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Title: Cold Fear
Platform: Playstation 2 (also on xbox)
Publisher: Ubisoft
Difficulty: Medium
Review written by: Steph (Gamer122)
You stand at the wheel of your ship, keeping an eye out for the lost ship hidden in the storm. Rain droplets run down the windshield. The cool air from outside meets the warm air from inside at the window. Fog is created and runs up the glass, temporally blinding you. You pull down your jacket sleeve to your hand so that a small portion of it is over your palm. You wipe off the area of the glass right in front of your eyes just in to see a flash of lightning light up the night sky.
You see it there in the night, the vessel you were looking for. It sits alone in the night, trapped by the claws of a raging sea. Excitement fills you as you leave the safety of your cabin. You now try to hold your balance on the slippery deck of you tiny ship. You gaze up at your next challenge. The boat was said to be the resting place of restless souls. Fear rushes over you but not just any fear, but a Cold Fear…
Story line-
A Russian whaling ship has found itself in danger. An S.O.S signal is sent out and answer. However, the first wave of rescuers are brutally ripped to shreds by a mysterious creature. Those meaning a second wave is sent in. (This is where you come in…) You play as Tom Hansen. A buff, blonde tough guy from Unit 22. Most of his men are killed shortly after reaching the decks of the ship. Within the first five minutes of game time, you’ll hear their screams and cries as they are eaten.
You soon find a file explaining that the ship is housing mutated animals that have been infected with something. Dogs, apes, Orcas, and humans have been used in experiments. The creatures become restless and attack. The only way to kill them is to destroy the brain by a head shot or the creature would raise and attack again. (Sound familiar?)
Graphics-
The graphics aren’t anything special. The cut scenes are detailed to a point. The character animations are smooth and facial expressions are detailed. However, that doesn’t apply to the game itself. Once the cut scene ends, you discover that the game is far from being pretty.
The environments are dark in places but not everywhere. You just don’t get the survival horror feeling unless you’re in a room and the light bulb bursts leaving you alone in the dark with nothing but your gun and flashlight. Other than that, areas are just gritty in a bad way. They lack detail and texture. Objects aren’t detailed either. Most of the background objects (like barrels and crates) are in 2D.
Character animation is smooth. While running on the slippery deck, Tom will slid back and forth with easy. However, that’s the only good thing to say about the characters. They are blocky and stiff. There’s no hair movement nor clothing movement while they are running.
Sound-
The audio is the best part of the game. It ahs much more of a cinematic sound to it than an orchestra. The beats fast paced. However, it lacks the music of a survival horror title. Any horror fan will tell you that the sound is one of them most (if not the most) important element in a horror title. The music should give you a sense of dread and fear. It should pull out that fear deep within you. Make you disturbed and putting you on the edge of your seat or messing with your nerves. Sadly, Cold Fear lacks this. The music is more of an action game’s than a horror game’s. Fast and furious. Even though it doesn’t fit the mood, it’s still good and solid.
The sound effects are okay. Footsteps are quiet even on metal but at least you can hear the boat’s rusty sides creak as it rocks. The voice acting is decent enough that you won’t shove plugs into your eyes. The Russian accents are well done and true. If you have the subtitles on, you can read what they say in Russian. Thus allowing you to learn another language while playing. However, do keep in mind that Cold Fear is a M rated game…
Gameplay-
Ah…the gameplay. The part of the game that was the worst. Let’s begin with the camera. Think back to the time before Resident Evil 4. Remember those annoying camera angles that only allowed you to see a small part of the room? Well, they’re back. Cold Fear’s camera isn’t as bad as the one from the older RE games but it causes frustration. At least you can see where you’re going if you are in aiming mode. (Yes, you can move and shoot!) However, the controls feel awkward.
There’s only one control type. The D-pad is used for weapon short cuts. The left analog stick is used for walking and the right analog stick moves the camera around in the aiming mode. L3 makes the character crouch while R3 centers the camera in aiming mode. R1 shoots while R2 selects the weapon. L1 takes you into the aiming mode. L2... I believe selected the weapons as well. The X button is used the make your character run. The square button reloads your weapon either in aiming mode or while walking. The triangle button causes the character to hold onto the edge of the ship if he slips off or to grab near by items. The circle button is the action button which is used to pick up objects, open doors, and to grab files.
Speaking of picking items up…be prepared to do that a lot. Poor Tom’s back will be hurting half way through the game. You see, you’ll run into many locked doors that can only be opened with the key or code located on the other side of the ship. So not only will you be picking up almost everything in sight but you’ll also be back tracking through hallways and rooms over and over and over again. (We all love seeing the same room over and over again.)
Now let’s finish this up with the enemy A.I. They aren’t very smart. They might see you run down the hall but won’t begin to attack until you attack first or get close to them. Then when they do attack, it’s hard to kill them. You can fill them with lead but they will not die till you shoot them in the head. Meanwhile they are moving around while the boat moves too. The game feels unforgiving at times. You might find yourself surround and unable to attack because all the enemies are hitting you at once.
Innovation-
There’s almost nothing new here. The game offers no new approaches for the genre. Cold Fear feels like nothing but a RE rip off.
Replay Value-
Quite high. Even though Cold Fear isn’t the best game, it offers plenty of extras to unlock and a few difficulties to play on. There’s a total of four difficulties. Easy, normal, hard, and extremely hard which must be unlocked. You can also unlock art work for the game. There’s thirteen categories or groups to unlock. Each have somewhere from ten to twenty shots. You can unlock them by reaching certain places in the game and by finding certain items.
The Good-
If it’s one thing most gamers love…it’s gore and boy oh boy is Cold Fear full of it. Remember at the beginning when I said that enemies could only be killed by head shots? Well that means there will be plenty of exploding heads. The blood will fly up unto the screen and then trickle down.
The Bad-
Ubisoft decided that Cold Fear should be realistic. Since you’re on a boat during a sea storm…it rocks back and forth and goes up and down. This effect will give you a headache. It feels like you’re playing your favorite handheld game while riding in the back seat of a Blue Angel jet during an air show. You’ll get sea sick when you’re no where near water and get motion sickness when you’re on your couch! Make sure you play Cold Fear an hour after eating. This effect will not only make you sick till you get use to it, but it makes it very difficult to aim especially when you have to hit their heads.
Cold Fear is nothing new nor anything special. It’s just another survival horror title with some problems. It doesn’t feel very new nor fresh but it’s decent to a point. If you’re madly in love with the survival horror genre and you have a strong stomach, you might want to give this one a rent when you’re really bored or have grown bored with RE4 or Doom 3.
7.0 out of 10
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