Finished the F.E.A.R. trilogy.

This is a forum where I b*tch about the 3rd game, so if you don't like that here's your warning :)

WARNING SPOILERS ARE INVOLVED!

I feel like I have to say something here, because I am just amazed at how the first 2 games were incredible, and F.3.A.R. was just total garbage. Hear me out here:

F.E.A.R. had a few good jump scares, but it's dark settings and spooky scenery are what made is such a great game. The story was incredible; Alma's your character's mother, and Paxton your brother? That's insane!! The story development and climax was fantastic. And not to mention how much fun it was to kill AI in slow motion and how far ahead it was of its time.

F.E.A.R. 2, in my opinion, was better. I loved the exploring for intel, body armor, health kits (and not STUPID health generation): The firefighting was fun, the voice cast was excellent, and the story was still mind blowing. Alma's lust for Michael Beckett was a really cool concept I thought. And the jump scares were just...sick. They happened at parts you didn't expect them to happen, and when you did expect them, the dev team managed to still surprise you and make you sheet your pants. I thought it was scarier then the first one. I hated it so much I loved it.

F.3.A.R....what in the world happened??? I feel like they killed what was such a fantastic series. What was WB thinking taking Monolith off the project? The constant achievements on the bottom left were mood killers (OMG you hid behind cover!? 1000 POINTS!!!), there was no real reason for exploration (no intel, no health kits or body armor, no nothing!) The story was awful. Nothing new, no surprises, and the ending was a disgrace. "it wont be so easy to kill me this time brother!" (5 seconds later, you kill him. No button sequences involved, just a cut scene). But that's not it. Why did Alma and Paxton, who are evil spirits, both die out just like that? And by the way, what was up with the cutscene quality? The audio and video were terrible! And i'm running a beast of a PC. It didn't feel like a F.E.A.R. game to me. And they killed Michael Beckett? WHY DID THEY KILL MICHAEL BECKETT?? And in the worst way possible. Again, through a bad cutscene, in the most anti climatic way possible.

They should have focused the game on stopping Alma's pregnancy, then reintroduced Paxton Fettel at the end, setting it up for a F.E.A.R. 4. The execution on F.3.A.R.'s story was just bad.

What do you all think? Thanks for letting me vent and hearing me out. You guys know what it feels like to love something, then it having a totally disappointing ending. Kinda like how Dexter ended.

I got fear1 a few months back and must have played it about 4times through. nothing revolutionary, but, good fun. I can't add anything to your questions, though, due to the fact I haven't played the other 2, lol, so sorry.

however, thanx for your info on #2, since, having played the absolutely great condemned series I am looking forward to monolith's turn at the game down the road...

I really like the second one. I'm glad I didn't give too much away there :) buy it if you can!

The original is the best in the series. the sequel disappointed me and many others, although it improved some aspects from the 1st one but overall it lacks the amazing atmostphere and particularly the fun gunfights. After the 2nd game I totally lost interest in the series and I'm glad that I didn't buy the 3rd game.

You must be the first guy who actually cares about Bucket. Anyway, F.E.A.R. 3 was ok, not great by any means, but it was enjoyable, though playing as Fettel sucks big time and those robot sections were meh.

The first game just seemed to drag on with objectives that were little more than "go here! quick!" And whenever you got "there" the objective just updated telling you to go somewhere else. There is very little narrative presence aside from the random alma segments and it just never feels like there's purpose to anything you're doing. You're walking down the next hallway because the game put it in front of you and killing those guys because they're in between you and next pointless section of game environment. So the AI is great...and if they were demoing some sort of middleware that'd be fantastic...but it's a game and it needs to be more than just a single solid mechanic operating in space.

Fear 2, on the other hand, is brilliant, but let's pretend it's not so the master racers don't have to get on their soapbox and decry PC to console adaptations. But if one were so crazy as to think that the console-oriented follow-up to a made-for-PC game was better, he might think so because of its incredible ambience, visceral gunplay, intentioned game design, and varied environments.

Fear 3 is just your typical example of handing a franchise off to a new dev in the middle of a game's lifespan and watching them try and fail at aping someone else's vision. Happens all the time. I feel like, if you're gonna pull the original devs from a franchise, just stop making games in that franchise or encourage them to make something entirely different with it. It just rarely works out.

Loved F.E.A.R. and liked F.E.A.R. 2, but I think the original is better.

I tried the demo for the 3rd one and man, it was awful. That's the end of it.

I really enjoyed Fear 1 and Fear 2. Didn't like part 3.

I enjoyed the atmosphere, story and gameplay of the first FEAR, but found the environments (and some of the enemies) a bit repetitive. Due to the story, and the better variety of environments and enemies, I enjoyed FEAR 2 more than the first one.

When it comes to FEAR 3 - well, I just wanted to see how the story played out, and I did like how they managed to refer to the past to try and give a better sense of the present. There were some interesting moments, and some stupid ones, but it was better played in co-op (which I did), and it just didn't have the same kind of feel as the others in the series. I won't call it a bad game, but it wasn't great, and it insisted on reminding you that it was a game all the way through.

I loved the original FEAR due to the strong AI and meaty physics/special effects (which translated into fun gunfights). I thought the supernatural bits sucked because they were either interactive cutscenes in which freaky but meaningless stuff happened or they involved rock stupid enemies (nods towards the ghosts which popped up at the end).

I didn't get past FEAR 2's demo. In the demo I took cover when enemy soldiers appeared and then one of them took cover besides me. I just kind of stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds before I shot him. Also, it was heavier on the supernatural bits and enemies, who had the same design problems that they did in the original. The demo also had a mech segment, which felt really out of place (gun down waves of stupid enemies!), but some focus group probably told them people liked mechs.

I never got the impression FEAR3 even attempted to solve any of FEAR 2's problems (on the contrary it seemed like it doubled down on them) so I didn't even try the demo.

FEAR 1 is one of my favourite FPS ever.

Its expansion pack was boring. Never cared about the sequels. FEAR's core gameplay, while absolutely amazing, gets repetitive rather quickly.