FEAR through the eyes of a mapper Created 18 years ago2006-04-15 17:13:57 UTC by Xyos212

Just got F.E.A.R. yesterday. Its ok. Im running everything on max, and it looks sweet, but the great graphics mask the bad mapping. The levels are too square, and not detailed. The superb bump mapping and dynamic tone mapping with reflective properties mask that. Its cool, but no HL2. The mapping is generic, common, and not unique. People's Source maps here outclass FEAR. The game gets a 4 out of 5 for the graphics, but they really crapped out on the mapping It is good though. The water shaders are excellent, and puddles reflect the world with almost perfect reflection

They spent too much time on the shader and the rendering engine and too little effort on mapping.

Mapping is the most important aspect of gameplay, but of course we're biased. We're all mappers here.

Yes your right. I dont think anyone becides a mapper could find fault in FEAR.

Sigh, its the same corridors everywhere, and nothing unique. Plain hallways after another. At least DOOM's halls had some architexture in them, and were unique. Maybe comparing FEAR to Source is unfair

It also has its share of obvious repetition in stairway textures (first post in the HL mapping tips thread) and serious engine rendering problems. Some maps seem to lack a visibility information set (vis) and the map is being rendered at once when you are in a small hallway. The game was rushed. Still, I think the particle effects, AI and ambience were worth checking out.

I have seen a lot of non-mappers comment on how blocky the levels are...Mind you I think this opinion came froma mapper so they all copied and this whole blocky opinion is accepted by everyone.

Dude, stop saying 'architexture', it kinda insults my suject at school
As for F.E.A.R... haven't tried it yet, and I doubt I will, after what you've posted... too busy anyway. Looks sweet, BTW.

FEAR is an excellent game, the levels do improve later on (wait until you get to the final level right at the end, all I can say is you will be blown away).

Its well worth getting just for the gameplay and story line, the maps are a bit blocking in the begginning but dont worry, once you get about half way through the maps are MUCH more interesting.

Hey, dont think its bad PTS, its not. The graphics are amazing, and has tons of cool effects. The parallax mapping is quite impressive also. Looks like there is really depth to a flat object. The gameplay is very addicting, just mediocre mapping. Its 4.5 out of 5. Dont pass it up.

well, there blocky and uninteresting, but the fact is they are what I like to call realisticly blocky. look around at anyplace that looks like fear. they all look like that. the level designers should have taken some liberty and spiced up the area a bit though.

The water shaders are excellent, and puddles reflect the world with almost perfect reflection

The water shaders don't even compare to Source's, from what i understand it still just uses hi-resoultion cubemap's as opposed to Source's true reflections.

FEAR is an excellent game, the levels do improve later on (wait until you get to the final level right at the end, all I can say is you will be blown away).

I have played entirely through it and i can say that the end is particularly good, however the entire game leading up to it so dreadfully boring. Repetitive hallways, endless 'scary incidents' that become horribly predictable and lose all their 'scare-factor'. Half-way through the game i was ready to give up because it bored the absolute shite out of me. The ending is the only section worth playing, it's as if all the team's effort went into that section alone, and it's not enough to justify bying the game i'n my opinion. And the spectacular AI that's it so hyped up about is really just a facade, it's one scripted event after another (the AI is told, this is a good time to knock over a table or this is a good place to crawl under for no apparent reason), and the radio transmissions the bad guys constantly make are bloody annoying. That being said, it is in places quite pretty. The worst decision is the inclusion of that fat character... comic releif? No, more like mood killer.

I still haven't got around to playing it, Ive heard nothing but bad from my friends and the demo was piss poor, nothing more than flashy graphics.

The demo was fun. I enjoyed it.

I got bored halfway through, very repetitive and just didnt holy my attention.

maybe they didnt have a good mapping program? : (yea, It doesnt make sense..)

I got bored halfway through, very repetitive and just didnt holy my attention.

Yeah, MNuTz, no real need to post two identical posts within 4 minutes from eachother.
Anyway, I never bothered with F.E.A.R. for one simple reason - I don't like the horror genre.

Zl , you got that *Demo - scared the shit outta me - Probably the high-volume and quality sound system*#

I lost all my ammo on the ghost who scares mice out of vents

Yeah, MNuTz, no real need to post two identical posts within 4 minutes from eachother.

Sarcy **, like i would of posted 2 identical posts!!

I posted that and left this thread. ive just come back and now there is 2 so i have no idea why!

The ending is spectacular, I'd really like to know how they made it.

All this talk about the ending made me want to play the game.

Hm?
I loved the F.E.A.R. mapping for some reason.
The HL2 one could really piss me of sometimes..

I've only played the FEAR demo though.
I might buy it soon, cuz I loved it!

the one thing that really got me with the game was the enemy NPCs that seemed to be in a huge amount of armour!! its a pain trying to kill them!

I suppose i should finish it, i hate having games half done!

Plus it will keep me going until Space rangers turns up and i can find a cheap copy of Stubbs the Zombie.

a cheap copy of Stubbs the Zombie.

I heard that there is a free version of it available.. somewhere.. on the internet

Man, FEAR is very fun. The slow-mo effects and sounds pull you into the experience so well. Its more fun than scary, but thats ok. Sometimes though I wonder if it could of ran better with optimization. I mean some parts seemed like the whole level was rendered at once. I wonder if other FPS games implement the techniques Valve uses for mapping like area portals, hints, func_details, etc. (Of course they arnt called that, but similar to optimization)
Very fun, and very cool to look at!

nope, no optimizaton there. FEAR's engine is horrible. the ending is really sweet though.

and the over armour thing? its called using slo-mo to get head shots silly

I suppose the most entertaining part of F.E.A.R. is the slomo fly-kicks to the face. But the rest... meh.

A little late on the response but whatever.

I just got FEAR a few days ago too and am completely hooked. But you have to remember that FEAR isn't Source. Both Doom 3 and FEAR don't have engines nearly as powerful as Source so you can't expect a Source quality map from them and both games play 90% of the game indoors. To make up for lack of terrain and other things, FEAR relies on bump mapping and props which looks just as good in my opinion. It may not look good to you, but its realistic. Real life rooms are "bland", deal with it.

F.E.A.R.'s engine power does not limit it's mapping at all, the engine supports curved surface, excellent texture quality, brilliant lighting and so forth. The lack-lustre maps are nearly entirely the fault of the developers. No one expects Source-quality maps, because Source is built for a different purpose, people have just come to expect nice maps in games now, if a game these days does not have decent maps it will suffer. A map can be good without the need for terrain, of which the F.E.A.R. engine can render quite well anyway. Lazy/uninspired developers are to blame in my opinion.

Anyone play the multiplayer map DeadWood on FEAR? Its an outdoor map thats looks amazing and is not dark at all. The engine is superb to look at.

Just beat the game BTW. That last explosion was so cool. That was a video game moment to remember. Last level was scary too.

the containment area of the last level is the best part of the game. the last explosion wasn't all that great in my opinion.