complexity is spirit demon that enter codebase through well-meaning but ultimately very clubbable non grug-braindevelopers and project managers who not fear complexity spirit demon or even know about sometime
then grug spend time think of 80/20 solution to problem and build that instead.
80/20 solution say "80 want with 20 code" solution maybe not have all bell-whistle that project manager want, maybe alittle ugly, but work and deliver most value, and keep demon complexity spirit at bay for most part to extent
The demo for this was amazingly fun, and the AI seems better than the original (similar animations and communication, but better use of cover and flanking). However, I'm holding off on buying it until a patch comes out to address the HUD and FOV issues. If anyone knows how to fix these (command line options?), please post below.
A friend who already knows how to use the tool can be invaluable. They can demonstrate and explain things in a way that many videos cannot. After you've done an operation, they can offer pointers based on what you did right or wrong.
As the game starts, the player takes on the role of F.E.A.R.'s new Point Man. In his first briefing, F.E.A.R. learns of a secret military project, Perseus, being run by Armacham Technology Corporation in the city of Fairport. The project, the development of a battalion of telepathically controlled "Replica" Super Soldiers, has gone haywire. The Replica battalion's telepathic commander, an unstable operative named Paxton Fettel, has led them in an uprising. It is now F.E.A.R.'s job to hunt down and kill Fettel, ending the uprising. But things start to get complicated when Alma, a little girl in a red dress, shows up and starts annihilating F.E.A.R.'s 1st SFOD-D ("Delta Force," a real-life U.S. military special operations unit) escorts, then vanishes. It's now up to the Point Man to find and kill Fettel, but this proves to be a much more difficult task than originally envisioned as Alma begins to harass Point Man for unknown reasons.
S - Z
- School for Scheming: Wade Elementary. Test subjects for TK become psychopaths. Then again, if you've played the first game, you should automatically know anything associated with the Wades is bad news.
- School Setting Simulation: In F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Wade Elementary School is a seemingly normal abandoned elementary school, but secretly houses underground bio-research laboratories that experiment on children. When Dark Signal arrives, they must fight the vengeful Specters and Remnants that inhabit the building.
- Second Hour Superpower: In both the second game and its DLC. Becket gets his Slow-Mo powers in the second level after his surgical operation, and Foxtrot 813 gets his after his first interaction with Paxton Fettel's ghost.
- Sequel Escalation: The first game had somewhat slow-paced combat and claustrophobic level design. Project Origin ramped up the combat and setpieces, included a few open-air combat sequences, and even threw in two mecha-piloting sequences. The third game takes it even further, with most of the combat taking place in city streets and wide-open spaces, more insane setpieces, very intense combat, and yes, more mecha-piloting.
- Sequel Hook: In F.E.A.R. 3,
- During the Point Man's ending, Paxton Fettel's monologue during the video of his synchronicity even has him swearing revenge on the Point Man for killing him again.
- While Alma finally passed away in peace in Point Man's ending, what would become of her child?
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Alma was put in an induced coma and sealed in a telesthetic suppression field after Armacham found her psychic powers too overwhelming to control. It didn't stop her. Dual credit for unsealing her goes to Genevieve Aristide, who wanted to renovate or repurpose the site, and Harlan Wade, who by the time he reopens the Vault feels that Alma has "suffered enough".
- Shell-Shock Silence: While not particularly overwhelming, mild ones will happen if you stand next to an explosion.
- Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: Averted in F.E.A.R. 2. If you get close to an enemy sniper, they will drop their sniper rifle and draw a pistol.
- Short-Range Shotgun: Downplayed with the first game's VK-12 and the Ultra92 in Project Origin. The spread is tight enough to hit a human torso at ten meters without missing a pellet, but damage falloff dampens power by a lot past medium range, requiring five or six shells to put down even the most lightly armored enemy when in close range typically only one shot is needed. The SHO Series-3 in Project Origin and the EL-10 CAS in F.3.A.R. progressively play this straighter, the latter in particular being an almost perfect encapsulation of the trope - it fires far more pellets per-shell than the earlier shotguns did, but in return it has the widest spread among them, even when aiming; you can fire one shell from extreme close range that gibs your target, then step back just two or three inches and need two shells to put down another target.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: The VK-12. Accurate, powerful, plentiful ammo, fast reload... several reasons, really. The Ultra92 follows the same path, being a semi-automatic leadstorm. Coincidentally, both are made by the same manufacturer, Vollmer.
- Shout-Out:
- The subway levels in Project Origin look exactly like the subway levels from Condemned: Criminal Origins. Given that Monolith made both games, it's highly likely they used the same level resources.
- The games make many, many references to Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, Monolith's first fully-3D first person shooter. In the first game in particular, Armacham Technology Corporation is named after one of the three companies that merged to create the UCA in Shogo, the VK-12 shotgun is attributed to the same manufacturer as Shogo's shotgun (and is incidentally based on the same real-world weapon), and two other weapons are also based on ones from Shogo, the MOD-3 rocket launcher working similarly to the Bullgut (also being attributed to Andra, the manufacturer of the "Predator" in Shogo) and the MP-50 repeating cannon based on the Juggernaut. A secret room in one of the final levels has a texture from Shogo (a whiteboard with a silly drawing on it next to a note saying "no drawings!") and a radio that plays a radio report from Shogo (one about a pile-up caused by an overly-bright and chromed vehicle blinding other motorists), then the Shogo theme song. Several more weapons in Project: Origin are also apparently manufactured by companies from Shogo (Andra particularly again, making the submachine gun and rocket launcher), and Snake Fist wears a Shogo 2 T-shirt. Also, newspapers found throughout the game make reference to the formation of the UCA, the One World Government from Shogo.
- The first game's multiplayer includes more shout outs to other games by Monolith in its insignias; among them is one that has Cate Archer's face, and another that has a bloody handprint on a black background.
- While Monolith explicitly rejected the plotline of the first game's two outsourced expansion packs as non-canonical, Project Origin has several scenes and gameplay additions that echo similar ones introduced in the expansion packs, indicating there's not complete bad blood between the teams. Examples include the laser weapon, being able to open doors with melee or explosions, the hospital and subway levels, and a cargo plane crashing in the city.
- The Reborn Downloadable Content has Fettel posessing the player Foxtrot 813's body in a church, which could be an allusion to Fettel's first appearance in Extraction Point.
- Instead of Starbucks, Project Origin has "Boomer's Coffee". Doubly amusing in Reborn when it shows up and you're playing as a clone soldier.
- Jin Sun-Kwon?
- The Delta Force commander in the first game is called A. Shepherd.
- Look carefully at the desks you pass in the first game. The mounds of paperwork include T.P.S. Reports (and a memo regarding them). One desk even has a red stapler on it.
- Some areas of the first game show billboards of a company that use the stylized "H" logo of the H.A.R.M. organization, the antagonistic group of Monolith's No One Lives Forever games. The name of the company on the billboard is titled "Heater And Refrigerator Maintenance", a joke at NOLF's running gag of there being no solid indication on what H.A.R.M's acronym stood for.
- One of the weapons used by the cultists - and Paxton, when he possesses them - in F.E.A.R. 3 is a crowbar. The achievement for killing 20 enemies with a crowbar is called "Head Crab Removal".
- One of the cheats in the first game ("kfa") references the "mpkfa" cheat from Shogo and Blood, which itself was a reference to the "idkfa" cheat from Doom.
- One of the magazines in the first game has a cover that reads "Event Horizon Found." While that might by itself refer to the black-hole phenomenon, the second game has "Liberate tutame ex infernis" written in blood, in the room in which Becket first fights Abominations. That same room also has "Can he see?" written in blood, and whomever "he" may be in-game (Becket himself?), it functions nicely as a shout-out to the fate of Sam Niell's character.
- One of the lab machines in the first game (and the second) has the serial number "8311-XHT" stamped on it. Read backwards, it is THX-1138.
- Fettel's Over-the-Shoulder Murder Shot in the intro of the first game bears a strong resemblance of that iconic "first zombie encounter" moment in the original Resident Evil, probably not a coincidence.
- The elevator descent into the Vault in the first game is very similar to Tetsuo's descent into Akira's holding cell.
- The Replica's use of Hind-D helicopters and the plot point of Fettel being the Point Man's brother are likely both homages to Metal Gear Solid. Extraction Point furthers the shout-out by having a setpiece where you have to avoid one as it takes several shots at you on top of a tall building.
- Spiritual Successor: To Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. Not only does it contain many similar weapons and make references to it, both are pastiches of a popular genre of Japanese entertainment (Humongous Mecha anime in Shogo vs. J-Horror movies and anime here).
- Squishy Wizard: In F.E.A.R. 3, Paxton Fettel has less health than the Pointman and can't use guns on his own, but compensates with an assortment of psychic powers including firing psi blasts, throwing explosive barrels (plus grenades and gas tanks) with telekinesis, possessing enemies to use their weapons and abilities, and being able to see and use hidden paths.
- Stalker with a Crush: Alma, toward Becket, though it doesn't become apparent until later in the game.
- Stalker with a Test Tube: More appropriately.
- Standard FPS Guns: Runs the whole damned gamut.
- Energy Weapons
- Disintegrator Ray: F.E.A.R.'s Type-7 Particle Weapon and F.E.A.R. 2's Type-12 Pulse Weapon work on the same principle: stripping a carbon-based target to its bones. How they approach this differs noticeably though, with the Type-7 acting as a Sniper Rifle and the Type-12 as a limited-ammo BFG.
- Energy Weapon: F.E.A.R.'s Type-12 Laser Carbine (expansion packs only), F.E.A.R. 2's FL-3 Laser and F.E.A.R. 3's Arc Beam.
- Nail 'Em: F.E.A.R.'s 10mm HV Penetrator and its successor, the 14mm HV Hammerhead.
- Sniper Rifle: F.E.A.R.'s Type-7 Particle Weapon and F.E.A.R. 2's KM50 Sniper Rifle. The ASP Rifle in the first game acts as a compromise between this and the standard assault rifle, having slightly higher damage than the assault rifle and firing in three-round bursts.
- The Starscream: In F.E.A.R. 3, if Paxton Fettel wins at the end, he possesses the Point Man, promises to raise the 3rd Prototype as his pawn, then bloodily consumes a screaming Alma to gain her power. Apparently this was always meant to be his motivation, but the scenes establishing this were cut from the first game.
- Stealth Prequel: To Shogo, possibly, considering several of the company names (Armacham, Andra, Vollmer, etc.) are borrowed from Shogo.
- Steam Vent Obstacle: Played around with - steam itself is rarely directly harmful to you, but half the time when you do see it something invariably explodes near it and replaces it with fire, which is the real obstacle you need to get around.
- The Stinger
- At the end of the first game, Genevieve Aristide and the unnamed U.S. Senator discuss the fallout from the events the uprising, with Aristide mentioning that the "First Prototype" was a complete success.
- At the end of the third, a video is shown of Paxton Fettel's first Synchronicity Event.
- At the end of Perseus Mandate, it's revealed the Nightcrawlers succeeded in bringing the Senator the DNA of Paxton Fettel, with the casualties inflicted upon them by the second FEAR squad being deemed "acceptable".
- Stopped Clock: In F.E.A.R. 2, all clocks are stopped as a result of the events of the first game.
- Stripped to the Bone: Alma often does this to people she doesn't like. The player can do this too with the Type-7 Particle Weapon in the first game or the Type-12 Pulse Weapon in the second.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Becket dies at the end of the next-to-last level of F.E.A.R. 3.
- Suddenly Voiced: Becket gets a few lines in F.E.A.R. 3. The Point Man, however, gets none, even though he has been given a face.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: F.E.A.R. 3's Phase Commanders have no concept of retreat (even if the city is self-destructing around them) and insist everyone Hold the Line, thinking that they're more than a match for you, even if other Phase Commanders have tried and failed.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Due to a developer oversight, swimming is a free action in the first game. You can stay underwater until your entire skin prunes, you won't have to come up for air.
- Super-Soldier:
- The Replica soldiers, as well as the Point Man, and the entire Project Harbinger team. The Point Man takes this up a notch in 3: at the highest level, he has Wolverine's level of Regenerating Health, can kill with a single kick, enter Bullet Time for 13 seconds at a time and take shotgun blasts without flinching.
- Elite Mooks: The Replica Elite, who carry the aforementioned repeating cannon BFG. In the sequel, they wear metal armor suits and can soak more than twice as much damage as a standard Replica soldier.
- Giant Mook: Replica Heavy Armor soldiers are more than 6 and 1/2 feet tall, wear a heavy suit of armor plates and can absorb more than a full drum mag of assault rifle fire before dying. They're more heavily armed than most regular Replica as well, the vast majority given the HV Penetrator to cut through your armor like butter, with a few standouts carrying weapons that can paste you in a few hits (one in the base game with a Type 7 and one in Extraction Point with a ludicrously-powerful MOD-3). In the expansion packs, another variant with even heavier armor shows up, and they're armed with miniguns.
- Superpowerful Genetics: Becket and Alma's kid apparently has inherited both of their powers, squared, seeing as it has developed the ability to speak before even being born.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death:
- Alma in the first two games, when she murders your squad at the water treatment plant. A Replica Assassin also kills Snake Fist in the same sudden manner in Project Origin.
- In F.E.A.R. 3, this role is played by "The Creep", a powerful, individual apparition unlike any of Alma's usual spooks.
- Take Cover!: One of the gameplay changes in F.3.A.R. is a cover system that lets you pop a little bit around a corner and back just to peek if you don't want to just blast away.
- Tech-Demo Game: The first game was a notorious system hog back when it came out, due to its impressive but highly demanding lighting, absurd amount of particle effects, and top-shelf texture and object work. Before Crysis, it was generally the go-to for PC benchmarking - unlike that game, however, just about any modern gaming rig will happily chew through it on max settings without breaking a sweat. note That said, you might need to install this fan-made fix to get it running correctly. The sequels, while both technically competent for the time, unfortunately fell short of this standard, primarily due to being designed more for consoles.
- Technically-Living Zombie: The cultists in F.E.A.R. 3, ordinary civillians who have had their brains fried by Alma's power.
- Tempting Fate: On the freeway battle in Interval 06 in the third game, an Armacham pilot will call out over the radio that "He can't take two of us!" right before two armored helicopters go after you while you're in an EPA. Guess what happens next.
- Ten-Second Flashlight: In the first generation, the headlamp barely lasts 40 seconds, but recharges in 15 when it's shut off. F.E.A.R. 2 gives you an Infinite Flashlight instead.
- Tentative Light: When something scary is about to show up, lights go out. Lightbulbs usually explode, and flashlights flicker almost to uselessness
- Title Drop: In F.E.A.R. 3.
- Tragic Monster:
- The final battle against Sergeant Keegan in F.E.A.R. 2. Then goes through a My God, What Have I Done?: "BECKET!! HELP... MEEEE..."
- Alma is one, given her history. Her gift screwed up her childhood, and being forced into a Vault to then be forcibly impregnated did not help.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Most of the weapons are standard firearms, but there are man-portable particle beams, powered armour and clones.
- A document in F.E.A.R. 2 claims that Alma was first sealed in the Vault in 1987 (two days before her eighth birthday), and she gave birth to the Point Man when she was fifteen. Monolith has confirmed that the Point Man is 31 years old during the events of the first game, which sets the story right around the year 2025. This is further supported by the dates on the cameras in FEAR 3, which show both Paxton Fettel and the Point Man in November of 2005, making their younger versions that appear in the flashbacks 10 and 11 years old, respectively.
- Unbroken First-Person Perspective: The first and second games rarely deviate from the Player Character's POV, which, when coupled with the insistent aversion of First-Person Ghost, adds up to a highly immersive experience.
- Uncanny Valley: Alma and the Replica were deliberately designed to be this way in-universe. Even in her "healthy" adult form in FEAR 2, Alma is just... off enough to make it clear that she's not natural.
- Underground Monkey: The Shades in the Vivendi expansions are the supernatural equivalents to the Replica Assassins, down to the acrobatic moveset and vaguely similar Visible Invisibility (losing the flicker from sudden movements in return for any parts that you hit becoming permanently visible). They start appearing after the Origin facility goes up in radioactive smoke. Assassins are still encountered, and in bigger packs, but the Shades come up more frequently.
- Understatement: Snake Fist, regarding Alma: "They took her babies away. She didn't like that."
- The Un-Favourite: For Harlan Wade, the Point Man was this when compared with his brother.
- The Unfought: Project Origin promises an incredible psychic battle between protagonist Michael Becket and Big Bad Alma. It doesn't happen. Instead, you get a somewhat anticlimactic Battle in the Center of the Mind with your Evil Counterpart, while Alma rapes your comatose body.
- Unique Enemy: There's a Powered Armor during the first game's level "Urban Decay" which shoots laser beams, instead of the rockets used by every other instance appearing either in the main game or its expansions.
- Updated Re-release: The first game is rather odd in this in that it technically has four of these. The baseline for each of these was coming on DVD rather than the five CDs of the original release, alongside a "making of" documentary, a "director's commentary" video where five of the lead designers commentate over a playthrough of the game's demo, a short live-action prequel film centered around Alma, and a bonus episode of the P.A.N.I.C.S. machinima series. The "Director's Cut" version, which came out alongside the normal version, otherwise differs by including a comic adaptation of the intro cinematic by Dark Horse Comics, while the later versions are incremental updates, the "Gold Edition" packing in the latest patch for the base game and its first expansion, and the other two adding on the second expansion; these two differ primarily in distribution methods, the "Platinum Edition" being the physical release (and the name of the GOG.com version) while the "Ultimate Shooter Edition" is specific to Steam.
- Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: In the first game, the Point Man, who is the first attempt by Armacham to create a psychic commander, manages to overcome Paxton Fettel, the second and successful attempt, despite lacking overt psychic powers and thus being considered a failure.
- Urban Warfare: The majority of battles take place in homes, office buildings, warehouses, malls and underground tunnels. Most of the setting, in fact, is in tight spaces.
- Variable Mix: Quiet places typically have ominous ambient music, until dead apparitions or living enemies show up.
- Version-Exclusive Content:
- The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the original game have an "Instant Action" mode that challenges players to complete four gauntlets based on levels from the campaign, and each had their bonus mission starring a character who doesn't have Point Man's slo-mo powers and an exclusive weapon. On the 360, this consisted of a bonus mission starring Douglas Holiday and the SM15 Machine Pistol, which replaced half of the available RPL SMG spawns to be usable across the game and its expansions, while the PS3 had a mission starring two Delta Force operators and the Watson Automatic Shotgun, which is only found in the bonus mission and a single enemy near the end of the campaign.
- The console exclusive F.E.A.R. Files (Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate bundled into a single package for consoles) has 8 Instant Action maps, adding five such levels based on Extraction Point to the three bonus missions included in the PC version of Perseus Mandate.
- Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Zig-zag all over the place. The Napalm Cannon in Project Origin has wonky hit detection, a relatively low rate of fire, and does fairly mediocre damage (granted, this weapon will one-shot and burn to death most light to medium enemies, it just takes forever). The ammo's also extremely rare, starting with twenty shots in the first one you find and maybe two others much later in the game. Notably, FEAR 2: Reborn, which otherwise goes out of its way to give every weapon that the main game didn't make good use of a chance to shine, never once features the Napalm Cannon.
- Ironically enough, the Napalm Cannon works better against more elite units like Replica Heavy Troopers, Replica Elites, Armacham Black Ops Elites and Armacham Black Ops Heavy Soldiers, but not for the reasons you think. The weapon's abillity to stun-lock and weaken via fire damage means that these hard-to-kill enemies are much more vulnerable for a coup-de-grace as they are unable to fire back with their powerful weapons. Moreover - and this is the most important point - enemies set on fire automatically drop their primary weapons. Even Abominations, are very vulnerable in medium-range as they start to panic trying to put out the flames, making them incredibly easy to dispatch, although they will still attack at close-range. So as a support weapon, the Napalm Cannon does find its uses. Of course, some players may use it due to its...other funny purposes. ExplanationEnemies dying from fire often die in the most overly-dramatic way possible. Usually either they flail around like headless chickens or drunkenly stumble into things in an akward stupor. All the while screaming in the most over-the-top way possible. Given the serious tone of the game, having a couple of guys acting like something out of a Black Adder episode would completely break immersion. As such, some players just use the Napalm Cannon because of this.
- The weapon stops being funny when aimed directly back at the player either in campaign or in multiplayer however. A single shot with its damage-over-time is always a guarantee that 75% of either your health or armour (or both) will dissapear. In multiplayer, a tactic that is often used is to hit the target with the Napalm Cannon with one shot, and then do a coup-de-grace with any other weapon. Weaker classes die outright, whilst heavier classes is at the mercy of being one-shot. The fire affect also means that the target could barely see anything as everything is illuminated.
- Video Game Setpiece: A lot of the really creepy hallucinations the Point Man and Becket experience, and most of the Peek-a-Boo Corpse moments.
- The Virus: Alma gets upgraded to this status in F.E.A.R. 2, especially with regards to the members of your squad after they get subjected to the "Harbinger" treatment. And poor citizens of Fairport turned into ghosts or zombies.
- Visible Invisibility:
- Replica Assassins have a slight Predator-like distortion effect to the cloaking devices, but it's actually subtler and more difficult to spot compared to similar enemies in other games in the genre. This is mitigated by the fact that the Assassins will flicker in and out of their invisibility briefly when they make sudden movements, i.e. leaping to attack, punching the player, or detaching from walls.
- In F.E.A.R. 2 the Assassins' cloaking effect is more visible, with a faint blue blooming effect surrounding them that is easier to spot if you're standing still and watching for it, but it never fades out when making sudden movements. In addition, shooting them releases some form of electromagnetic interference that blurs the area around your goggles where they're located, which can potentially let the Assassin slip away while you're disoriented.
- Shades in Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate are similarly transparent, but unlike Assassins, they don't flicker. To offset this advantage, they sport glowing red eyes and their skin becomes a dull grey wherever it's shot, so they're both easier to see from a distance and manage, as you can focus fire on the weaker ones. You will need to.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: You get a first person view of Michael Beckett vomiting near the end of the third game.
- The Walls Are Closing In: It's one of the Point Man's dream sequences in F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point. It's actually all scare and no pain - the floor gives out and you're dropped out of the room just as there's no more room for the walls to move without starting to crush you.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: This trope tends to happen a lot in this series.
- Spencer Jankowski in the first game. It's heavily implied that he was killed by Alma, but the reason for seeing his apparitions throughout the game as well as his vital signs remaining active is never elaborated upon. Word of God confirmed he's dead; the player was originally intended to find his body, but it was cut when it was realized it was much scarier when it remained ambiguous.
- Rodney Betters, your Mission Control commander, is also gone after the first game except for, again, the Vivendi expansions, where he speaks up at the very end of Extraction Point. He may have been one of the casualties of the Fairport explosion at the end of the first game.
- Since Extraction Point is non-canon, Sergeant Douglas Holiday is also a victim of this trope (in the expansion, he gets torn apart by Alma's apparitions), as was Jin until she reappeared in the third game.
- Norton Mapes. It's never confirmed, but most likely he is dead, between the Origin explosion and the fact that, even if he survived that, he'd have Armacham's Black Ops hunting him. The non-canon Extraction Point shows him to be still alive... though it also has an Easter Egg that lets you kill him.
- In Project Origin, in the beginning of the second level an ATC Black Ops lieutenant named Samuels shows up briefly and is mentioned in dialogue a couple of times later. He has his own unique character model, whereas all other non-plot-important characters are carbon-copies of each other, which makes you think he'll show up again later in the game. He doesn't.
- Manuel Morales, the driver of the Dark Signal squad, in Project Origin. After dropping off Becket and Stokes at the Still Island facility, he is never seen again.
- Lieutenant Keira Stokes. Like Mapes and Jankowski, she is probably dead, given that the last thing that happened to her was getting shot in the gut.
- Genevieve Aristide after the second game is not so much as mentioned. In that same vein, the mysterious Senator that she was working with, David Hoyle, also was forgotten, except for maybe an anonymous email sent to her you can read in the second game. In this case this is most likely because he's deliberately getting as far away as possible so nobody will come after him for anything related to what happened in Fairport. In the non-canon Vivendi timeline, he's the one