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[IbizaPocholo]

Come back with us to 2005 and the arrival of Monolith's graphically ambitious F.E.A.R. Join Alex Battaglia and John Linneman for a let's play using today's performance analysis tools to examine how the game actually ran on the hardware of the time - and let's just say that the hugely ambitious Lithtech engine was definitely designed for future PC hardware...

 

[LordCBH]

This is one of my favorite shooters of all time. That shotgun. SO GOOD. Ran like absolute shit on my old Dell laptop from 2007 but I still had a blast. Running it nowadays with all the bells and whistles is something else. (I think the first expansion pack may be even better than the base game.)

 

[carlosrox]

I actually wanna replay this game on my PC I got in March. Been meaning to play some old games since I can now play em all at super high resolutions and perfectly locked FPS.

Basically any old game in 4k is incredible. Dead Space 2 in 4k is fucking amazing.

This game was awesome back in the day and I loved the sequel too.

I'll never forget the incredible AI in this game. I was blown the fuck away when one time the last enemy in a group flanked halfway across the stage to get me from behind. Do games today even have better AI than this?

Fuck happened to this series?

 

[LordCBH]

I actually wanna replay this game on my PC I got in March. Been meaning to play some old games since I can now play em all at super high resolutions and perfectly locked FPS.

Basically any old game in 4k is incredible. Dead Space 2 in 4k is fucking amazing.

This game was awesome back in the day and I loved the sequel too.

I'll never forget the incredible AI in this game. I was blown the fuck away when one time the last enemy in a group flanked halfway across the stage to get me from behind. Do games today even have better AI than this?

Fuck happened to this series?

IMO, FEAR1 is the peak of enemy AI. I love the way they’d use cover, make cover, flank you, attempt to flush you out. And how they’d react to surprises and how you’d here them communicate and call out. The sequels never captured that magic....

 

[Soodanim]

Without having watched the video yet, FEAR was a great game when I finally got to play it (Logitech bug, some brilliant soul made a dll fix). I still haven't touched the expansions, and by most accounts I shouldn't touch the sequels.

I was way too LTTP to know it was graphically ambitious though, it only ever gets recognition for AI usually. I guess why they did the video.

 

[Justin9mm]

A game from 15 years ago, still looking better than Halo Infinite

 

[MrFunSocks]

The original FEAR and Halo 3 are pretty much the only games where AI has ever actually impressed me, FEAR more so. Watching enemies flip tables over and cover doorways to stop you getting in, then jumping out the back windows to flank you was just amazing. Pretty insane that it still hasn't really been topped.

 

[rofif]

Incredible PC game. The 360 port was not terrible somehow.
That game raped my pc but i loved it.

Only game I played on hardest difficulty and without crosshair. It plays so much better that way

 

[hououinkyouma00]

One of my favorite games of all time. Annoying that it gets a weird FPS bug on modern PCs, that I never looked into how to fix.

 

[bilderberg]

FEAR has not aged well. The outdoor areas in particular look really flat and washed out. The expansions even look worse because they mostly take place outdoors. Condemned has held up a lot better.

 

[Manstructiclops]

I bought a 7800 gtx for this game, a £400 gpu at the time. I'll never do something so utterly retarded ever again.

Pretty sure the source code was released for this game also and it shows that the AI isn't actually that sophisticated. Just an incredibly clever illusion of simple goals and actions more than anything. The squad chatter is complete bullshit for example because the individual entities aren't actually aware of each other.

 

[Barakov]

FEAR probably has one of my favorite videogame shotguns of all time. The AI at the time was mindblowing. Few games have managed to reach that height since then AI wise.

Some parts of it haven't aged that well since FEAR is very much a product of its' time. Still it's definitely one of those games that I go back to every now and again.

A game from 15 years ago, still looking better than Halo Infinite

 

[hououinkyouma00]

FEAR has not aged well. The outdoor areas in particular look really flat and washed out. The expansions even look worse because they mostly take place outdoors. Condemned has held up a lot better.

Besides the fact that graphics don't mean much, not very many "realistic" games have aged well. The lighting in FEAR is top notch.

 

[bilderberg]

Besides the fact that graphics don't mean much, not very many "realistic" games have aged well. The lighting in FEAR is top notch.

Like I said, Condemned looks a lot better and that's the same engine. Doom 3 and Escape from Butcher Bay also hold up a lot better too. FEAR looks alright when the game's lighting can be dramatic, but that gray washed out flat tone it uses when your outdoors looks horrible. And the environments themselves are just really blocky and simplistic.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

No AMD was better than that era of AMD.

 

[eastwood333]

Amazing game to this day. The gameplay, tense action, atmosphere, amazing AI etc...

 

[ipukespiders]

"2005"
"Retro PC"
I'll bump this thread in 2030 to make it valid.

 

[GodParticle]

I'd love to play fear again. That shotgun in slow-mo was something to behold

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

The fuck are you talking about, OP? 2005 isn't retro, that was like last ye....


wait.