Scary Games Month: FEAR 2 is a game about diet cola beverages

Time for another horror game, as it is scary games month still, the even more bizarre sequel to the rather bizarre FEAR, which is an acronym for "First Encounter Assault Recon" which I guess works well enough. Fear 2 (there's no way I'm capitalizing every usage of the word Fear in here, I hope you don't mind) is sort of an odd sequel because Monolith sold then regained the rights to the Fear series somewhere within development, resulting in (supposedly) some of the oddities in the story. Regardless, the original is from 2005 while the sequel is from 2009, but I'm not entirely sure it looks it.

Fear is kinda noted for three different things: One, slow-mo bullet time! Hard Reset has some of this too but it's way better in Fear ie actually useful. I think bullet time was supposedly pretty common at about the original Fear's era of development but the mechanic has mostly fallen off. I kinda like the mechanic since it offers you another resource to ration out in combat, though I admit it's basically a pale shadow of the Crysis suit's tactical options. For those uninformed, during slow mo you move somewhat faster and enemies move much slower and you can toggle it on or off as you go.

Second, Fear is a little unusual in being a consistent running horror fps series. Most horror games are over the shoulder third person, or are less reliant on gunplay, which makes for an odd dynamic. I have to admit straight up that I didn't find the original Fear all that scary if at all as opposed to Doom 3 which did get me a little bit here or there. But I'll talk about that more later.

Third, Fear is notable for having a story that appears to have been crafted in the most bizarre, brainstorming think tanking flow of thought manner. And by that I mean the story has conceptually solid moments but upon reflection the combined narrative is less plot more shambling gestalt. The words "cohesive" and "consistent" are completely missing from Fear, with Fear 2 likely going even a step further since it's apparently the product of some odd IP losing and gaining process.

The original Fear centres on the adventures of THE POINTMAN, who over the course of the game is blah blah who cares. There's a couple twists but they're all so far from removed from a connective context that you blink at it then shrug. The plot also centres on ALMA, who is not ATMA, a little girl who has psychic powers and they never really explain much of this. The source of her powers, which are far closer to Warhammer 40k Chaos warper stuff than any vision of 'psychic' I've ever heard of, is never really explained. Also she isn't really a little girl by the time she "dies" but they juxtapose the ideas around so as to make you think they somehow impregnated a seven year old. Multiple times. While she was in a coma. She could still talk and yell while in the coma though, since the word coma is entirely utilized for the purposes of making it sound even worse.

But it only gets worse and man oh man, I'm pretty sure Fear 2 isn't going to disappoint. What's even funnier is that for all the attempts at making the story sound heinous and "horror", I actually find the setting outright mundane. I'm not sure if this has to do with the complete higher brain function shut down necessary to absorb the science fiction elements from the story without going into convulsions or if its the general detachment of the horror elements from the primary gameplay which is shooting the bleep bleep bleep out of many dudes.

(note: there are more spoilers than I would usually drop during this review!)

Scary Games Month: Doom 3

Ha, oh man.

Turnabout is fair play, right? If I'm going to talk up Doom the First to the detriment of modern games with modern engines, I should certainly be willing to play Doom 3 right? It is scary games month and what's more scary than the slow, sickening decay of everyone who worked on Doom? You're thinking about Rage, right? But remember, Daikatana ties into this process as well! Daikatana is like a game version of the star wars prequels. I mean, the actual movies, not pod racing on your kinect or something. That analogy doesn't make overly much sense... Doom.
 
Anyway Doom 3 is a 2004 release into the Doom series and an actual new game as opposed to Doom 2, which was honestly just an overlong map pack with some additional small features - but no stage maps, and the lack of maps seriously worsened the game for me. I have no idea why that's such a big thing - Look at it, it's nothing! But Doom 2 didn't have it and I was sad as a fourteen year old. It kinda goes back to how world building mentally works when you're young, but it's entirely a thing.

By modern conventions Doom 3 would probably just be titled Doom, given its status as a remake of the first game. There was a lasting complaint back then that Doom 3 was a horror game out of nowhere, but that just comes off as an issue of gamers not really comprehending what is horror at all. The original Doom maybe doesn't feel spooky when you're a hardened veteran of shooters, but show that shit to most people and it's pretty damn horrifying. I mean episode 1, episode 3 had entire walls made out of screaming people and so on being you were actually in Hell. Mind you Doom 3 went to horror school and picked up all of the tropes, but stuff like jump scares and lights going out when you picked stuff up were in the original game. Shit just moved so slow and randomly I guess people didn't really pick up on it so much as a horror thing. Maybe it's totally a gamer thing though. I see blood sprayed fire hose style across the walls and I think "did the demons like, do that intentionally? It seems like it would be a ton of effort". Whereas a little old granny would be like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

It does go to show you how silly it seems to complain about developers and publishers addressing new games with their original title; Doom 3 isn't, on any level, a fundamental sequel and just calling it Doom would simplify expectations a bit. Or combine both elements and title the game "Doom: Horror Manshooter" then everyone would have known what they were getting into. Maybe just "Doom: Horror manshoot starring tiny flashlight"

Steam Sales: An attempt at a comprehensive End User's Guide

It's October now and that means the biggest crunch of Steam Sales is rapidly approaching us. This is a handy-dandy guide to understanding how the Steam Sale structure works for you, the end user, and to buying a giant pile of games you will fundamentally never play but as inexpensively as possible. Ahem.

For reference, I'm going into my fourth year of having a Steam Account. I got an account to get into a sale and that's basically how I frame my entire experience with buying off Steam. In these three years I have accumulated about ~300 Steam games at an average cost of 'give or take' $2. Steam Enhanced gives a figure of $415 spent, but that number is a bit complicated, since I've gotten Steam keys from all over. Anyway, let's begin!

this remains the most honest macro of all