Cold Fear

"For what it is, it works"

As a rule of thumb, for reviewing games for the PC, I play them first on a rather poor PC, with low graphics ability and poor acceleration in order to see how optimized the game is. This game, is no different.

This review is written playing on a computer with a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz, with 1GB of RAM and a GeForce FX 5200 128MB card. My settings at time varied between Full (With extreme choppiness), and none (Very nice speed.), but hovered usually on 800x600, with Very Low Shadows, High Lighting and High Surface. (My card seems to choke on shadows, who knows.)

My rating scale is 1-100 for each of the following categories.

Graphics: 70
With games like Doom 3, Half Life 2, and other games with extreme graphics touching the market nowadays, games running on engines with graphics slightly less than those big name games are automatically given lower ratings. This game's geometry, however, is very efficient. The graphics manage to LOOK NICE, full with bump mapping, antialiasing, and all the bells and whistles at 800x600 and get a full frame rate of around 60 in doors, and around 25 on the outside of the ship. Speaking of the outside of the ship, the developers did a beautiful job of the "storm" effects, full with chaotic seas and rain-washed decks. Another good point in the graphics, is it efficiently does particles, which my card usually has some trouble with. The only mentionable downside to the graphics, are the generic look to the badguys (Every Russian on the planet is bald, has no (or shadowed) eyes, and has the exact same body-build.), and the fact that our Hero's body can tend to look plastic-y if you look at it too long.

Pros:
+GREAT Optimization
+Nice effects

Cons:
-Mediocre bump-mapping
-out of place shader and light use

Sound: 70
The sound in this game is also good, but the transition in music is a little too-cookie cutter. The music itself is good, but you automatically switch to the "Holy Cow, we're in a fight!" if you are on the deck of the ship, even if there are no zombies to speak of. The gunshots themselves sound alright, but the sounds of the projectiles hitting the bodies are lacking (It would have been a nice touch.) The sounds of the storm is generally good, but after a while also starts to get boring, with no changes in wind sound, or thunder, or anything like that.

Pros:
+Good, fitting music
+Monster and enemy sounds are excellent.

Cons:
-The voice-acting seems uninspired and "cardboard-like"
-The storm-sounds don't change much, and get boring.

Gameplay: 90
The gameplay of this game is where it shines. It adds things to the mix, such as the turmoil on the deck of the ship: With a constantly blowing storm outside, your character has a hard time standing up, and moving around, and can even get tipped-over by the movement of the ship. To assist, you can grab rails and hold yourself down, and if you find yourself sliding you can catch onto something that is in your way as you fall. However, this awesome ship-rocking seems oddly absent once you move indoors. (Gyroscopic ship?!) The fighting in this game is also a beautiful point. Human-opponents bite the dust after one or two bullets, which is nice and realistic. Their mutant-kin however, are practically immortal unless blown up, set on fire, or shot in the face. -Very- nice touch. With the camera, you can play in the rather restricting "Second Person View" of Resident Evil 4 fame, or you can play in a more Metal Gear Solid-styled view which is reliant on the overall direction, and not the heading of your character. There is also a more "Max Payne"-style camera.

Pros:
+Excellent movement on the deck of the ship
+Great camera-options

Cons:
-Reloading is absurdly fast and unrealistic
-Frame-skip effect on Ship-surface can get annoying.

System: 85
The nitty-gritty of the game is, of course, its system. This game gets a high-score for System, because of it's moddability. Every aspect of the mutants and hero is contained in Configurable Text files in the game directory, letting you make every enemy die with one shot, do zero damage, or giving your main character absurd amounts of health and ammo. It adds almost another "Difficulty Level". The game, however, gets an overall LOW System score because of the issues this game is having with CD-checking programs, and the fiasco Ubisoft is going through to solve the problem.

Pros:
+GREAT Modability

Cons:
-Poor CD-checking and support.

Overall Score: 78.75/100, rounded to 8/10 for Gamefaqs!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/05