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SHEPPARD’S
VIDEO-GAME PIE
By Stephen Lea Sheppard
Photo by Dan Siney
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| F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. Click to enlarge. |
SHOOTER SEQUEL SHOOT-OUT: F.E.A.R. 2 VS. KILLZONE 2
A short time ago, I noticed something odd: Many reviews of
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin seemed to boil down to “It’s a great shooter but not much more,” while many reviews of
Killzone 2 said, “It’s not much more than a shooter, but it’s a great one!” The former is collecting middling review scores; the latter, high ones—at least by the standards of review scores, where six is now abject failure and by extension seven is barely playable.
Now that, I thought to myself,
is interesting. I should note this occurred to me before I’d played either game. I honestly had no answer in mind when the question struck me—is
Killzone 2 really a better just-plain-shooter than
F.E.A.R. 2, or is the reception difference a function of external factors?
Investigating this more closely, I came upon a tangential and altogether more interesting issue: While I wasn’t paying attention, the single-player first-person shooter seems to have split into two distinct genres. I blame
Saving Private Ryan. But before I get into that, let’s look at the two games under discussion.
Both
F.E.A.R. 2 and
Killzone 2 are the newest of first-person shooters. Graphics-wise, both are very good-looking, using head bob, motion blur, limited anti-aliasing, and a variety of graphic filters to supplement the normal array of detailed models, textures, et al.
F.E.A.R. 2 can’t really compete with
Killzone 2 in graphics, because
Killzone 2 has some of the prettiest, most detailed visuals I’ve ever seen in a video game, an order of magnitude beyond what’s come before, but if I hadn’t just played
Killzone 2 I’d be prepared to call
F.E.A.R. 2 the most attractive FPS of this generation. If
F.E.A.R. 2 has a visual failing, it’s the way it follows the
Halo model of rendering human skin like shiny plastic, so all the characters without face-concealing helmets look like Barbie or Ken.
Killzone 2 doesn’t do that—it may not be photorealistic, but at least it has virtual people and not virtual dolls.
Killzone 2 is a flagship, exclusive product for the PlayStation 3. Sony couldn’t afford another embarrassment after the debacle of the first
Killzone, which was sold as a “
Halo-killer” and allegedly sucked ass.
F.E.A.R. 2 isn’t a flagship anything; it’s available on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Moreover, the first
F.E.A.R. was a critical and commercial success, so everyone will judge the sequel against its predecessor. (
F.E.A.R. was actually the first Xbox 360 game I ever played, and one of the last games ever to scare me before I completely desensitized myself to horror games in the name of finishing
Resident Evil 4.) Critics have motive to look for
Killzone 2’s positive qualities—and not just PS3 fans. Of course PS3 fans want to love it and Xbox 360 fans want to dismiss it, but people who hate mindless fanboyism have to give it a fair shake lest they feel like pro–Xbox 360 partisans themselves. Nobody has that sort of ulterior motive evaluating
F.E.A.R. 2… except, awkwardly enough, me writing this column, because pitting a huge blockbuster against a mediocre performer I have motive not to end it on an anticlimactic “Yeah, turns out the review scores are right!” note. Urgh. Stupid unavoidable conflict of interest!
F.E.A.R. 2’s multiplayer is functional but unambitious. The maps are small, the modes are few, and it feels perfunctory. It’s just one multiplayer FPS among many and it probably won’t ever develop much in the way of a devoted community.
Killzone 2’s multiplayer, on the other hand, is ambitious, seeks primacy among PS3 FPS multiplayer in the same way
Halo 3 dominates Xbox 360 FPS multiplayer, and at the moment is
broken. It’s based on earning points to unlock new classes, each of which has two special abilities, and you’ll need to play for a long time to see all of it—but it’s unstable, and a crash can lose you the points you should have earned for a match. It’s not designed very well for social gaming—it can be difficult to situate yourself on the same team as a friend you want to play with. It needs work. Perhaps with some patching it could be all it promises to be, but for now its reach exceeds its grasp.
F.E.A.R. 2 has sharper controls. It’s easier to hit targets in
F.E.A.R. 2, and not just because there’s a slow-motion gimmick. But
Killzone 2’s controls feel heavier, and its guns more weighty. Things feel more solid and real. The quality of a fake thing appearing real is called verisimilitude, by the way, and “verisimilitude” is one of my favorite words when discussing game design. One can make a solid argument that asking for realism in games or any type of fiction is ridiculous, because fiction is not real. But asking for verisimilitude is entirely reasonable.
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