Review: F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate
Let's get right to it. F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate does nothing new. Information technology makes a superficial effort at legal separation from its predecessors, but the reality is there's absolutely nothing here you haven't already done, repeatedly, in F.E.A.R.. This isn't a problem; if F.E.A.R. fans were concerned about repetitive gameplay, they wouldn't comprise F.E.A.R. fans. The problem is far more than fundamental: As a rehash, F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate International Relations and Security Network't a same saintly single.
Perseus Mandate runs parallel to the groundbreaking plot. Spell the original crew of Jankowski, Jin, the cryptical Point Man and their Delta Force cohorts are squaring off against Joseph Paxton Fettel's Replica soldiers to determine the cause of the mystical goings-on at Armacham, in Perseus Mandate, you – this time as the Police sergeant – testament join a secondary F.E.A.R. squad with Captain St. David Raynes and Lieutenant Steve Chen to squarish off against Paxton Fettel's Replica army and determine the cause of the mysterious goings-on at Armacham. Yeah, it's like that.
The new car smell, such as it is, comes from the addition of a new element to the game: the mysterious, powerful and extremely well staffed worldly USA called the Nightcrawlers. While it English hawthorn be difficult to take seriously a bunch of mercs whose name conjures up feature images of a second-tier Marvel superhero, in the game's fiction the Nightcrawlers are the best of the best and the baddest of the bad, and a mysterious U.S. Senator – maybe the same combined from F.E.A.R., maybe non, I couldn't tell – has sent them in to the middle of the chaos at the Perseus compound to swipe Alma Virginia Wade's DNA.
Why? I don't know. The Nightcrawlers appear to exist only to provide something new to shoot at, and DNA is as good an excuse as some to have them mucking around inside Armacham. Course, exploitation the Nightcrawlers to inject variety into F.E.A.R. is like exploitation ice cubes to flavor your water, because aside from a frown-inclined vocalism and (somewhat) different weapons, they're just about identical to the Replica forces, even wearing the like style of leather-and-Lycra uniforms with boldness-obscuring headgear. A midget number of Nightcrawlers, distinguishable by their exposed military-style brush-cuts in lieu of sensible helmets, are "elite" models, tougher than the rank-and-filing cabinet mercenaries and possessing a variant of your own not-so-unique-after-all clip-deceleration power that allows them to sidestep attacks at "faster than the centre" speed, but to all intents and purposes, if you've seen one Dew worm, you've see 'em each.
The unfit starts off in a familiar setting, not from F.E.A.R. itself merely from the photoflood canal sequence in Half-Life 2. In what constitutes the game's tutorial segment, you'll pick your way through debris and deal with guys running around on overpasses and jumping down in front of you, learning how to crouch and jump and purpose your weapons, until you quickly and inevitably find yourself separated from your colleagues and trapped in a sewer.
A few preliminary firefights later you'll emerge from the sewers and almost immediately run into your old brother Spen Jankowski. Most of him, at any rate; Spen appears disadvantageous his eyeballs, uttering the line, "Is someone there?" before disintegrating into ashes and dust. If you're feeling some deja vu here, it's because his appearing is a direct lift from the first off F.E.A.R. game, in which he became dislocated from the team and then subsequently makes exactly the same visual aspect to the player after presumably being Fetteled.
I was taken aback at how cursorily the game had shifted gears from "uninventive" to "ripping itself off," but the thirster I played, the more apparent it became that "takes put up alongside" actually means "doing the same stuff as."
My interest in anything plot-related evaporated apace. It was unsatisfying, because I enjoyed the newfangled F.E.A.R. story decent to want more of it, but playing Perseus Mandate was a lot like watching the Hotshot Wars Holiday Extraordinary all those years ago: I desirable more Star Wars, and technically I was acquiring to a greater extent Star Wars, but even at that crank senesce I was smart enough to know it wasn't what I came for.
But yet in the absence of a credible story (which admittedly was a bit of a common complaint with the original game as well), there is one incontestable point: Very a few games do a better job of making you feeling like the baddest man connected the planet than F.E.A.R.. Wasting three heavy-armed goons with a long-lived spray of machine gun arouse while leaping over a counter and taking taboo the 4th by putting your boot through his skull – all in sweet, loving slow-question – is about the coolest thing ever. So even though the Perseus Mandate secret plan is, well, stupid and worthless, thither were hush up rotten men who needed killin'. I settled in for some salutary ex flight magistrate. After all, how could anyone possibly screw up F.E.A.R. combat, the one aspect of the game that is almost universally well-regarded?
Apparently I underestimated the creativity of the guys at TimeGate, because they managed to stumble over even this core gameplay strength in a manner I hadn't considered: by studiously avoiding it. Particularly in the latter half of the game, you'll move through large stretches of levels prominently devoid of Replicas, Nightcrawlers and even out the poor ATC Security punching bags. When the game does kick IT into gear, the intensity of the action is undeniable and still among the really best FPS experiences available, but the remarkably poor pacing all too oftentimes results in unacceptably foresighted stretches between battles.
The horror side of the gimpy is similarly weak. At that place are few good jolts, when unexpected events or apparitions toss off up out of nowhere, merely what it lacks is the sustained spook factor that was so rough-and-ready in the original. In fact, if the game weren't trying so hard to shoehorn itself into the F.E.A.R. modus operandi, I questionable there would be no supernatural angle at all. Paranormal events are few and immoderate betwixt, and excursus from few notable exceptions, not terribly effective. But does it matter? Does the fiction in F.E.A.R., or in any action-oriented plot, cause any genuine relevance on the game itself? And is it fair to knock cold a game that may be middling competent otherwise, because information technology lets the storytelling slide?
F.E.A.R. established a narrative: a small, super-secret team of highly-specialized operatives trained to wield psychokinetic threats to national security, one of whom is possessed of super-imperfect abilities and heightened psychic sensitivity as a result of his unique parentage. It own't Shakespeare, it ain't even Planescape: Torment, but it does constitute a fairly expressed set of boundaries within which the game operated.
And then wherefore does it seem so trying for this follow-upwardly to work within those boundaries? Perseus Mandate's chronicle is a tortuous mess that raises a lot of questions without even once making an attempt to answer them.
A unsmooth transition from one entry in a franchise to another can speedily draw gamers out of the fantasy and reduce a potentially good game to a very intermediate one. A improved agree with the F.E.A.R. premise wouldn't save Perseus Mandate from mediocrity, but information technology might leave people smel a little more giving virtually it.
Naturally, IT's not all bad. A mentioned, when the combat gets loss, it's as fortunate As F.E.A.R. has ever been – and that's awfully goodness. Your two squadmates are really healthy voiced, and their dialog is natural and flows well, making them engaging characters despite their rather generic profiles when compared to the supporting hurl of the original. There are a few operative "made you derail" moments wet throughout the game, as well as one of the most completely out-of-leftist-field (and funny – accidentally, I think) death scenes I've ever witnessed. It's not much. It's non or so plenty.
Equally with all things, the game will eventually end. And when it does, IT happens apace; really, it doesn't end so much every bit just arrest dead and roll credits. Nothing is explained, nothing is single-minded and in fact the final post-credits video only leaves things even Sir Thomas More befuddled. If you're optimistic enough to make information technology all that agency with some sliver of hope in your heart that the endgame wish finally answer a couple of questions and maybe help you make a trifle sense of it all, you'ray active to be disappointed and frustrated.
You might also be steamed, because what you'll have to bear witness for your efforts and your money is a stupid ending to a blatant effort by Sierra to squeeze a few more bucks out of the F.E.A.R. dealership before Project Origin arrives on the scene. Background aside the assuage touch of polite expression for a moment, it's trying to see F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate as anything but a indolent, unblushing cash grab that reflects very poorly happening Sierra's concern in the tense of the franchise. Even if you're willing to believe that what the domain really needs is other F.E.A.R. enlargement, there's absolutely no excuse for doing it like this. To paraphrase Captain Raynes, who had the honor of uttering the first line in the game: I sure as shit wouldn't do this for 30 bucks, would you? No, David. Zero, I would not.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/review-f-e-a-r-perseus-mandate/
Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/review-f-e-a-r-perseus-mandate/