Fear Effect

"One of the cooler action games on the Playstation."

The effects of fear? Screaming like a little girl...and yet no screams of terror in this game. Tsk tsk. Welcome to Fear Effect, an action-survival horror cross breed that begs the question, how much money are Chinese schoolgirls really worth? Apparently a lot.

STORY
The story focuses on our three protagonists, Hana, Glas, and Deke. They're a couple of mercenaries with only one thing on their mind. Money. And lots of it. Their journey begins when they get a tip that a billionaire tycoon's daughter has run away from home. Of course rich people tend to reward others who help them in times of need....like say if they brought back their daughter and held her for ransom! Well that's what our anti-heroes are planning on doing. Unfortunately for them, finding the girl won't be easy. And trying to survive, well that's another thing altogether. I myself loved the presentation and storyline and would like to say that it's by far the best part about the game. Lots of jawdropping scenes complete with plot twists and eye candy for people who like to see ladies undressing. And who doesn't?

GRAPHICS
The graphics are very impressive and revolutionary for the Playstation One. Pretty much everything aside from the character you control and the enemies you kill, are all just FMV sequences. Every cutscene is an FMV. The backgrounds are living breathing FMVs, similar to the painting style locales in say Resident Evil. Either way, the FMVs take up a lot of content, which would explain why the game is 4 discs long and not even a 5 hour long game. And it looks great. The game is set in the future and right off the bat you'll notice an awesome neon lit Hong kong with tons of flying cars and other interesting stuff populating the world. And the characters are anime influenced, complete with a range of emotions not seen in most PS1 games. Oh and the game is very violent and gory, so this ain't for the kiddies. The best part is that for many of the chances where you die, they have an FMV cutscene to accompany it. The game looks amazing.

SOUND
The audio is a pretty average but acceptable take on action games nowadays. The voice acting, a little scratchy sometimes but overall all of it is top notch entertainment. Especially Deke, who they decided to make Australian. The music and stuff feature a range of songs from hard rock to horror movie music that fit the game perfectly. One thing that may bug you is the fact that like I mentioned earlier, the backgrounds are all FMVs. So the backgrounds tend to loop themselves and repeat over and over again. You'll be listening to the ambiance and everything, then it comes to a dead quiet and starts over again. Not a problem with me but I figured I had to mention that. I liked looking at the game, and I liked listening to it too.

GAMEPLAY
Looks great, but does the game have a good engine under the hood? I'd like to think so. The gameplay consists of running around and gunning down enemies, solving the occasional puzzle every now and then, and going through trial and error (guaranteed). It plays much like a Resident Evil game, except for the fact that you never fight humans with guns in those games. The controls are exactly the same as Resident Evil so it has that whole tank movement thing going on. Basically you hold left, the character rotates to the left. You push up, and the character moves forward. If you hate those controls then unfortunately maybe you should just stop reading this review. Me, I have no problem with it whatsoever.

I do have a problem with the way the inventory's set up though. They made it so that you have to push circle or triangle in order to cycle through all the weapons and items you own in the game. This gets really annoying when you're in the middle of a gunfight, because if you run out of bullets you don't just switch to your next loaded weapon. You have to cycle through and find a loaded one, and when you're in a hurry, and rushing, and about to die...you tend to push the wrong buttons and not pull out the gun, leading to your unfortunate death. And when you're fighting a room of 3 or so goons, that can get annoying really fast. And unlike a Resident Evil type game, many of these goons are not slow walking zombies you can see from a mile away. They are trigger happy gunmen just looking to escape that little boredom in their lives.

The health bar of your character is actually pretty unique. Again, this game is called Fear Effect. Now the main characters don't get scared much in the cutscenes so why the name? Well, their health bar is their heart rate. Basically in the top left corner of the screen you can see the heart rate lines bouncing around like on those hospital computer screens. And when you start getting shot, the heart rate gets really jumpy. Keep getting shot enough and those bouncing lines stop bouncing. In order to gain health you actually have to be smooth and calm about your battles. Going in guns ablazing will only hurt you. You need to sneak, get the drop on your enemies, solve puzzles without screwing up and do all kinds of stuff to make sure you're confident in your abilities. Only then will the health bar stay at a good level. And warning, if you save a game with low health...it will stay low health when you reload it.

How are the puzzles you need to solve? Very enjoyable actually. The one hint I shall give gamers out there is that you must PAY ATTENTION to your surroundings. The puzzles actually have the answers in the backgrounds themselves. Like the first puzzle you come across where you have to deactivate a bomb strapped to some poor guy's chest. The wires you need to cut? Who knows. But if you check the wall of the room before this one, you'll see a lighting board with the same colours for the wires. It's your solution. Always pay attention to the game. And don't worry not every puzzle is like the bomb one I mentioned. They vary in many ways and you will never be happier than when you solve them. Many times throughout the game you will find yourself dying a lot. Whether it be the puzzles or the enemies (and the game is a bit hard) you will find yourself dying a lot.

Make sure you have a PS1 memory card and that you save often, because when you die they boot you out of the level and force you to load everything all over again. It's not too long a load but when you constantly die again and again and again...it starts to get to you. The game is 4 discs. Sound long? You'd be wrong. The reality is that if you know the puzzles beforehand, where to go, and how to win...you could easily beat this game in about 2 or 3 hours. So it's not the longest game in the world, but it's a damn good time regardless. I really enjoyed Fear Effect. It's definitely not the greatest game I've ever played, but it does it's job well.

IN THE END...
I loved the story, I liked solving the puzzles, I had a blast watching those cutscenes...it was a pleasant game to play. It does have issues with control and the inventory system, but it's not enough trouble to take you out of the experience. If you can find it, get it. You won't be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/05/07