right...it is common...all those complaints. But there's no need for it to be common. Level design is easy....obviously you're modelling after something, just make it realistic. Look at Max Payne....the level design there is phenomenal. Building layouts look believable! Max Payne did a great job getting rid of repetition too...the variety of environments helped a great deal in that respect.

Anyway, excellent try, but cutting some shortcuts really cost FEAR.

Exactly! Making a game is Art. Regarding its shortcomings, perhaps this is evidence that the Artists have no passion?

I think it's less the fault of the artists and more the fault of their industry. EA, for instance, is a gaming powerhouse. They release games constantly...their game throughput is very very fast. The reason they can do that is they take shortcuts.

For level design, they make prefabs and then just duplicated them. Someone builds 5 different cubicles, the the level designers just cut, paste, rotate, etc. There's not time for them to do any more...they have deadlines and paychecks.

If you look closely at FEAR, most levels are exact duplicates of each other. The cube world is the same shit, over and over again...teh same cubes, the same offices, the same conference rooms, the same gates, the same security stations...

Anyway, it's mass production. It'll naturally get weeded out as more game development houses that emphasize quality over quanitty show up. Too bad that fear got the cookie cutter treatment for level design, though.

Hehe..there was a piece on the AI in my gaming mag last month, was pretty cool: turns out the AI routines weren't all THAT advanced but they managed to make it look that way by 'flagging' specific objects the AI can use. I mean, you know when they use a file cabinet to throw before them and take cover behind it, or kick over a table? They'll only do that with specific items (flagged ones) because the load on the CPU would be overkill if they could actually use every item in sight. So if someone was to buy the AI routines from monolith they'd basically get an 'empty box'...the routines would still be nice, but it'd be much less advanced than it looks now. Because it's the flagging of certain objects makes the AI seems dynamic. It doesn't really matter becuase in-game it looks cool, but it's interesting to know that an AI that can truly be interactive with its environment is still a no-go in games.


I was totally digging FEAR before that chipset cooler gave out. Now I'll have to wait before I can play again. *cries*

chipset cooler gave out?!

EDIT: Oh right, seen the Tech forum.

Downloaded and played the demo for the expansion "extraction point" today.

It was ok...pretty much more of the same really, but that was pretty good. The fighting is still sweet, the effects are still scary, there's still a lot of blood. That about sums it up.

Overall I wasn't very impressed, but still pleased. The new weapon (minigun) is insane. Totally rips apart your enemies. There's a new ghost-like enemy type, very fast and almost invisible, which scared the crap outta me.

Oh yeah, the setting is downtown (in a subway apparently), not in an office building anymore. Maybe that helps the level design be more creative.

how much you wanna bet it's a confusing mashup of intersecting subway tunnels, most of which are blocked off? I may still get it if nothing else has come around by then. :p I'm so BORED of games.

lol, oh yeah, there was a lot of blocked off tunnel stuff going on. But whateva...as long as the game is fun I can block it out (for the most part).

clips...one is short and goes to show that it's still very much a sexy orgy of violence, the other is about the scariness effects.

haha, did you change your pants after that one?

lol...nah, I was fine. I actually like horror games of almost any kind. So I do have some experience holding up my piss. Strangely, I don't like watching horror movies - at all.

I have some friends who can't handle games like this or Undying. They get freaked. And I'm not talking 13-yr old skinny dudes, but big bulcky twentysomethings. I remember one time I brought Undying to one of my pals, and during the first 15 minutes there's a moment you're watching in a mirror and a ghostly figure materializesover your shoulder in the mirror image.

The guy went 'OMG', almost fell out of his chair, exited, uninstalled, and gave back the game. Lmao.

He also found the Oceanview hotel level from Vampire Bloodlines (haunted hotel level, won some awards for best design) completely unnecessary.

Forgot this pic!

It is always nice to start with a 600meg patch of WRONG VERSION. wtf is wrong with the developers.

err, pardon?

lol, Peltz bought FEAR and had to download a 600mb patch...then found out it wasn't the right patch. UK-US-European version thing I suppose Peltz?