F.E.A.R. Extraction Point

"You Shall Be a God Amoung Men... Quiet, Useless, & Impotent"

My main complaints are all Spoilers, consider this your warning. Stop if you don't want any. Not that there's much plot to ruin.

I liked Fear, best shooter I've played since System Shock 2, up to a point. They both kinda fall apart in the end, though Fear starts to devolve a lot quicker. Fear kept you interested till the end, though with excellent enemy AI, atmosphere, and plot elements dropped in through finding answering machine messages, computer files, and character interactions.

In the expansion you just shoot stuff.

What little plot is there, is quite frankly insulting.

Everyone dies, except the people you hate. They're fine.

Fettle is miraculously resurrected with little explanation besides that he didn't much appreciate you killing him. I personally didn't much appreciate him killing Alice Wade, but she I guess doesn't share Fettels dislike for being killed as she decides to stay dead.

Further for no apparent reason whatsoever, and much worse in scale, that fat cheesy poof eating dork from the first game who Harlan Wade thankfully gutshot in the first installment of the game, has decided to cling to life as well. For absolutely no reason. He serves no purpose whatsoever. He does NOTHING. He basically pops up for 2 minutes to say "Hi dumb gut totting idiot, I'm not dead, but I still litter an area with cheesy poof bags and you can't kill me no matter how much ammunition you waste trying."

Maybe he'll be a remarkable foil in Fear 2 and will make the game worthwhile. I doubt it. I was annoyed it wasn't me that killed him in the first one, and his survival as opposed to ANYONE else disgusts me. That it was necessary for him to pop up behind a counter and let me know this was an unnecessary 2 minutes of my life I will never get back. Why? Who thought that was a good idea?

Now, as an aside, I don't particularly mind when characters die in games, movies, books, whatever, to advance the plot. It is often a quite useful method of advancing the plot and adding emotional content. Sacrifice, tragedy, heroism, whatever.

Fear, however, scatters pointless deaths for no apparent reason.

It doesn't advance the plot. It offers no insights. It doesn't offer elements of suspense or horror. It is almost always a quiet moment of, wow, that was pointless.

I annoyed me to find Alice Wade dead in the first game, I was rather enjoying the whole rescue the hot chick routine, and it was adding an element of urgency to playing. Finding her dead for no apparent reason next to a suicidal Fettle was anti-climactic and rather pointlessly and unnecessarily dull, but oh well. Bad things happen.

Deaths in Extraction point are even more pointless, however.

You crash with Hollister and Jun from the first game and they are the only plot elements in the game. They have good report with you and each other. And since the game has no plot or investigative elements to break the monotony, they're the only people to talk to. They're the only real conversations you have in between shooting replicants. And after they both die rather pointlessly you got nothing but quiet. It's BORING!

Hollister at least dies in a rather cool display of ragdoll physics that is a blast to see, but it's out of place. One minute he's your gung ho companion who provides a few laughs. Next minute he's a graphics demonstrating tool. I really would have preferred his death had some meaning, or point, rather than just to show some graphics programmers skill at false physics. A few minutes earlier in a gunfight would have been great. As a hey look what I can do while you guys stand around... a let down. A display of incredible power used against the guy next to you, rather than you, then... um.. ok, I guess I go back to shooting people now.

Jun's death is even more pointless, but they decide to make you feel bad about it too. As a plot device from the first fear providing scientific insights she basically takes Alice Wade's place in this one. Ironically not long after saying she isn't helpless and NOT Alice Wade she starts complaining about dieing alone. So you rush to rescue her again, and find once again you are completely impotent to the game script. You get to see her run in front of you at one point, and try to catch up to find her lieing in a pool of blood. Wow, your reflexes are GRRRRRREAT!

I found it kinda insulting myself, help me, help me, nyah, you can't really help me, aren't you useless?

With Jun dead there's not really anyone else to talk to, so there's no real point in continuing except to finish the game so you can uninstall without feeling you missed something important. As previously mentioned there's not really information to find or discover, so you just wander through killing and trying to remember you want to escape to some marvelous EXTRACTION POINT after being completely useless your entire time in it. Honestly if the game wasn't called Extraction Point, you'd have forgotten what you were supposed to be doing by now.

It's a depressingly boring experience, really. Not even really passable as an interlude to Fear 2. Chock full of random pointless events. At one point the creepy psychic girl kills a bunch of replicant soldiers threatening you, which you probably could have handled easily yourself, and lets you know you're safe. Then you gotta kill a lot more the hard way.

The only redeemable aspects of the game involve fighting the replicants, but it's just not as much fun as the first game. It felt more heavy handed to me, they may have even dumbed down the AI, and they added silly weapons. Lasers and gatling guns and guys in heavier armor, oh my. Doesn't make up for the lack of plot. The parrot was dead, nailing it to the perch so it looks more presentable doesn't change that.

Finally, the 'fear' aspect of Fear isn't really there anymore. That little girl in the red dress popping up in your peripheral vision was creepy. But creepy thriller has gone slasher flick, and wandering through a butcher shop doesn't really scare me. Shortening your flashlight charge from the first one doesn't really scare you more, it just adds to the annoyance of having to switch it back on more.

Basically I want my money back. And my hope that Fear 2 would be worth buying. Extraction Point sure isn't.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/07