Reviewed: June 22, 2001
Reviewed by: Aaron Daigle
Publisher
Eidos Interactive
Developer
Kronos
Released: February 18, 2000
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature
8
8
7
7
7.9
Supported Features:
To get a good idea of what to expect from Fear Effect, mix 1 part Blade Runner, 1 part Devil’s Advocate, 2 parts Resident Evil, shake igorously. The game begins in future Hong Kong with our trio of mercenary heroes, Hana, Glas and Deke, pursuing Wee Ming Lam, the runaway daughter of Mr. Lam, the most powerful Triad man in town. The plan: find Wee Ming before Lam’s searchers and ransom her back to him. But not all is as it seems and no one can be trusted.
The folks at Eidos have turned out another fine third person action title that, while not without its share of problems, delivers an engaging, adult oriented experience. Keep that last bit in mind parents, unless you want the kids looking at Hana’s cleavage while she eviscerates a gun-wielding Triad goon with a combat knife. The environments of Fear Effect are as unique as the game’s story, looking gritty and lived-in. Love or hate it, Fear Effect is one action-packed ride.
While Fear Effect’s controls are similar to those of survival-horror staple Resident Evil’s, they’re just different enough that you’ll need a half hour or so to acclimate yourself with them. Changing weapons and reloading are done on the fly, which can lead for some especially tense moments. You know, like when your weapon clicks dry after downing only two of seven soldiers with assault rifles that are now well aware of your presence. At times like these Fear Effect’s Duck and Roll buttons are welcome additions to the control scheme.
Weaponry includes a variety of assault rifles, sub-machine guns, shotguns, pistols and knives; also, going guns akimbo is an option with pistols and small machine guns. Going double guns has some serious advantages over sticking with single-fire in that, your weapons auto-target independently, allowing you to drop your adversaries twice as fast. Not to say that Fear Effect’s targeting system is without bugs, on more than one occasion, I found my character standing in a doorway with enemies at 12 o’clock and unable to gun them down because of a glitch in the auto-targeting. The only solution to this problem is to walk fully into middle of the room drawing fire from the three guards you couldn’t see, it’s not a big issue, but it doesn’t seem to be part of the game design because it doesn’t occur consistently.
The Health gauge we all know and love has been replaced with the "Fear Meter." Instead of just registering how much damage you’ve taken, the Fear Meter factors in your stress level, or fear effect, as well. For instance, if you rush into a room, guns blazing and get hit a few times and as a result wind up pined down, your Fear Meter will fluctuate into the dark orange/red range, indicating that you are in mortal danger. By the same token, if you take your time and sneak up on individual enemies and kill them silently, discover weapons and ammo or successfully solve a puzzle, your confidence will increase, pushing your Fear Meter into the cool greens of calm.
In Fear Effect you don’t just play as one character, who you are controlling will change multiple times per level. Sometimes you may explore an area with one character and find a door that you can’t seem to open, later, while passing through as another person be sure to try the door again as you may now have the key. Another aspect of the character switching is that your Fear Meter follows you, if you’re in the red when you leave Hana, you’ll still be in the red when you take control of Glas. It does take some time to adjust to this system and until you do, you will probably die, a lot. This brings up another problem, Excessive load times after death, worse still, there is actually a loading lag to reach the loading screen. You actually have time to read half a page in a novel while the game loads.
The visuals in Fear Effect have their ups and downs. For example, all of the backgrounds in the game consist of looped FMV footage that is synchronized with the ambient noise and when they’re moving, they look fantastic. It’s the harsh pause at the seam in the loop that becomes truly grating as you play. All of the environments in the game look well used and lived in and are perfectly suited to the dark nature of the game. As in any action game, explosions are key and Fear Effect’s explosions deliver a serious punch and look close to live action quality. Another cool aspect of the visuals in Fear Effect is the 100% seamless transitions from game play to FMV cinema.
The character animations are distinctive and each of our heroes has their own way of moving from Hana’s butt wiggle to Deke’s all-business stalk. For the most part, all of the motions look fluid and natural with the exception of the running animations, they all appear rather stiff. The character models are some of the best seen on the Playstation and are well detailed when viewed from a close-in camera angle. The enemies’ models haven’t been neglected and do, at times, look as good if not better than Hana and company.
Fear Effect’s sound effects don’t really excel in any area, and they only dip into the sub-par range in two areas. First, would be at the aforementioned seam in the looping ambient noise when all background sounds come to a jarring halt. It doesn’t seem like it would have been a huge task to blend the two ends of the loop more discreetly. The second quibble I had was the chirpy sounding automatic weapons, they just don’t sound right, while the enemy gunfire sound great.
While sound effects are nothing to scream about, the voice acting is fantastic! All of the dialog is cinema quality and does a fabulous job of pulling you into the story. Elyse Dinh, Miguel Marcott and Anthony Delongis do a fantastic job portraying the three grim mercenaries.
Fear Effect has a high level of difficulty and as a result you will likely die a lot until you figure out the more complex sections of the game. Despite the fact that the game’s plot is strictly linear there are multiple possible endings, so you’ll probably want to play until you see them all. My guess is that the average gamer will spend 20-25 hours completing Fear Effect the first time through and hey, never mind the multiple endings, the game is entertaining enough that you’ll likely come back for more.
Fear Effect does an excellent job of pulling the gamer into future Hong Kong with its top-notch plot and characters. While there are a few problems, the overall package is above average. The game delivers a mature, action-oriented experience and is sure to find its way into many a gamer’s library. It’s early to say, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a "next-generation" sequel. If you’re a fan of Metal Gear or Resident Evil, you should definitely give Fear Effect a shot, and you may want to check out the recently release prequel, Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix.
