We previewed it, we thought it might have some potential, and we’re happy to say, Cold Fear delivered on most of its promise.
Cold Fear starts with a military strike on a Russian Whaler that ends with everybody dead and body parts scattered everywhere. The military clearly can’t handle the problem, so you (Tom Hansen of the American Coast Guard) will be sent in to investigate. Tom will be alone on a ship, out at sea, in the middle of a vicious storm battling everything around him (and we don’t just mean evil creatures either).
The ship itself is a potential death trap if you don’t watch out, and most of Cold Fear’s uniqueness comes from everything associated with the decision to put you on that doomed vessel. The puzzles and scare tactics might as well be lifted from any other game in this genre, but what is different (and there’s plenty) flows from the crippled Russian Whaler in some way.
Full marks to go to developer Darkworks for introducing something fresh into the survival horror genre. Where they could have gotten lazy and simply rehashed elements of genre kings Resident Evil, and Silent Hill, they chose to at least take gamers to a new setting.
When you start the game on the boat the rain is going to be whipping in your face; the waves are going to be slamming against the ship, and you’ll be focused on battling the elements before you even get a chance to put a bullet into anything. The waves, the rain, the wind: they all have an affect on anything that isn’t tied down on the Russian Whaler. You’re just as likely to die from an evil presence as you are from a swinging hook. You might even find yourself swept right off the boat if you happen to be standing near an exposed area of the ship as a wave crashes down on it.
Although it’s not an advisable thing to do (for your health), you might want to stop and admire the visuals of Cold Fear while you’re on the deck of the ship. The game is visually stunning; not because the characters sport an obscene polygon count, but because you truly get a sense (through the visuals) of what it would be like to be on that ship yourself.
There is a sense of fear instilled in you right from the get-go before you even see a single creature. There is good reason for this; developer Darkworks took a fairly inventive approach to the evil spawn (known as Exocels) prowling around in Cold Fear: unlike virtually every other game in the genre, you won’t be seeing them right away. The “big reveal” takes awhile, and because it takes some time to finally happen you’ll be fearing virtually everything that goes bump in the night. It’s pretty nerve racking entering a room that’s completely dark, when you haven’t seen anything walking around with the need to take a bite out of you, and your only source of visibility is a handy flashlight you carry around.
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The eventual difficulty of the game also adds to the tension. The true enemies you’ll have to face will only die after you’ve put a bullet in their heads. You can choose to shoot them as many times as you’d like in the body, but they’ll just keep getting up, and you’ll just keep wasting ammo.
Cold Fear (despite what it does do differently) isn’t gaming perfection. Because so much of the gameplay will feel borrowed from other franchises, you could get a little disinterested after playing awhile. The audio portion of the game could have been a little better as well – the voice acting definitely is not up to the standards set forth by the visuals.
Cold Fear’s "must-own" status will depend entirely on which platform you’ll be playing it on. If Xbox is your console of choice, definitely pick up Cold Fear -- it’s the best the genre has to offer you. If you're going the PC route, it'll all depend on whether this is a genre you like. And if Playstation 2 is your hardware of choice, you’ll have to choose between playing this game now or waiting around for the "title you should be playing" in 8 months.
Regardless of which console you own, one thing is for sure: the open sea has never looked so scary.
