streams too thanks for the content
32:00 Kid Alma actually looked spooky as shit in the original game with her face that was covered in shadows. Here... I don't know what the fuck went wrong. They wanted to show her face more clearly to show how great their facial texture technology had become, but then realized that removed all the spookiness from her, and thought it was enough to just smear her eyes with black ink, making her look like a discount superhero. Honestly I think she'd look scarier without it.
Currently bookmarking this video for later, recently got the fear collection on steam and only have the fear 2 DLC to go before I get to 3, can't wait to finish 3 and see how my experience aligns with the points made in this vid
Omfg you’re killing it with content my dude
Don't remind me. The sheer travesty that is the direction the FEAR franchise took. The second one, which I admit grown has on me with mucho time, was just not as good as the first. Okay big stompy bot was fun, the sky boxes and over all fidelity increase was nice. But when my first encounter with the enemy resulted in me breaking it when I simply refused to advance. Wot! Say wot!
They did nothing but shuffle between 2 pieces of the same cover each and plink at me as I crouched by some cover. No flanking, no nade and rush. No chance to hide either as they were scripted into awareness and stayed alert put did not fan out or anything.
Yeah. That was not going to be a SWAT mimicking stalked by Ringu FEAR 1 experience. I mean, they don nerfed my bicycle kick and slide tackle. Utter blasphemey. Next I won't be able to roundhouse kick a fool so hard it breaks the phsyics engine even as I catch his gun mid air and kill his mate with it. And then the squad commander radios in asking if everything is okay. A common occurrence in FEAR 1. Not so much inFEAR 2.
Unlike many however I applaud it's ending. The moment during the boss battle, that I realised what Alma was doing to my character and why. That creeped the ever loving bejesus out of me. Such a violation...and the implications. Crazy ghost GF that ,ahem, forced you into fatherhood? Possibly making you the father of the apocalypse. I mean, would you just ctrl alt del or try and avert the apocalypse by stepping up to tame the most cray of cray of women. That also sometimes appears as an 8 year old girl in a red dress. That would be awkward around the family dinner table.
Wait she was how old when they pulled the plug? Ermmm.
(sound of banging on the door.) FBI OPEN UP!
So overall, despite how frustrating the final boss battle can be, good horror in my book.
And I suppose the AI does have it's moments to shine, like when the replicants first pop out of their pods and there's a brief bit of that FEAR 1 combat magic to be had. Also the underused puppeteer enemies, especially the piano man, are great bits of horror and indeed gameplay. So while it's grown on me it's still not what I wanted from the franchise. To many set pieces, grand environments, lights that highlight and not enough playgrounds to toy with a well scripted AI and scares that scare.
But then Freer. Because I refuse to indulge that bit of myopic and cringe advertising. FEAR 3. What were they smoking? From the coop focus, to the weird point system all the way to the almost comedic attempts at horror most of the time. Fear 2 with the clingy Alma was pushing it, indifferent pregnant Alma was just meh.
I just don't understand how they thought people that liked FEAR would like Freer.
Once again it had some pretty cool moments, the supermarket level being a standout for people starved of a bit of genuine horror in their FEAR game but the combat was just weird in the campaign. The guns feel right, the melee feels better, the AI is more responsive and has some new moves as well as some interesting enemies. But the tone of the game, combined with the point system and a combat system that could do much more than a, then, COD style shooter? Total fail.
Who else learnt you could use the cover mechanic that allowed you to partially look over cover but the game still allowed you to ADS? Who else kept a pistol on them ever after? Who then systematically ticked off the per mission objectives like achieve X number of headshots, X number of environmental kills and whatever else you could? From nigh on perfect safety cos cover shooters. Who else had their FEAR experience ruined by it becoming a laundry list of to do items even if you never discovered the cover exploit? Who else couldn't care less which brother was more favoured at the end?
One was always looking to do this or that rather than it organically happening. And it ruined the vibe. There are however 2 things I offer as redeeming qualities of FEAR 3.
A. That menu animation yo. Now if there had been more that in the game then my horror itch would have been better filled.
B. The multiplayer. They sure expected FEAR 3 to be more popular when you look at the wierd and wonderful multiplayer modes that replaced ye olde deathmatch with some strange soul seeking game of glorified dog tag mode. Then there was The Wall. An advancing wall of screaming tortured souls (suprisingly nice horror touch by the devs there) that you have to run away from, kill along the way and hopefully make it to the end zone. Good honest gamer fun with friends.
But then there was the wave survival mode which personally, I think is one of the better examples out there to this day. From the atmosphere to the mechanics of it all, I really enjoyed the time I spent playing with randoms or friends in that mode.
But other than that, I'd just stick with the first 2 FEAR games. Fear 1 is a pretty much a masterpiece of gaming. Fear 2 is a (gritted teeth moment) game. Freer is an insult to anyone that liked FEAR. Even Perseus Mandate is better. There, I said it.
Well that turned into a longer rant than I expected but in my defense I'm still salty about the fact I bought a new graphics card purely for FEAR 2 releasing. It was the first time I had installed my own graphics card into my own PC that I bought as a working man. I bought it between night shifts. I had scant few hours before I absolutely had to get some sleep but hey, at worst an hour to get things set up and installed. Right?
I was right but then the installer said it needed to download steam. And steam then said the game had to update before running. Update time was something like 6 hours on my pre broadband let alone fiber optic internet. Just enough time for me to rage, go to sleep, go to work and come home to write a scathing review of steam and forced online nonsense.
Little did we know the direction gaming in general would take, would make Freer look like a normal and everyday thing.
Amma shut up now. Peace!
When you compare it to games released today it's a masterpiece.
No, it isn't. Many games released these days, specially shooters, are far better than this game. This game is actually pretty bad, even in 2011.
I saw two guys do a let's play of this game and they nicknamed it "The disconnection zone." they where making fun of it and said pointman looked like a caveman.
It's depressing hearing F3AR's awful dev cycle because of corporate publisher meddling and thinking of the current Coyote vs ACME movie situation, which is a completed animated film that Warner Bros want to shaft for a tax write off
Absolutely no respect for media and the people working their ass off to make it happen unless it lines their pockets in the stupidest way possible
pointman in fear 3 is the worst example of silent protagonist, i`m not saying him being mute is a bad idea it`s just being mute doesn`t mean being devoid of all life, he could respond to fettle using body language and some various expressions which clearly didn`t happen in fear 3 and it was the reason why everything was so awkward in story, as for cut script it could have been such a great idea with little bit of rework, and yes that script needed to rework some things...overall fear franchise relied on whole armacham replica soldiers and alma, it would have been cool to see fear 1 and fear 2 characters cast teaming up to put and end to fettle entirely but than again, it was going to rely on the same protagonist first fear created, fear 2 and 3 not only should have featured entirely different cast of characters (well fear 2 did that at some degree but replica and alma was still there) but also should have had different abilities for characters, not everyone gotta have bullet time because they are protags of game called fear, whatever it is i still grieve downfall of fear as a new comer, however i remember playing fear 3 as a little kid for some reason and i didn`t know it was series killer installment of a great franchise
glad you viewed the Dead Domain interview, it was quite an eye opener.
Pointman looks like one of steps in the evolution of manki... Oh someone already said it.
Honestly Paxton's character and Becket's possession and death scene are the only things that I loved about the game. It's kinda funny that the whole 'family' theme only happens in Paxton's ending. He possesses Pointman, eats Alma, and raises the baby so technically they're all together at the end.
Anyone missing F.E.A.R. should go play Trepang². Spiritual successor, very good game.
Trepang2 is more a combination of Doom, Crysis and F.E.A.R. than a real F.E.A.R. sequel. Yeah I played the demo. AI is not so good. Action is great but you go waay too fast in that game. Also slowmo is not coded so good as in F.E.A.R.
@@michaelpieters1844 ok
god, Harlan Wade having a biased psionic version would have worked, if the "real" one was given references, like how he was remorseful. Maybe give audio recordings, camera footage of him arguing with Genevieve. Stuff that makes the real one look more nuanced than the fake one, as Alma lacked the context that her father was remorseful.
Honestly, having some recordings of Harlan and his ghost making some appearance where he really sees just how deep his actions are to the point of how Alma saw him as a monster would of also been a good way to have the character other than just having an "Evil Harlan simulacrum."
41:40 Playing as Jin and Stokes makes sense for co-op horror as you're both normal soldiers going up against a physic sociopathic family. Maybe using wits and teamwork to survive.
F.E.A.R 1: lost count of how many time I played through it and its expansions..
F.E.A.R 2: I was one of those wierdos who enjoyed it more than the first, Also played to death and still in my Steam favorites.
F.E.A.R 3: I didn't even finish... Says it all.
I think u forgot to put the dead domain video in the desc but other than that amazing video again, keep it up!!
I hate how they treat beckett, that poor dude has been through so much just to die like cattle
If Fear 3 killed the franchise, Fear online was the worst funeral possible
13:40 was perfect comedic timing. Glad you caught that.
Good video keen to see the next series you cover
Well, if anything, I can't say that I am mad that pregnant Beckett on a leash got written out of the final product
I do not care about Harland Wades "character assassination". What we see about Harland is only a fraction of what Alma saw, and went through. A last second pang of guilt doesn't absolve him, nor is his physical death. I do not recall if it is literally a manifestation of him, or a manifestation of him created by Alma.
Unironically this game was very fun to play. Yeah it's nothing like the first or second games and is in fact such a departure from the original formula but it was still very fun, especially when you play co-op with a friend. I will die on this hill.
I love these reviews. Enjoyed all of your F.E.A.R. Reviews, thank you. Liked and subbed man 👍
It always struck me as a disjointed mess of a game. Now it makes sense why and how. Thank you Brandoss for providing your insight into this tragic end of what could have been a great franchise.
Xbox 360 FEAR port is absolutely fine. no idea what you heard...
The Xbox 360 port is good. Plus it is backwards compatible on Xbox One X and Xbox Series X and gets to run in 4K at 60 FPS. Closest thing to an actual remaster for FEAR.
The PS3 port is not good. It suffers a lot of FPS drops and Sony has done nothing to fix this.
Yeah the 360 port isn't bad at all,its not the ideal way to play but it was definitely serviceable, it even had the cool exclusive dual smgs, the PS3 version was terrible though.
9:40
B4Brandoss: "[...] you get told you're doing it wrong every step of the way by people who probably think that Tetris is still next gen."
Tetris Effect: "Am I a joke to you?"
I had more fun with Fear 3 and consider it a better game than 2. Could be because I played it with a friend though.
With the prequel comic, I genuinely did like how PM still had his F.E.A.R. BDU at least.
17:48
Okay to be fair, Paxton also ambushed Point Man at the beginning of FEAR 1 with a board in the face.
But I'm glad that you also brought up how off all the characters look in-game. Point Man looked so perfect in the first game! They massacred my boy!
“Old” games like Bioshock. I feel attacked 😅
We just need a F.e.a.r remaster at this point. And some new story DLC with it.
I've yet to watch this video but going by how much I enjoyed this whole FEAR series so far I know it'll be fantastic.
I wonder if you'd consider doing one on Trepang2? It's the closest thing to a true follow-up and even though it's an indie game it's far far better than FEAR 3. It's got slow-mo, spookiness, evil corporations, and oh yeah a shotgun so powerful it almost rivals the one from FEAR 1.
You seemed to have quite a bit of fun playing this with a partner. You failed to mention that it's ass-on-toast without a partner. Extolling how great Paxton is, don't mention that you have to play through the game as Point Man to unlock Paxton, who, without the support of Point Man dies very quickly.
I was genuinely waiting for someone to make a retrospective about one of gaming greatest tragedies
And comes the end of the FEAR series reviews for this channel.
The main takeaway I get from this review series is that if the FEAR series needs a spiritual successor that takes its good elements and refines some of the rougher elements.
Straight up, I would enjoy a game series these days that's just about encountering spookiness and being able to stomp or shoot their faces in. And FEAR really scratched that itch and it's a shame how the series went the way it did.
Now then, would you try your hand on the Condemned series also by Monolith?
If you're looking for a FEAR spiritual successor, I HIGHLY recommend Trepang2. It's the most fun I've had with a single-player FPS game in a long time
Try Trepang 2.
im so happy i found this video, one one i talk to ever knows what FEAR is, the first two games where so fun for me as a kid. I would get scared shitless xD but still love playing it.
never rememebered the 3rd one, and i guess thats for a reason.
I don’t understand how Fear 3 can be a bad game when you say minutes later that the gameplay is fun, isn’t gameplay like 90% of why people play games?
Regardless I still like the video and what you had to say.
Personally I really like fear 3 and would rank it above fear 2
Think you should cover Monolith's two Condemned games? I don't know if they're meant to be in the same world as F.E.A.R., but the first Condemned game is either in the same world or Monolith was just reusing a lot of graphical assets from F.E.A.R.
Condemned is the next series I'll be covering!
@@B4BrandossOG Nice :) Although I was probably about 35 at the time (I'm 54 now), I played Condemned as a 360 launch title and found it just about the creepiest, scariest game I'd ever played.
There was something about the frantic, in-your-face melee combat with those crazed homeless people, about those dark, abandoned, decaying buildings, about the light (and sometimes gruesome) CSI detective work - about the entire atmosphere and game structure - that was so unsettling. It transcended the game and felt very real.
And the department store mannequins. The mannequins. I don't want to remember them, but I can't not remember them.
I don't retain strong impressions from Condemned 2. I do remember I liked it, but also that it wasn't as compelling or as memorable as the first one - or at least that's what I thought at the time. It could be different now if I revisited it.
Wish they would've given that one a PC release, too.
✌🏻
I finally got around to buying and playing F3AR in its entirety online with a friend last year. It was just bad as I had been lead to believe but we had so much fun laughing at it. The whole "faVoUrItE sOn" thing was goddamn hilarious.
absolutely love ur vids dude! please keep them up!
I will admit, I enjoyed playing F.E.A.R. 3 when the only PC I had on me for a time was a laptop that wasn't built for gaming but even with all the enjoyment I had from playing the game, it was nowhere near as good as F.E.A.R. The most memorable part I can say was the last phase commander fight. And I say it was memorable simply because of how poorly done the last commander was in that one can simply just spam shield bashing against the boss.
And for the organization of F.E.A.R. not being in F.E.A.R. 3 is disappointing. They could of at least throw in a few red shirt operatives that would of just explained to Point Man what was going on after escaping the Walmart or had Betters speak through a radio in trying to get a hold of any surviving operatives.
Edit: just to say on Pointman in the game, the reddit post summed up his appearance perfectly, looking like the father of the baby from Ice Age.
Fear 3 is non-canon. It never happened. It was made by a lesser development team who barely knew anything from the last two games, had no idea on what made the first Fear game so iconic and incredible and discredited the expansion packs, Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate, as unrelated to the first and second games. And there are even some parts of the game that don't make sense. Such as Paxton being able to phase through a wall in the first cutscene, and yet doesn't do so in the actual gameplay.
Say what you want about Fear 2, but that game has some interesting stuff to bring up, and some good parts that I like, such as the Hammerhead gun, the sniper rifle, the destruction of Fairport and the Auburn District, Michael Becket and the Dark Signal team, Genevieve Aristide's involvement in the second game, and the ending being a sinister and shocking cliffhanger.
I genuinely will never understand the blind fury Fear 2 tends to get when this pile of shit exists. Fear 2 tried, yea it wasn't great and the Fear 1 expansions do absolutely have some stuff better, but it still left me wanting to know what was going to happen next. The only thing this game made me feel at the end is that it never should have been made at all
@@Tycholarfero I dislike fear 2 more cause I had so many issues running it and wasn't that entertained by it but playing that, I figured the franchise was going down in flames. Fear 3 confirmed that but it's better for mindless fun
I disagree. Fear 3 didn’t kill fear, it was the lack of games afterwards and army game fatigue in the end of Xbox 360. People were getting sick and tired of shooting games. Fear 3 was mostly positively received by most people, and was fairly polished and well made. They abandoned the series but the last game was a fun coop game like Dead Space 3, minus the dumb gun paywalls. If Fear 4 expanded the coop and fettel’s ghost mechanics, I’d be sold. That’d be great.
Fear 3 is better than 2
Just found you the other day through the fear series. This channel is fucking awesome.
Thanks man :)
Calming F.E.A.R 3 killed the franchise and saying F.E.A.R 2 is masterpiece when compared to is quite the exaggeration because i actually remember having way more fun playing F.E.A.R 3 over 2 and dare i say even the Original and this is solo btw.
Maybe it's because the controls actually feels tight,responsive and refined with the combat being super heavy heated thanks to AI finally being decent again unlike F.E.A.R 2's brain dead ones and the arenas for the most part were actually solid.
and of course the extra fact that you can replay the entire game as THE Paxton himself just straight up felt like playing a different game entirely.I just love how he play so different to his brother.
Overall the game was extremely fun as hell,Heck I'd even dare say it's the most fun out of the Franchise and you could pretty much 1up that by simply playing with a buddy.
Sure you could say it's not a 'FEAR' game because it lost all of the horror factor but I do feel like this is the kinda of franchise for me personally where the Combat and Gameplay and the AI caries over the Horror elements.
My only con with the game is that its a bit too short and i guess replaying as Paxton probably makes up for it.
Thank heavens we got Trepang 2.
The sad story of FEAR isn't entirely unpredictable, or unexpected. Whenever you get some dumbasses from the corporate world who think they know better than devs how to make a game, usually that series ends up becoming shit. FWIW FEAR 1 was, and still is one of the GOATs when it comes to classic games. People may have different opinions on whether the Timegate addons or FEAR 2 are any good. Personally I first got into FEAR by playing FEAR 2, I played FEAR 2 when it first came out, and thought it was really good, and then I went back and played the originals, and enjoyed them just as much if not more. Shortly thereafter when FEAR 3 came out I was kinda blinsided by how much more nerfed it felt compared to FEAR 1 & 2. I think a big part of the problem was that FEAR was always about the horror, terror, action adventure fps elements. When they made it too much about nukes and bombs going off in the streets of Fairport, and made it too much some pissing contest between Alma's shadow world, the FEAR ops, Armachan, and the US military where it was just chaos and people shooting one another (and not soo much about the supernatural horror elements), I think FEAR lost too much of its identity. The thing also that made it compelling was its absolutely stellar AI for enemies. In the first games enemies really could fuck with the player, based on the tactical situation. There just aren't a lot of games nowadays where care was taken to design an environment where there are sometime as many a 6 different ways to reach the same location, enemies can duck, go prone, crawl through vents, under garage doors, tactical dive across banisiters and through windows, jump, scale walls, and use environmental objects to their advantage).
2011 is all game being kill, Duke Nukem, Red Faction and especially FEAR.
FEAR 3 couch co-op was a lot of fun. I’ll die on this hill.
I hope you eventually make a video about the Fear spiritual successors, Trepang.
I will. Waiting for the dlc to drop first though.
I have a request: Can you review Condemned 1 and 2 and The Suffering as well please? I guess you are already busy though.
Condemned Is the next series I'll be covering :)
i mean story wise it's bad but game wise i had fun and horde mode was fun as well.
The gameplay ideas for the co-op are at leas pretty interesting, and in a better game which aggressively pushed cooperation and where the arenas were actually designed to work with the AI, it might be better.
I love your Betters outfit ^^
Sweet baby Jesus, are you me? I remember playing fear 3 because somehow it still ran at 60 FPS on low settings on my piece of shit laptop.
Unpopular Opinion: F.E.A.R 3 is still fun to play if ignoring its a fear gams, it's certainly better than F.E.A.R 2
What you described at 1:30-1:50 is literally what I've been going through for a while now ever since I started using steam since around 2020/2019 (freshman year of high school)
Not really gonna complain though since the older titles are pretty good games
40:53 Pregnant man? Huh? Alma can impregnate men?
I love Fear 3 but that is also because I only Coop it if I am ever playing it.
The outfit...dude, I love it!
RELEASE MONOLITH FROM THE LOTR DUNGEONS!
No can do. Unless, Monolith go Defunct. However, it won't be that long for very long time.
I hate FEAR 3 because it made me like FEAR 2. Also, now I can't unsee that Ice Age comparison so thanks I guess lol.
They could've just released a remaster of F.E.A.R and would've objectively made more money
My main issue with F3AR was the plot itself, not to shoehorned co-op.
The character models in this look exactly like they’re from hunt down the freeman. Pointman especially.
Jin hiding because she has "intel" on Armacham is a stupid plot point. In FEAR 1 you spend the whole game finding intel laptops and sending the data to Betters who in turn strongly suggests that Armacham is as good as fucked by the time Point Man enters the Vault. All this shit is stuff FEAR and the Feds should know already. Armacham should be a completely ruined and gutted company by the end of FEAR 1 & 2, not fielding entire mercenary armies and hunting down U.S military personnel with near impunity.
Edit: Also a co-op DLC where Jin and Stokes team up could've been badass. One issue though is that while Stokes is clearly seen shooting enemies and being a skilled soldier to survive all the way till the end of the game, Jin is never seen holding a weapon in FEAR 1 and just gets shouted at and ordered around like some annoying maid half the time.
This! That's the whole point of them sending men into the vault aswell. The objective was never to kill Pointman but erase all evidence before Pointman got to it. That's why Norton Mapes was there with the ATC Guards. This plan failed because Pointman was simply too fast. Armacham should've been burnt and assets seized at the end of FEAR 1 given how every cleanup attempt they attempted failed miserably.
Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate both wrapped it up nicely and didn't stray too far from what could've happened at the end of FEAR 1. Perseus Mandate has its own version of a 'clean-up'. But it's more like the Senator hired Morrison & the Nightcrawlers to infiltrate the city and secure what was left of Armacham's research while Point Man fought the Replicas to get to the extraction point. So it's overall more believable.
@@uncommonsaucers2355 Perseus Mandate was terrible though.
@@FrostbiteDigital I don't think so. The game was flawed but it was still FEAR at its core. Something you cant say about FEAR 2 or FEAR 3. The new content was interesting to see even if the game itself was not made with Extraction Point quality and can still be enjoyable. Just mid.
Just like Dead Space series, EA killed it after the 3rd one. But at least in Dead Space, the 3rd one still acceptable to a certain degree compares to F..E.A.R 3.
For me It was just the fact the mechanics of Fear3 were a call of duty clone. That's how it played and felt. If it had played and felt like a Fear game I would have ignored all of the bad story elements. The Dues Ex prequels had terrible stories too but they had implemented enough of the game mechanics and fun elements from the first game that it was still an enjoyable game play experience. I don't know why they changed the format so much. I don't know why they didn't get advice from the original devs to help them replicate it but that is where they went wrong. With the story it still would have been a mediocre game but I think it was the gameplay that killed the franchise, You can survive a bad story but you cant survive a bad gameplay experience.
i know this is late but warner brothers literally became more involved taking most of the control, they hired Steve niles who made a lot of scripts that came late into development, and they forced the game to be like call of duty
This was one of the funniest co-op experience i've experinced and there is bit of competition/tactics to get different endings.
I would't recommend this for solo-play, the paranoral shit happens only when co-op.
God fear 3 was so bad and garbage it wasn’t even funny but just sad and depressing in my opinion.
No shot 😂 I finished the Fear 2 vid last night and was wondering when your Fear 3 vod would drop
This Remind me how good Trepang2 is