“Fear”
Developer: Devin
Genre: Horror Adventure
Status: Complete
Length: 2 hours
Best Feature: Atmosphere
Worst Feature: Poor programming
Recommended: Yes

Horror with RM2K is probably one of the most difficult ventures, as commercial games, such as “Resident Evil” and “Silent Hill” rely heavily on the visuals to establish an atmosphere of terror. “Fear”, by Devin, attempts to capture the element of horro despite RM2K’s graphical limitations and indeed meets with some success. However, while this game is probably the superlative competitor in the small market of RM2K horror, its faults and flaws keep it from being a standout game.

STORY: 10/20
The story starts out in the prosaic fashion of a group of college students, Nicole, Lillian and Sean, going on the type of spring break holiday that usually ends up getting kids slashed into pieces in every other movie. On the drive to wherever they’re going, they swerve to miss a mysterious pedestrian on the road and end up marooned in an abandoned, fog-covered town of horror, Woodford. The player takes control of Nicole as she unravels the mystery of the town in a Silent Hill manner. Despite it’s rather cliché beginning, the story does pick up, as the player delves into Woodford’s history and the reason behind its sinister manner. However, instead of taking a more innovative road, the story devolves from interesting mind games and haunting atmosphere into cookie-cutter horror involving a demon by the name of Höllemon- As “Hölle” is the German word for hell, I’m led to believe that we’re dealing with a satanic Pokemon of sorts. Worst of all is the story’s end, the reasoning of which comes from nowhere and doesn’t satisfy, but rather beats a dead horse. Overall, the plot to “Fear” is mostly a heavily simplified “Silent Hill” for those who didn’t quite get the idea behind “Silent Hill” to begin with. Sadly, the final boss summarizes the entirety of the motivation behind the plot with less than one dialogue box.

CHARACTERS: 8/15
The game only has about eight characters, which is fine for horror. The only character who we really get feel for is Nicole, as she is the main character, and not much of feel, at that. For a story based around Nicole’s inner-demons, we don’t learn much more about her other than her name. The other characters are cliché horror movie characters for the most part, but serve their purpose effectively.

POLITICS: N/A

MUSIC AND SOUND: 5/10
The entirety of the games soundtrack has been taken from “Resident Evil”, which helps confine the title as a RE/SH clone. A few tracks from “Silent Hill” are used too, but for inappropriate scenes. Fighting Höllemon to lounge music didn’t help the scene any. On the upside, the game utilizes sound effects quite well, which contributes very nicely to the atmosphere.

GRAPHICS: 6/8
To the best of my knowledge, most of the work in “Fear” is original, which adds a nice touch. The graphics can’t set the same atmosphere as rendered CG, but they do their damndest with what they have. Also, the entirety of Woodford is fog-covered, for nice effect (With no slow down, I might add). My only qualm is with character sets, which aren’t done anywhere near as nicely as the chipsets, which makes their already cartoonish appearance stand out even more. Overall, nice work, however.

SYSTEMS: 4/9
The game’s biggest feature is the ABS, which is poorly programmed- Monsters will do damage while running away, half of the weapons don’t even seem to work, and the main character can’t interact with ANYTHING without attacking it with her weapon at the same time, which gets on your nerves fairly quickly. Also, every single monster in the game will turn and flee after being hit, making the most effective strategy to hit them once and chase them into a corner and slaughter them, which is very unexciting. There are menus, but they are all chipset based, which is especially problematic for this game, as returning to game resets the monster in their starting positions. Seeing how the game relies so heavily on these custom implements, I think it would have been in the best interest of the developer to put a lot more work into this category.

GAMEPLAY: 10/15
Overall, the gameplay is pretty solid if you can get past the slapdash battle system. The game features a good number of puzzles, which heighten the element of unrest. Nicole moves regrettably slow, even in situations where running would be the appropriate course of action. Likewise, there really isn’t anything new or interesting that “Fear” brings to the table, making for a fairly forgettable gaming experience, however solid. Atmosphere wise, however, the game does a surprisingly good job of setting the mood of terror, and while it doesn’t achieve it like commercial products it strives to emulates, there is a good fright to be had here and there, which is commendable.

(SUB-CATEGORY: DIFFICULTY: 2/5
The game would be infinitely easier if the battle system worked better. Since it doesn’t, you die a few times from glitchy gameplay alone. Also, the Hotel Boss is almost impossible to defeat, as he damages you without even being nearby. Another problem is that the puzzles are a little too hard, in that many of them require interacting with items that don’t readily come to mind, as well as being able to spot tiny, obscure items in out of the way places. Overall, the difficulty could use more user-friendly considerations.

(SUB-CATEGORY: FUN: 2/5
“Fear” is fun and at some points, even eerie, but it doesn’t hit either of those adjectives to any extremes. Frankly, there just isn’t enough intrigue to make you say “What’s going on here?”, which is a big part of the fun in survival horror games.

OVERALL: 47/87 (54%):
While not a winner in every aspect, “Fear” has its charm, and is a worthy play for fans of games like “Resident Evil” and “Silent Hill”, but on an overall scale, it won’t be remembered for much, if anything. For commercial horror games, it’s recommended you play them in the dark, alone for maximum effect (heart attack), but for “Fear”, playing in the dark at least gets you in the mood.