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The Doomed Dog
  • 6 weeks ago
Hey everone. I finally finished my video review of FEAR 3. This was a fun one to revisit. I always enjoyed playing it./ I was looking forward to playing it coop with Dalton. It is a shame that we could not get that to work properly past the first two recording sessions. None the less. I did enjoy revisiting this one. I hope you all did, as well. I, also, used a behind the scenes video and a trailer or this game in this review. I did not talk about the mechs returning in this game, but I did not realize that until I was basically done ith the review. Oh well. I am still pretty happy with how this turned out. Thank you all for watching. I hope you enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KpKc-i43p8&pp=ygUOZmVhciAzIHRyYWlsZXI%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvkGGgs_5i4&pp=ygUYZmVhciAzIGJlaGluZCB0aGUgc2NlbmVz

For a more in depth look at the development of this game, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iep-IjCM8ak&pp=ygUYZmVhciAzIGJlaGluZCB0aGUgc2NlbmVz

The song at the end is Lost Soul by Carnage

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Transcript
00:00Hey everyone, it's the Doom Dog. Dalton and I recently finished a playthrough of Fear
00:053 on the channel. You know what that means. It's time for a review of this game. I know
00:12I got frustrated at a few different things as we played throughout this. I will do my
00:18best to not let that affect the tone of this review. With that in mind, join me as we take
00:24a look at the final game in the Fear Trilogy. This is Fear 3.
00:28Fear 3 has a reputation as the bad one. It is known as the game that killed the
00:32franchise, which I find to be a bit dubious as it does end the story started in the
00:39first game. Discussion of this game at all is rather uncommon when people talk about
00:45fear. When it is brought up, it basically never goes much deeper than that. It was
00:50bad, it killed the franchise, and we never get much discussion as to why. I never
00:56agreed with this sentiment though. I never thought Fear 3 was bad. So what's going
01:00on with Fear 3 exactly? Let's talk about it. Fear 3 was not developed by Monolith
01:04like 1 and 2. Instead, it was created by Day One Studios, who worked on the console
01:09ports of the first game. The Xbox 360 port was good, but the PlayStation 3 port had some
01:16problems. This did not necessarily instill much confidence, but at least they had some personal
01:23connection to the franchise, I suppose. It is still strange that it was developed by someone
01:28other than the original devs though. How did this happen? Remember how the Fear license
01:33was split between WB and Vivendi? WB maintained the rights to the name Fear while Vivendi got
01:40the rights to the characters. This resulted in Monolith starting development on a sequel to Fear
01:47without the ability to use the name and they called it Project Origin. Day One likewise was
01:54working on a direct numbered sequel to Fear that had none of the characters from the first
01:59game in it. This game started its existence as a very different shooter called Fear 3 that
02:05used none of the characters from the first game. This version of Fear 2 was going to basically
02:11be another story involving the Fear Squad that you play a member of in the first game and
02:17they were going to be dealing with some of the other supernatural occurrences that had nothing
02:23to do with Armacan or Alma. Instead, it was going to have something to do with something called
02:29the Philadelphia Experiment where there was going to be this technology that allowed people
02:34to phase in and out of our reality and into another one. Of course, Vivendi eventually sold
02:40the license back to WB and Monolith was allowed to take their Project Origin game and name
02:47it Fear 2. Day One naming their game Fear 2 no longer made any sense and they were allowed
02:55to use characters and story from the first game. Their game was changed to become a sequel
03:03to Fear 2, effectively meaning that they were starting from scratch and that they were developing
03:10the sequel to Fear 2 while Fear 2 was in development. Developing a sequel to a game that is not
03:16even out yet is challenging for sure. How do you keep the story straight? The good news is
03:24that Monolith would share builds of Fear 2 with Day One throughout development to keep them up to date
03:32on the game, its story, and any changes that were being made over the course of its development. This would
03:40help the development of Fear 3 and its story and help things align with the story being told through the
03:48first two games. Which leads us to the story. Fear 3 sees you taking the role of Point Man once
03:55again as the main character and he has Paxton Fettle with him the entire time. If you remember the Fear
04:022
04:02Reborn DLC then you know that Paxton is a ghost that can possess human bodies. I do not know what
04:09happened to the body he possessed at the end of that DLC. But he is a ghost from the start
04:14of this game here. The game starts with you in a South American prison and the first thing that you
04:21need to do is simple. You need to escape. After the first game Point Man fled, the Armacan Security Forces,
04:28he fled to South America where he was ultimately captured.
04:31The ghost of your brother who you killed in the first game is here. He does the talking during the
04:37cutscenes as Point Man as a silent protagonist. At the end of Fear 2, Alma does absolutely vile things to
04:45Becca and winds up pregnant. She is still pregnant in this game and the main driving force of this game
04:54is to fight through Armacan forces to reconnect with any members of Fear and you have to locate
05:01Alma to get to Alma to get to her. That is really the ultimate goal of the game. You are
05:05trying to get to Alma. It is relatively simple in that regard. Fear 3's story does provide a definitive end
05:12to the franchise but it does not do too much more than that.
05:17For the early part of the game, there really isn't much that even happens at all. Paxton Fettel and Point
05:23Man just move from location to location fighting Armacan Security Forces and nothing really happens.
05:29It does eventually pick up. You meet some familiar faces and things do eventually get moving in the story but
05:39it starts off kinda slow. There's some problems with the story as a whole though. What happened to Fettel's body
05:46that he took over at the end of Fear 2 Reborn? It is never explained.
05:51Beckett does not get a particularly satisfying ending. He is really only in one scene in this game and that
05:59one scene does not make a lot of sense. It kind of comes across like why is this here?
06:07There is one other thing with this monster that keeps appearing throughout the game that you think is going to
06:15build up to something but they never do much with it. Having said all of this, the cutscenes are quite
06:22well done in this game.
06:23The camera work is good. The framing is well done. The way it sticks to Point Man's POV quite often
06:33is really cool. The cutscenes are stylish and they are well directed and they are quite fun to watch actually.
06:42I have heard that it is because of the involvement of John Carpenter which is believable because he is a
06:47great director. I have also heard that his involvement did not go any further than advising on the story.
06:53I do not know what the whole truth is but the cutscenes are good. I just wish the great presentation
06:59was used to tell a stronger story. It's just not. It starts off slow. When it picks up, it has
07:05a questionable element here and there as I previously discussed.
07:09I appreciate giving a definitive end to Fear but it would have been nice if it had better writing. It's
07:18a shame. Then again, do you really play Fear for the story? The cool story in the first game was
07:24a nice bonus to everything else that the game did well.
07:27So how is the rest of that?
07:29Graphically Fear 3 is fine. It isn't mind blowing. It isn't ugly either. It's decent looking. It looks like the
07:40most 2011 game ever. That is not necessarily a bad thing because games from that time tend to hold up
07:50pretty well graphically.
07:51Especially at higher resolutions on PC. Which is where we played the game. The game does hold up fine graphically.
08:00If you play it on a modern PC with modern resolutions, it looks fairly sharp and decent enough.
08:07The environments are all fairly detailed. It has a good variety of them too. You will go through a prison.
08:14There is a residential neighborhood. You will fight your way through a warehouse type big box store. Like a Sam's
08:21Club. There's an airport. It does quite well on variety. And it is up to the standards of the time.
08:30It's just not pushing PC hardware or anything from that time. It wasn't super high end.
08:36It's a bit of a shame though. Because the first game very much was high end for its time. It
08:44was one of the best looking games on the market when it was new. It had some of the best
08:51language you had ever seen at that time as well.
08:56It put hardware through its paces at the time. And a lot of it holds up well today. For Fear
09:033 to not do the same I cannot help but feel a little disappointed as a result. It looks fine
09:10though. There's nothing wrong with its presentation generally. You just expect more.
09:16My one major complaint with this game's graphical settings is the lack of an FOV slider. Why doesn't this game
09:25have one? It was pretty much expected for a PC game released by this point.
09:31And Fear 3 does not have one. The standard FOV is something like 75 in this game. And you cannot
09:40adjust it in game. Why? You have to do that in a config file.
09:45Again, why? It's just stupid.
09:48Yeah, aside from that one little detail, Fear looks pretty standard for a 2011 release. It is not high end
09:57for the time. But the standard by then was at a point where it was rather detailed and pretty.
10:05It was at a point where games from that time hold up pretty well graphically to this day. And Fear
10:133 is no different in this regard. It is hard to complain too much because what is here does look
10:18good. You just expect more.
10:21At the core of every good horror game is sound design. And Fear has some of the best sound design
10:29of any shooter you will ever play.
10:31This has some big shoes to fill and it's pretty successful in this regard. I will not say that Fear
10:373's sound is as good as the first game but it does sound pretty damn good.
10:42The environmental noise is all pretty damn good. I particularly like the sound of the heavy rainfall in the airport
10:50level.
10:50It sounds great. Another standout is the environmental noise in the big store that you fight your way through. The
10:59beeping of the suicide bomber enemies will make you panic.
11:04Beyond this, the weapons all sound quite good as well. The various weapons in this game are all loud and
11:12they are very powerful with good bass behind them when you fire them.
11:16I love how the shotguns sound. It's awesome. The sniper rifle also has a good boom when you pull the
11:24trigger as well. The machine guns all sound loud, quick and powerful as well.
11:30It really sounds quite good as it should. It's just a hair or two below how the first game sounds.
11:41And that is impressive. The voice acting in this game is also pretty damn good.
11:45But Paxton Fettel gets the most voice lines and he has that same creepy aura about him where you know
11:53that there is something seriously off about this guy. But the rest of the cast is quite well voiced as
11:59well.
11:59Alma has that same creepy whisper thing going on from the previous games. And the soldiers still sound just like
12:08they ever did. This is a good thing by the way. The music in this game is not what I
12:14would call memorable.
12:16But it was not designed around the idea of getting stuck in your head. It was designed around the idea
12:22of getting under your skin. It is atmospheric and it is creepy. It can be effective in this regard. So
12:29it is definitely a success. It achieves what it sets out to do. And what more could you ask for
12:38from a horror game music?
12:39It just isn't something that I would get the urge to put on where there are tracks from the first
12:45game that I might. All in all, Fear delivers with regards to its audio. The environmental noise is quite good.
12:54The weapons all sound loud and powerful. The voice acting is quite good. The music serves its purpose. I have
13:01virtually nothing negative to say about this game's soundscape.
13:05Play this with a good pair of headphones or a good surround sound system. And it sounds great. How does
13:13it play then? This is where I will disagree with a lot of people on this game. I think Fear
13:203 is fun to play. And I will tell you why. Fear 3 follows the formula that you would expect.
13:27You move through linear levels from point A to point B. Fighting a lot of enemies along the way.
13:34You shoot them. They die. You move on to the next area and repeat. The core loop of the series
13:41is here. You still have slow-mo powers and it is just as much fun as it was in the
13:47previous games. The weapons all feel good to fire. The shotgun is a flat out upgrade over Fear 2. The
13:54shotgun felt weak in that game. It feels great in this game.
13:59It does not feel quite as good as the first fear. But it feels so good to fire. And to
14:06watch enemies fly apart when you shoot them at point blank with it. It is a lot of fun. The
14:12penetrator returns. And you can stick enemies to walls with it. It is still awesome. Shooting enemies is fun. The
14:20guns are fun.
14:21The movement feels right in this game as well. The first game did not have you moving particularly fast. But
14:29it had a number of melee moves you could pull off like a bicycle kick and a slide kick. Transitioning
14:35between the various moves and walking and running felt smooth.
14:42The second game did not feel right at all. Melee felt weak. And that is not the case here. The
14:49melee and the movement feels much more in line with Fear 1. And I am thankful for it. It is
14:55better for it.
14:55The game does make some major changes to it. The game does make some major changes to it that are
14:58often seen as consolization though. You have a typical recharging health system in this game where you had health packs
15:07that you would store and use at will in the previous two games. I do not like this change. As
15:15always I prefer a health pack system to this.
15:18It also has a cover system that I rarely ever actually engaged with. As we played through this game it
15:28was the popular thing at the time. And it just kind of feels like Fear was conforming to what was
15:37expected of shooters at the time.
15:38There is one final big change that affects everything. Fear is a co-op game. Player 1 takes control of
15:45Point Man. And Player 2 takes control of Paxton Fettle.
15:51What is cool about this is that Paxton plays differently from Point Man. He is a ghost that can possess
15:56enemies and use them until he dies. Then he becomes a ghost again.
16:02It is cool that you get a different experience playing as him than you do with playing as Point Man.
16:10The game also has a point system where depending upon how Point Man and Fettle play they will be graded
16:20at the end of each level of the game and will be given points.
16:25When you reach the end of the game the points are all added up. And you get one ending or
16:32the other depending upon who has more points. This adds a bit of a competitive nature to the co-op
16:39play. And it is pretty cool.
16:42I am sure the big problem with making this game co-op is glaringly obvious though. Horror goes right out
16:49the window when you play co-op with your friends.
16:52Fear 3 is a horror game that isn't scary. With the possible exception of the levels set in the department
17:01store. That is by far the most memorable part of this game.
17:06It at the very least is the closest thing the game gets to being scary. Which is unfortunate because the
17:14first two games did not have this problem.
17:16Beyond this there is a problem with playing the game as a single player game as well. You can do
17:25it for sure. And you can have some fun with it because the combat in this game is a lot
17:31of fun.
17:31But it will eventually dawn on you that this game is balanced for two players and not one. The end
17:37result can be that it can be frustrating to play at times when you play it as a single player
17:45experience.
17:46This was probably very obvious if you watched the let's play of it because of one last thing that I
17:52am about to get to.
17:54Fear 3's co-op worked fine for the first couple of sessions where we played it. But that quit being
18:00the case afterwards.
18:01We would set up a co-op game. We would start playing. And a few minutes later the session would
18:08crash out and end.
18:10This happened repeatedly and I do not know why. I tried verifying the files. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Fear
18:193. Dalton did the same thing and nothing changed.
18:23We could not get co-op to work. Maybe you will not experience this issue. Certainly others have been able
18:33to play through the whole thing co-op just fine.
18:35But it happened to us. Be aware because it was very frustrating. Fear 3 is not without its problems. It
18:46being a co-op shooter means these scares just are not here.
18:50The co-op kept disconnecting for Dalton and I. It added a cover mechanic and got rid of the health
18:59packs where the previous two games did not need a cover system and did not need a health recharging system.
19:07But the core of the combat of this game is still a hell of a lot of fun. Despite the
19:13story having problems and this shift toward what was seen as consolization I still enjoy playing Fear 3 quite a
19:22bit.
19:29I like Fear 3. It's quite a bit of fun. Fear 3 has problems that I think it rises above
19:36through enjoyable combat and co-op but what about replay value?
19:42Oh there is plenty of that. Replaying the campaign co-op is a blast in and of itself and when
19:52you beat the single player you unlock the ability to play through it a second time as Fettle.
19:59There are two endings to get as well. Fear 3 also has some really cool multiplayer modes.
20:06My favorite one was called Fucking Run where you and your allies are being chased by a giant wall of
20:16death that will catch you and will kill you and you have to take out enemies and move quickly to
20:24not let it catch you.
20:26If you can get your friends to play it with you I highly recommend it. It is awesome.
20:32There is plenty of replay value here. Fear 3 is a far cry from perfect. It has some narrative issues.
20:40It is not scary at all despite being a horror game and it makes some changes to the gameplay formula
20:47that feel unnecessary.
20:48I cannot deny this. I also cannot deny how much fun I have had playing it with friends over the
20:55years though.
20:57It looks good. It sounds great. It is a blast especially with friends.
21:04When you push past things that make it disappointing as the final game in the Fear franchise there is a
21:11lot of fun to be had here. I definitely recommend it.
21:15Getting yourself a copy of Fear 3 nowadays is easy. It is available on both Steam and GOG. I have
21:23the Steam version of the game and that is what you have been looking at throughout this entire review.
21:30I had zero issues getting Fear 3 running on modern hardware and it has modern resolutions and what not available
21:39straight out of the box. This really is the easiest way to play it on modern hardware and is so
21:47old that it will run great on a potato.
21:49It is not the only way to play Fear 3 though. The game came to consoles. It is available for
21:57the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. I have the PlayStation 3 version of the game.
22:02And it looks decent enough and runs alright. It shoots for 30 FPS and it does a decent job holding
22:10that a lot of the time. It can and will dip though.
22:15It also runs at 720p as was the standard at the time. The Xbox 360 version of the game is
22:23backwards compatible with the Xbox One and Series where you will get better performance and a higher upscaled resolution.
22:33You have to have the physical disc though. It does get FPS boost on the Series X though so that
22:40is the best place to play the console port of the game.
22:43Thank you for watching. Fear 3 was a fun one to revisit. It was a lot of fun when the
22:49co-op portion worked and I did not have to play it single player but I still enjoyed it regardless.
22:56I always liked this game despite its shortcomings. I think it is a little underrated because everyone seems to hate
23:05it.
23:05What did you think of Fear 3? Let us know below if you could like and share this video that
23:12would help us out a lot. Subscribe for more and ring the bell to make sure you get notifications from
23:20this channel. Doom Dog out.
23:26Doom Dog out.
23:27Doom Dog out.
23:32Doom Dog out.
23:35Doom Dog out.
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