I get it.
One must take heed while walking these hallowed grounds. The stone steps measuring in the thousands leading towards the chapel, this grand cathedral created and revered by those touched by the hands that give. In the space between each step is the hum of solemn prayer. Coolest azure. The sky above is dotted with clouds, textured, lofty. Slow moving spirits. They slide above with the wind. Crisp, it moves along my skin. The climb up the steps weighs heavy, stomp stomp. The storied monolith comes into view, scraping against the gates of Heaven. Double doors in front, sturdy and deep mahogany. On it is the stretched and squashing of metal flesh, the story of This for all newcomers to holy lands. They swing open with the weight of the world. Inside are rows upon rows, pews and candles line the halls. Flames lick the air. The humble lambs sit sporadically amongst one another, all murmuring the same dulcet tone. The Shepherd leads them, adorned in royal purple. Just behind the priest upon its pulpit rests the idol, the Godhead, Tetragrammaton. Adonai, Adonai. Shimmering and glimmering. A 12 gauge prayer straight through the Electrosphere. 3 rounds a second of pure obliteration, hellfire within the marrow. Hardened steel. Chunk and heft. Fresh off the streets of Lebanon. The quaking of boots echoes. The VK-12 Combat Shotgun sits upon its throne.
I turn my head away, slink into the corner. Shade is my shield as I make for a side door. I turn the lock and block out the prayers beyond. I hurry down the steps, delirious and frothing, the sweet honey just beyond these steps. Crashing against the door. It gives way. There it is, my beauty Beatrice. My love. My joy. Sleek, compact, reliable. The AT-14 Pistols…
I’ve been hearing about Fear for decades now, it’s always been something I’ve been meaning to try out. It’s definitely been one of those games that I would see be lavishly praised back when I went on /v/ and since I wasn’t the brightest bulb when I was a teen, I didn’t know where to get it (I didn’t know how to pirate) and I definitely didn’t have the guap to get that ♥♥♥♥ legally, so there I sat for years without a paddle. Nowadays, it’s second nature, but it just got pushed way deep into the cracks of my skull until the end of last year/beginning of this year. The trilogy goes for 5 bucks on sale, so it was no skin off my bones when I went to pay the piper. After installing the needed fixes for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UI, I sat down, picked Extreme (because I’m not a ♥♥♥♥♥) and had a blast. The first three words of this review are all you really need for my opinion on this game, but just in case you need a refresher. I get it.
Maybe it comes with age, but I really dislike “schmoovement” in my FPS games. Stuff like Ultrakill and Don’t Stop Girlypop, it all just rubs me the wrong way. There’s something so grating about have to take yellowjackets in order to do the basics. I’m someone who likes feeling the HEFT, the WEIGHT of my steps or the FORCE of the recoil, I love looking at details and textures and scenery and all the things the devs put hours upon hours of time into. Fear, god bless it, is CHUNKY, it’s gamey, you can feel it scratch that feral part of your gums when you sink your coyote teeth into its sweet, smoked meat. Almost every gun digs into the pocket of your thumb or deep into your shoulders. The sounds, good lord, the sounds these beasts rip out. Gimme a Sennheiser, fellas, I wanna feel like I’m in the lion’s den. I rarely say this, but this game was made for Extreme. It forces you to really sit and listen for the footsteps and comms of the enemies littering these John Woo set-pieces. Sure, nothing beats the humble corner peek, but it’s tense. It gets the veins working overtime. Cracking someone’s ankles with the slide, whipping out your shotgun and ripping apart the next guy, going guns akimbo and firing two into the gut of another dude rounding the corner and caving his chest cavity in with the flying kicks with only 10 hp left. Dawg, I’M ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NASTY!!! GRAAAAAHHHHH.
Though, I can’t say that I love it all. That last 45 minutes? Woof, man, that’s rough to end off of. The whole ghosts that die off one bullet, the okay story that was mostly told via voicemail and laptops being wrapped with a hand wave. This game is at its best when you become Chow Yun-Fat watching every stack of paper explode, walls being chunked, beautiful lighting from the swinging lamps, monitors crackling and blood painting the walls. When it all ends with you having to go through the weakest aspect of Fear, i.e. the horror, one last time, it takes the wind out of the sails. Yes, I’ve seen Ring and Ju-On, I get it. It doesn’t make it particularly spooky to see it when I have a shotgun capable of putting down a walking tank. It makes sense though, Blood and No One Lives Forever can only take you so far before the juice is all dried up and the tank is empty. Monolith died an unceremonious death and if you take a look at what they’ve been doing since, well, I hope you like Shadow of Mordor. Tragic. We’ll always have Fairport
A year before they made No One Lives Forever, Monolith created a game called Gruntz and I think that’s funny.
