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Resident Evil at Sea!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 27 / 29
Date: April 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Cold Fear has been touted as the PS2's "filler" until the arrival of Resident Evil 4, but is it worth playing? Well, it is, but it's not always fun.
Cold Fear is basically "Resident Evil" set on a boat, with a sprinkling of "The Thing". You play as lifeguard Tom Hanson, who boards the ship after a mysterious disaster has befallen the crew, only to find the place overrun with mutated victims and weird creatures. It has great graphics and boasts a range of cool weapons and monsters, but there are some drawbacks, which I will get to shortly.

When I picked up a copy of this game I was intrigued by the idea of being on a storm lashed boat, and this aspect has certainly been well implemented. The stormy weather and raging sea effects look brilliant, and you can almost feel the wind throwing you off your feet as the boat rocks widly from side to side. Each time you are out on an open deck, this game really shines, and you'll need to be very careful not to get knocked off your feet, or worse still, overboard! As for action below deck, you'll still find that the scenery tilts constantly from side to side, although to a far lesser degree, so you'll never forget you are on a boat. The scenery of the whaler itself looks pretty realistic, which unfortunately makes for rather ugly backgrounds, as there is no let up from grimy cabins and corridors, with metal rivetts and girders everywhere. The action takes place in third person view from fixed viewpoints, but you can switch to an over the shoulder perspective at any time, which makes manouvering around far easier, as well as combat (you can engage in combat in the third person view if you want to, but I never did). This shoulder viewpoint (as in RE4) is one of the best aspects of the game, and you'll be switching to it frequently, especially when entering a new room, as you'll more than likely want to put Tom into a ready position for any enemies that may be leaping out at you. And they really do come at you in this game, the human "zombies" (not really zombies, but you can play the game to find out what they are) are not shuffling moaners, but aggressive foes that can run headlong towards you waving hatchets and knives! You'll need great reflexes to come through unscathed, as aiming has to be done manually, and only a headshot will put these guys down for good. Plus, remember that the boat is constantly rocking... It's tough, but also a great challenge for gamers who want to feel that they are actually able to use some skill in defeating foes, rather than be hand-held by the auto-aim of other games.

There are also other enemies of various shape and form, plus some unfriendly human opponents who all train their guns on you, so there's plenty to look out for. Luckily you'll find an impressive arsenal of weapons (although once I had the shotgun, I didn't want to use anything else!), and there are plenty of interactive objects in the environment that you can use to your advantage like fire extinguishers, steam valves and oil barrels which cause damage to any nearby enemies when shot. So combat is varied and challenging, and yes it's also fairly hard, especially in some rooms that are chock-full 'o monsters (remembering the rig showers - shudder). This wouldn't be so bad if you could use a healing item if things got tough - but you can't. In a warped change from the norm, healing items can't be picked up and carried around for use when needed - if you come across one on a shelf or bench, you either have to use it right there and then, or leave it where it is. Which is really mean. You might come across one when you don't need it, so you just leave it, and later, when you are limpingly close to death, you'll have to make it all the way back to where it sits to actually heal yourself. I can't really understand this idea - if Tom can carry around 10 heavy dury firearms, surely he can slip the odd medical kit in a pocket somewhere. Right that's my first complaint, might as well offload all the others while I'm at it....next comes loading.

Loading, loading, loading. You'd think in 2005 games could have this minimised this a bit, but not this one. Most opening of doors or re-starting from a save will frustrate you with an excrutiating amount of dead time, which really kills the atmosphere. If you feel your progress is going badly and wish to re-start from your last save, the process to actually do it is soooo slow. Booting the game up from scratch also takes a fair old time, and you can almost feel the disc straining to keep up with your impatient fingers (even the intro music judders and skips on my PS2 during opening loading selections!). So that may destroy the experience for an impatient gamer - be warned. Also at fault is the save system. You can't save at specific locations or anywhere or anytime, but only when you are told to. All saving is done at checkpoints which just crop up arbitrarily after certain objectives are reached. It's not really fair, as you may wish to backtrack first to mop up extra ammo or pick up items if you know where the save point is, but they come without warning, and if you say no to saving when prompted, that's it - you don't get asked a second time, and you have to carry on unsaved until the next one. Mean! It makes the game unnecessarily harder still, and on a few occasions I felt like discarding the whole thing. But I didn't, and even though at times the progress was gruelling, I felt a certain relief in arriving at save points with full clips of bullets and full health and sometimes, I even predicted them and prepared myself (eventually you can kind of pre guess when a save is likely to be coming up - usually when you leave a room after an important event - but it takes a lot of practise, and thats not really where you should be concentrating your efforts during a game!).

So those are the drawbacks I would bear in mind if you like the look of this game. It's a shame, because it's otherwise an effective and slickly produced horror adventure. However it's not that long and has no puzzles and only two locations - the ship and an offshore rig - which don't make for attractive scenery. Plus - there's no map!! You get a serviceable layout of the ship in the manual, so don't lose this, but there's nothing at all for the rig, and I got lost loads of times. The general story and mode of play are also nothing new - survival horror veterans will have seen it all before. The treacherous sea-bound locations are the novelty here, and they just about make up for the other shortcomings. I never tired of those crashing waves and driving rain - but this may not be enough to make you forget the faults that lie elsewhere.

A pretty intense & freaky game that has a low price tag

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

One dark & stormy night, a mysterious and seemingly abandonded Russian frigate sends out a distress signal from the middle of the ocean and is picked up by the US Coast Guard. You play as Tom Hansen, a very sarcastic and colorful member of the Coast Guard, and you with some teammates go in to investigate. You & your squad seperate, but over your COM headset you hear your team being slaughtered. Eventually you uncover what killed them - an inhumane & unethical experiment gone wrong that has taken over the ship. You must now fight for survival, but to stop the spread of this... thing... at the core of it's creation.

Although most of the game & story is on the ship, dont think this is the only place you will be fighting on. You'll wind up on an oil rig where the entire story comes together.

Cold Fear utilizes a lot of the same game play mechanics that Resident Evil 4 used. You collect a small armory of weapons including a flame thrower, shotgun, MP5, etc. The aiming is works with the camera allowing you to see over your shoulder, so you can have the full effect on the aim. Although there is no jumping, you can run - and oh boy will you be running.

What seperates Cold Fear from Capcom's top selling game is that Cold Fear has a lot of enviromental hazards. Since you are on a ship in a very bad storm, the boat rocks which makes aiming hard. And adding to the whole ship rocking thing, waves can hit the boat and in turn hit you which will hurt you over even knock you off the frigate. On the oil rig you must watch for trip lasers, explosive barrels, and since it IS an oil rig - falling off the edge and into a watery grave.

There are a lot of enemies to fight ranging from armed paranoid Russians, Mutants/Zombies, parasites, and these monsters with big arms. There are more, but I don't want to really ruin it too much for you.

The music is pretty good, I mean it builds tension in dark hallways, adds suspense & helps pump the blood in intense battles, etc. For the most part the sound effects are good, like the zombies and stuff screaming and whatever, but the gun shots for the handgun sounds SOOO weak... but it's just the handgun so I guess I can overlook it. The voice acting is good, whoever played Hansen did a great job adding some personality to his character.

I hate to admit, but the graphics feel pretty outdated. Some things are blocky, others are grainy...the cutscenes don't look much better. What IS good is the fact that the stages are really big and interactive, and the character models look cool - both human and monster, but more on the monster side.

Having said that, I will add that although I had a great time playing it I think the game was FAR too short and pretty easy for the most part. The hardest thing was learning your way around the ship & rig. What really ticked me off was you could save only after you have done a certain amount of things to progress the storyline, and on top of that, the ending was...very....VERY! weak and I felt a bit ripped off.

Even with it's problems however, Cold Fear provided me with a lot of fun and quite a few scares, not to mention a nice low price tag. I suggest if you want some thrills with easy gaming then go for this title.

Spooky game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Fun game overall. Save points are kind of weird but do not detract from gameplay. Interesting setting with lots of atmosphere and enough claustrophobia to make one antsy just watching someone else play. I recommend giving it a try... especially if you can find it for $20 or less.

Underrated

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I don't see why this game got bad reviews. To me it's great, except for its short length, the absence of interesting unlockables and the very quick ending after the final fight. Also the game involves quite a bit of backtracking.

But the atmosphere, action and ZOMBIES!! are top-notch. A few trigger-happy Russians are also added in the mix to spice things up. How can you go wrong when you can make zombie BBQ with your flamethrower, or simply blow their heads clean off with your shotgun, and then watch their headless bodies still trying to hit you with their meat cleaver?? The weapons really pack a punch! The graphics and sound are great. You character is easy to control, not the crazy controls of RE4 (see note below). Also the game is very balanced, if you are a decent gamer, you should not get frustrated,unless you get lost, which can happen (there is no map), but in this case the net can provide all the directions you need. Finally, you can choose the language in which you want to play, which is a nice touch!

p.s. I haven't play RE4 except for one or two levels. The controls are so stupid in that game I can't believe it. Aiming with left analog stick? Be rooted in the ground whenever you draw your gun? Be asked "Do you want the ammo?" whenever you find ammo? No thanks, I'm in a woods full of zombies, why should I need ammo? How lame!

Not sure what all the complaints are about

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I read some of the negative reviews, but decided to get the game anyway. I like the genre, so I thought I would give it a play. I agree with some of the negatives (I would love to have been able to carry health packs and I wish I had known about the head stomp move earlier on in the game to save some ammo) but overall I thought it was a great game. The lack of an automap was hard at times, but really tested my memory (which I thought was a plus not a minus in game play). I LOVED the levels outside on the decks. Having to account for weather, boat pitch and swinging objects again added to the game play. I found this game to be very well done and the CHALLENGE was to actually have to use your brain more on rationing supplies, remembering locations and trying to keep your balance and gun aimed while on a rolling deck.

Cold Fear

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: March 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Very good game, a fun survival horror game, great price, and well packaged.

A crappy resident evil 4 clone

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 21
Date: August 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Well let me tell you i hate GTA clones like Roadkill. Now its the freakin popular Resident Evil 4 to get cloned. Sure the graphics are pretty look at, but it's just plain sucky. And if they're gonna clone RE4, at least stick witha 3rd person camera instead of bad loading times and original Resident Evil cameras.
Plus when you get grabbed by the zombies, it looks like Tom and the zombies are g@! people. Plus they must have a hate for bald pale guys. There are some scary moments in the game. But it's just a bad clone of a much better game.
2 out of 5

Zero STARS

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 10
Date: March 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I would give this game ZERO Stars if possible. The view angle sucks in this game. I am not a huge in the whole game and gamer world, however, after playing good games, i see the light, this one sucks, really sucks.

It is good, fun but not perfect (expected)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a big fan of survival horror games and have played pretty much most of them.

Cold Fear is a very good game, it is fun, scary at times but also frustrating at others but I have not played one that was not frustrating at one time or another (yep, all RE, Fatal Frame, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Siren, etc have provided some frustrating moments). Still, isn't a bit of frustration also good for this kind of games, I do think so, why not? after all, you are playing a survival horror title where suspense, un-easiness, frustration, tension, etc, make it a better experience.

The controls are not the best but not the worst. Yes the game has no map and that was the main reason for frustration but you get used to after a while and learn to be more aware of the places you go, so after all, it is not that bad. Graphics and atmosphere are good. I cannot comment on sound cause I played it at EA during breaks while developing other video games and, event though you are allowed to do this (I mean play other video games while at work), I could not crank up the volume to really enjoy it so I decided to play it in complete silence.

Unfortunately the game was a bit short now that I think of it thought I didn't notice when I played it because I did over at least 3 weeks (did I mentioned I was at work?).

I gave it 4 stars cause it actually was fun for me. I was definitely not expecting to find the best survival horror game or a quantum leap in concept so I could not be very picky to start with.

If you are a fan of these type of games I definitely recomend it. Just don't expect to find the holly grail and take it for what it is: another fun game.

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