The Doomed Dog FEAR 3 review

The Doomed Dog

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  Personal Twitter: @fsmetal Gaming twitter: @TheDoomedDog85 https://www.facebook.com/DigitalDelirium01/ https://valereth2.tumblr.com/ https://www.twitch.tv/thedoomeddog https://www.minds.com/Valereth https://gab.ai/fsmetal https://www.parler.com/profile/fsmetal/posts https://gettr.com/user/fsmetal https://www.bitchute.com/channel/QM3i6EMg5BMA/ https://open.spotify.com/show/66uCQ9z9Klvz3DGmc9FFYO https://open.spotify.com/show/3oopdo5dy2y5bbTkKetR7k https://odysee.com/@TheDoomedDog:7 https://rumble.com/c/c-1325723

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

00:44about Fear. When it is brought up, it basically never goes much deeper than

00:49that. It was bad, it killed the franchise, and we never get much discussion as to

00:54why. I never agreed with this sentiment though. I never thought Fear 3 was bad.

00:59So what's going on with Fear 3 exactly? Let's talk about it. Fear 3 was not

01:03developed by a monolith like 1 and 2. Instead, it was created by Day One Studios,

01:08who worked on the console ports of the first game. The Xbox 360 port was good,

01:13but the PlayStation 3 port had some problems. This did not necessarily instill much confidence,

01:21but at least they had some personal connection to the franchise, I suppose.

01:25It is still strange that it was developed by someone other than the original devs though.

01:31How did this happen? Remember how the Fear license was split between WB and Vivendi?

01:36WB maintained the rights to the name Fear while Vivendi got the rights to the characters.

01:41This resulted in Monolith starting development on a sequel to Fear without the ability to use the

01:49name and they called it Project Origin. Day One likewise was working on a direct numbered

01:56sequel to Fear that had none of the characters from the first game in it. This game started its

02:01existence as a very different shooter called Fear 3 that used none of the characters from the first

02:07game. This version of Fear 2 was going to basically be another story involving the Fear Squad that you

02:14play a member of in the first game and they were going to be dealing with some of the other

02:21supernatural occurrences that had nothing to do with Armacan or Alma. Instead, it was going to have

02:28something to do with something called the Philadelphia Experiment where there was going to be this

02:33technology that allowed people to phase in and out of our reality and into another one. Of course,

02:39Vivendi eventually sold the license back to WB and Monolith was allowed to take their Project

02:45Origin game and name it Fear 2. Day One naming their game Fear 2 no longer made any sense and

02:54they were

02:54allowed to use characters and story from the first game. Their game was changed to become a sequel to

03:03Fear 2. Effectively meaning that they were starting from scratch and that they were developing the

03:10sequel to Fear 2 while Fear 2 was in development. Developing a sequel to a game that is not even

03:16out

03:17yet is challenging for sure. How do you keep the story straight? The good news is that Monolith would

03:26share builds of Fear 2 with Day One throughout development to keep them up to date on the game.

03:34its story and any changes that were being made over the course of its development. This would help the

03:40development of Fear 3 and its story and help things align with the story being told through the first two

03:49games. Which leads us to the story. Fear 3 sees you taking the role of Point Man once again as

03:56the main

03:56character and he has Paxton Fettel with him the entire time. If you remember the Fear 2 Reborn

04:03DLC then you know that Paxton is a ghost that can possess human bodies. I do not know what happened

04:09to

04:09the body he possessed at the end of that DLC but he is a ghost from the start of this

04:15game here.

04:16The game starts with you in a South American prison and the first thing that you need to do is

04:22simple.

04:23You need to escape. After the first game Point Man fled the Armacan security forces he fled to South America

04:30where he was ultimately captured. The ghost of your brother who you killed in the first game is here.

04:36He does the talking during the cutscenes as Point Man as a silent protagonist. At the end of Fear 2

04:42Alma

04:43does absolutely vile things to Becca and winds up pregnant. She is still pregnant in this game and the

04:51main driving force of this game is to fight through Armacan forces to reconnect with any members of Fear

04:59and you have to locate Alma to get to her. That is really the ultimate goal of the game. You

05:05are trying

05:06to get to Alma. It is relatively simple in that regard. Fear 3's story does provide a definitive

05:12end to the franchise but it does not do too much more than that. For the early part of the

05:18game there

05:19really isn't much that even happens at all. Paxton Fettel and Point Man just move from location to

05:24location fighting Armacan security forces and nothing really happens. It does eventually pick up. You

05:32meet some familiar faces and things do eventually get moving in the story but it starts off kind of slow.

05:41There's some problems with the story as a whole though. What happened to Fettel's body that he took

05:47over at the end of Fear 2 Reborn. It is never explained. Beckett does not get a particularly

05:52satisfying ending. He is really only in one scene in this game and that one scene does not make a

06:02lot of

06:02sense. It kind of comes across like why is this here? There is one other thing with this monster that

06:10keeps appearing throughout the game that you think is going to build up to something but they never do

06:18much with it. Having said all of this the cutscenes are quite well done in this game. The camera work

06:24is

06:24good. The framing is well done. The way it sticks to Point Man's POV quite often is really cool. The

06:34cutscenes are

06:35stylish and they are well directed and they are quite fun to watch actually. I have heard that it's

06:43because of the involvement of John Carpenter which is believable because he's a great director. I have

06:48also heard that his involvement did not go any further than advising on the story. I do not know

06:54what the whole truth is but the cutscenes are good. I just wish the great presentation was used to tell

07:00a

07:00stronger story. It's just not. It starts off slow. When it picks up it has a questionable element here

07:07and there. As I previously discussed I appreciate giving a definitive end to fear but it would have

07:15been nice if it had better writing. It's a shame. Then again do you really play fear for the story?

07:22The cool

07:22story in the first game was a nice bonus to everything else the game did well. So how is the

07:28rest of that?

07:30Graphically fear 3 is fine. It isn't mind blowing. It isn't ugly either. It's decent looking. It looks

07:40like the most 2011 game ever. That is not necessarily a bad thing because games from that time tend to

07:49hold

07:50up pretty well graphically. Especially at higher resolutions on PC. Which is where we played the game.

07:57The game does hold up fine graphically. If you play it on a modern PC with modern resolutions it looks

08:05fairly sharp and decent enough. The environments are all fairly detailed. It has a good variety of

08:12You will go through a prison. There is a residential neighborhood. You will fight your way through a

08:17warehouse type big box store. Like a Sam's Club. There's an airport. It does quite well on variety. And it

08:27is

08:28up to the standards of the time. It's just not pushing PC hardware or anything from that time. It wasn't

08:35super high end.

08:36It's a bit of a shame though. Because the first game very much was high end for its time.

08:43It was one of the best looking games on the market when

08:48It was new. It had some of the best looking games you had ever seen at that time as well.

08:56It put hardware

08:57through its paces at the time. And a lot of it holds up well today. For fear 3 to not

09:04do the same. I cannot

09:06help but feel a little disappointed as a result. It looks fine though. There's nothing wrong with its

09:13presentation generally. You just expect more. My one major complaint with this game's graphical settings

09:20is the lack of an FOV slider. Why doesn't this game have one? It was pretty much expected for a

09:28PC

09:29game released by this point. And fear 3 does not have one. The standard FOV is something like 75

09:37in this game and you cannot adjust it in game. Why? You have to do that in a config file.

09:45Again why? It's just stupid. Yeah aside from that one little detail feared looks pretty standard for

09:54a 2011 release. It is not high end for the time. But the standard by then was at a point

10:03where it was

10:03rather detailed and pretty. It was at a point where games from that time hold up pretty well

10:11graphically to this day. And fear 3 is no different in this regard. It is hard to complain too much

10:16because what is here does look good. You just expect more. At the core of every good horror game is

10:24sound

10:25design. And fear has some of the best sound design of any shooter you will ever play. It's just some

10:31big

10:32shoes to fill and it's pretty successful in this regard. I will not say that fear 3 sound is as

10:38good

10:39as the first game but it does sound pretty damn good. The environmental noise is all pretty damn good.

10:45I particularly like the sound of the heavy rainfall in the airport level. It sounds great. Another standout

10:53is the environmental noise in the big store that you fight your way through. The beeping of the suicide

11:00bomber enemies will make you panic. Beyond this the weapons all sound quite good as well. The various

11:08weapons in this game are all loud and they are very powerful with good bass behind them when you fire

11:16them. I love how the shotguns sound. It's awesome. The sniper rifle also has a good boom when you pull

11:24the

11:24trigger as well. The machine guns all sound loud quick and powerful as well. It really sounds quite

11:32good as it should. It's just a hair or two below how the first game sounds. And that is impressive.

11:42The voice acting in this game is also pretty damn good. Paxton Fettel gets the most voice lines

11:48and he has that same creepy aura about him where you know that there is something seriously off about

11:56this guy. But the rest of the cast is quite well voiced as well. Alma has that same creepy whisper

12:02thing going on from the previous games and the soldiers still sound just like they ever did. This is a

12:10good

12:10thing by the way. The music in this game is not what I would call memorable but it was not

12:17designed

12:18around the idea of getting stuck in your head. It was designed around the idea of getting under your

12:23skin. It is atmospheric and it is creepy. It can be effective in this regard so it is definitely a

12:31success. It achieves what it sets out to do and what more could you ask for from a horror game

12:39music.

12:39It just isn't something that I would get the urge to put on where there are tracks from the first

12:45game

12:46that 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.

13:00I have virtually nothing negative to say about this game's sound escape. Play this with a good pair

13:07of headphones or a good surround sound system and it sounds great. How does it play then? This is where

13:16I will disagree with a lot of people on this game. I think Fear 3 is fun to play and

13:22I will tell you why.

13:23Fear 3 follows the formula that you would expect. You move through linear levels from point A to point B

13:32fighting a lot of enemies along the way. You shoot them. They die. You move on to the next area

13:38and repeat.

13:39The core loop of the series is here. You still have slow-mo powers and it is just as much

13:46fun as it was

13:47in the previous games. The weapons all feel good to fire. The shotgun is a flat out upgrade over Fear

13:532.

13:54The shotgun felt weak in that game. It feels great in this game. It does not feel quite as good

14:01as the

14:02first fear but it feels so good to fire and to watch enemies fly apart when you shoot them at

14:08point blank

14:09with it. It is a lot of fun. The penetrator returns and you can stick enemies to walls with it.

14:16It is

14:17still awesome. Shooting enemies is fun. The guns are fun. The movement feels right in this game as well.

14:24The first game did not have you moving particularly fast but it had a number of melee moves you could

14:32pull off like a bicycle kick and a slide kick. Transitioning between the various moves and walking

14:39and running felt smooth. The second game did not feel right at all. Melee felt weak and that is not

14:47the

14:47case here. The melee and the movement feels much more in line with Fear 1 and I am thankful for

14:53it. It

14:54is better for it. The game does make some major changes to it that are often seen as consolization

15:00though. 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

15:16prefer a health pack system to this. It also has a cover system that I rarely ever actually engaged with.

15:25As we played through this game it was the popular thing at the time and it just kind of feels

15:34like fear

15:34was conforming to what was expected of shooters at the time. There is one final big change that affects

15:40everything. Fear is a co-op game. Player 1 takes control of Point Man and Player 2 takes control of

15:49Paxton Fettel. What's cool about this is that Paxton plays differently from Point Man. He is a ghost that

15:56can possess enemies and use them until he dies. Then he becomes a ghost again. It is cool that

16:04you get a different experience playing as him than you do with playing as Point Man. The game also has

16:12a

16:12point system where depending upon how Point Man and Fettel play they will be graded at the end of each

16:22level of the game and will be given points. When you reach the end of the game the points are

16:28all added

16:28up and you get one ending or the other depending upon who has more points. This adds a bit of

16:37a

16:37competitive nature to the co-op play and it's pretty cool. I am sure the big problem with making this

16:45game co-op is glaringly obvious though. Horror goes right out the window when you play co-op with your

16:51friends.

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. It at the very least is the closest

17:09thing

17:09the game gets to being scary which is unfortunate because the first two games did not have this

17:15problem. Beyond this there is a problem with playing the game as a single player game as well.

17:25You can do it for sure and you can have some fun with it because the combat in this game

17:30is a lot of

17:31fun but it will eventually dawn on you that this game is balanced for two players and not one. The

17:37end

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 watch the let's play of it because of one last thing that

17:52I am about to get to. Fear 3's co-op worked fine for the first couple of sessions where we

17:58played it

17:58but that quit being the case afterwards. We would set up a co-op game, we would start playing and

18:05a few

18:06minutes later the session would crash out and end. This happened repeatedly and I do not know why.

18:14I tried verifying the files. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling fear 3. Dalton did the same thing

18:21and nothing changed. We could not get co-op to work. Maybe you will not experience this issue.

18:30Certainly others have been able to play through the whole thing co-op just fine but it happened to us.

18:38Be aware because it was very frustrating. Fear 3 is not without its problems. It being a co-op shooter

18:47means these scares just are not here. The co-op kept disconnecting for Dalton and I. It added a cover

18:56mechanic and got rid of the health packs where the previous two games did not need a cover system

19:03and did not need a health recharging system. But the core of the combat of this game is still a

19:10hell

19:10of a lot of fun. Despite the story having problems and this shift toward what was seen as consolization,

19:19I still enjoy playing fear 3 quite a bit. Playing it with a friend as fun as hell and the

19:27recommended

19:28way of playing it. I like fear 3. It's quite a bit of fun. Fear 3 has problems that I

19:35think it rises above

19:37through enjoyable combat and co-op but what about replay value? Oh there is plenty of that. Replaying the

19:46campaign co-op is a blast in and of itself and when you beat the single player you unlock the

19:55ability

19:56to play through it a second time as fettle. There are two endings to get as well. Fear 3 also

20:03has some

20:04really cool multiplayer modes. My favorite one was called Fucking Run where you and your allies are being

20:14chased by a giant wall of death that will catch you and will kill you and you have to take

20:21out enemies and move

20:23quickly to not let it catch you. If you can get your friends to play it with you I highly

20:30recommend it. It is awesome.

20:33There 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

20:42despite being a horror game and it makes some changes to the gameplay formula that feel unnecessary. I cannot

20:49deny this. I also cannot deny how much fun I have had playing it with friends over the years though.

20:57It looks

20:58good. It sounds great. It is a blast especially with friends. When you push past things that make it

21:07disappointing as the final game in the Fear franchise there is a lot of fun to be had here. I

21:14definitely

21:14recommend it. Getting yourself a copy of Fear 3 nowadays is easy. It is available on both Steam and GOG.

21:23I have the Steam version of the game and that is what you have been looking at throughout this entire

21:29review.

21:30I had zero issues getting Fear 3 running on modern hardware and it has modern resolutions and what

21:39not available straight out of the box. This really is the easiest way to play it on modern hardware

21:46and is so old that it will run great on a potato. It is not the only way to play

21:52Fear 3 though. The game

21:54came to consoles. It is available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. I have the PlayStation 3 version of

22:01the game

22:03and it looks decent enough and runs all right. It shoots for 30 fps and it does a decent job

22:10holding

22:10that a lot of the time. It can and will dip though. It also runs at 720p as was the

22:19standard at the time. The

22:21Xbox 360 version of the game is backwards compatible with the Xbox One and Series where you will get

22:28better performance and a higher upscaled resolution. You have to have the physical disc though. It does

22:37get FPS boost on the Series X though so that is the best place to play the console port of

22:42the 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

22:50worked and I did not have to play it single player but I still enjoyed it regardless. I always liked

22:58this

22:58game despite its shortcomings. I think it is a little underrated because everyone seems to hate it.

23:05What did you think of Fear 3? Let us know below if you could like and share this video that

23:12would help

23:12us out a lot. Subscribe for more and ring the bell to make sure you get notifications from this channel.

23:21Doom Dog out.

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