Did anyone think that F.E.A.R. was scary?

[AngloDoom]

The scariest part for me was in the first F.E.A.R when I went around a corner and that guy hit me in the face with a chair.

If you have a 'horror' game based around almost omnipotent, paranormal, beings of inconceivable evil and the scariest thing in the game was a guy with a chair, then something went wrong.

 

[Farseli]

Good. I except to see you at 9:00pm tonight at my place armed with a good set of action movies, champagne and chocolate coated strawberries. Because ghosts are scared of those things...*cough*...yeah...

I suspect they will also be afraid of a nice shirt and nice pair of jeans, and somce nice cologne...what are my chances of getting there from california in the next 4 hours?

Yeah ghosts hate nice things. I'll send my very very fast learjet. See you then, protector.

I played it at midnight with a headset on, in a room with no light besides the light from my screen. Yes, it's damn scary. If you're willing to get sucked into the game, it's a real scarefest.

You are a nut to do that. A absolute nut.

That's how I played the demo...which is probably why I wanted the game so bad after that.

 

[TaborMallory]

Nope.
I never jumped or felt remotely frightened once. To my suprise, MANY people found it scary.

Hah! Just like Condemned.

I've never played FEAR, but from what I've gathered, it's mostly just shock horror and screamers, both of which are ridiculous and shallow.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Not really. I've seen so many stringy haired ghost girls now that they don't scare me any more.

 

[jodko]

occasionally in f.e.a.r. 1 I got a little jumpy but not really scared I mean its a game, games cant be horror titles can they?

 

[ChosenLord]

Yeah i would say F.E.A.R was scary, but Define Scary?

"panic: sudden mass fear and anxiety over anticipated events"

Its a time tested method of putting atmospheric music just before an event gory or mundane, a trillion movies have done so in the past with great results same applies to games, I found doom 3 a bit scary, but it all comes with immersion. The more involved you feel the effect it will have. All in All Fear made me jump.

 

[DM.]

No, But the end to FEAR 2 was just silly.

 

[ShotgunSmoke]

First F.E.A.R. was a bit creepy, especially the first three levels. After that, you get used to the scares.
You have to play it in dark with headphones to get the full effect.

 

[irrelevantnugget]

First one, yes. I didn't get far before I actually uninstalled. I know, I'm a scaredy-cat. But I blame my imagination, putting things in my sight that aren't actually there.

Second one, not at all. No idea why, butI found it even quite yawn-worthy. Only played it on a demo-pod in a store, though, so maybe that detracted of the experience, but even then it was meh.

 

[MercurySteam]

I thought Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate were by far the scariest and the best. F.E.A.R. 2 is just plain boring.

 

[Mirroga]

Scary moments in which the scarer don't/can't hurt you nor try to kill you = not scary. To me I just call them mindfuck moments where they try to scare you.

Scary moments in which the scarer can hurt and are actually somewhat boss-like in statistics = creepy / scary. Example? Poison Zombies and Fast Zombies of Half Life 2. I don't think they're supposed to scare you, but along with the environment, I am scared of these guys.

 

[Cocal]

Not in the slightest. I got jumpy once but that was because it was 3 or 4 am and my friend screamed while I was playing but that it.

 

[Gunner 51]

FEAR made me jump and it was a little bit unsettling at times because of the music. But I can say it never truly scared me.

Project Zero / Fatal Frame (1+2) did the job of scaring me far better than FEAR did.

 

[onelifecrisis]

I find that whether or not a game is scary depends as much on how I play it as it does on the game itself. Nothing is scary to me if I play it during the daytime using my crappy desktop speakers, but when I played the first FEAR game I played it in the dark (pitch black I mean) on a large screen with high quality headphones. For me, games are much more immersive that way.

There are two parts I distinctly remember from FEAR:
1) Alma appearing after I climb onto that ladder (you know the one) followed by fettel appearing at the bottom. That was the single biggest "jump" scare I've ever had in a video game.
2) The part where you're in a room looking through a window at an elevator, and in the room is a button and TV screen showing a live feed of the elevator. You press the button and the elevator doors open. You can see the elevator is empty, but when you look at the TV screen you can see Alma waiting for you in the elevator. Very clever, I thought. That's the only time I've ever been momentarily unable to continue a video game due to fear - by this time I was genuinely petrified of Alma and for a few moments I was actually too scared to walk my player character into that elevator.

Many games have tried to be scary and some have managed to make me jump, while others have managed to create truly creepy/haunting atmospheres, but FEAR is the only game that ever made me actually scared. It's a shame that FEAR2 was such a pile of sh!te.

 

[Eatbrainz]

It depends how you approach the game like if you were foaming at the mouth trying to find a really gory, violent game then you wouldnt be scared but if you wre playing in a dark room in the middle of the night after finally gathering up enough courage to buy a horror game than youd probably be scared

 

[clicklick]

I thought the original F.E.A.R was quite creepy and disturbing, and there were some genuine scares in there caused less by something jumping out and more by the feeling of unnease you get from wondering what horrible thing you're going to witness next. At the time with the graphics being cutting edge it made it much more scary than it is today - it really hasn't aged well at all visually.

F.E.A.R. 2 I found wasn't as psychological and there are a lot more of those in-your-face jumpy scares which got quite predictable after a while and were a bit yawn-worthy.

Agreed.

The original game played with your senses at times and maybe its me but having seen the film The Ring just before playing the game, it made the experience even more creepier.

I hate Doom 3 like in your face jumping monster scares which although it made me jump first couple of times, it lost its effect pretty quickly and looked cheap.

FEAR on the other hand, combined a psychological angle plus genuine scares that when I played it, it made me scream twice

First, when you get a double whammy of scare while climbing down a ladder and the other when Alma crawls out of an office cubicle towards you. That cubicle crawl scene isn't experienced by most people as it requires the player to be in a specific place to trigger it. The game builds up the tension when you see the blinking UI and you sense Alma is nearby or something is going to happen.

It hasn't aged well unfortunately but it still has the best gunplay experience in an FPS imo.

 

[Nutcase]

I find that whether or not a game is scary depends as much on how I play it as it does on the game itself. Nothing is scary to me if I play it during the daytime using my crappy desktop speakers, but when I played the first FEAR game I played it in the dark (pitch black I mean) on a large screen with high quality headphones. For me, games are much more immersive that way.

Yep. One non-obvious point, though: you should also pick difficulty that is hard for you. If you run through the shooting parts, the psychological scares aren't as effective either. In contrast, if you have to creep ahead on your toes because a clone trooper in a good position *will* kill you if you don't spot it in advance, then you are also properly receptive and jumpy whenever Alma does something. You should go hard difficulty on the first run, because surprises aren't "replayable". With horror games, the first run is the best you get.

I was particularly a fan of the assassins in FEAR. Great guys, quite scary and actually killed me the first time I saw them because I was shooting all over the place in panic. The fact they made no noise and gave no warnings set up very nice tension in the rest of the game; you could never be quite sure there wasn't an assassin lurking in an area until you went through it.

Based on the demo, FEAR 2 was pretty crap. Messed up pacing, no build-up, no anticipation - just gore and cheap scares in a reasonably pretty box. Even the part of the graphics that gave FEAR its own vibe, the creepy dynamic shadows, was lost.

Re: graphics, I played FEAR for the first time in 2008 and didn't find the graphics dated at all. It was a very demanding engine for its time. Now that you can run at 1920x1200, all effects and AA/AF maxed, things still look good.

 

[WorldCritic]

Not scary.