Wednesday 13 August 2014

Cold Fear

Here's a game that's certainly very underrated, and for no good reason, as far as I can discern. This was definitely one of the favourites of my mid-teens.

As Tom Hansen, US Coast Guard, you find yourself called to the distressed Дух Востока, the spirit of the east, a Russian whaling ship. The intriguing opening sequence of the game shows CIA soldiers meeting an untimely demise.

You'll quickly discover the cause of the problem to be Exomutants, infected by Exocells. The glowing-eyed, menacing former humans on the boat will dash towards you faster than a lightning strike. You need to get into the habit of aiming for heads, early on.
The human enemies however, are just as much of a pain, although you'd think that since you were shooting monsters for them a second earlier, they wouldn't spin around and turn their guns on you.

Yes, Cold Fear is predictable survival horror, but in an enjoyable way. Light bulbs blow and flashes of lightning glow through the windows at exactly the right moments to both unnerve and thrill you.

The two settings of the game, are a Russian whaler and a Russian-run oil rig, the Star of Sakhalin. This makes for plenty of Russian signage. But don't panic, Tom totally took Russian at school and will translate the sign if you aim a gun's laser sight at it. If you do read Cyrillic however, this game can be a useful learning experience, teaching you words that you might not otherwise come across.

Оружейная (oroozheinaya), for example, is armoury, and you'll want to be on the lookout for that one.
Медпункт (medpoonkt) is medical room, something else you'll undoubtedly need to make use of.


The game has its issues, and there's no denying that. The biggest problem I had on this nostalgic play-through, was a glitch concerning the antidote later in the game. I picked it up from the table. The objectives menu changed accordingly. I had it in my possession. But then I just made no progress. I looped every area several times, and nothing new was triggering in the gameplay. I even resorted to looking at YouTube to see what I was missing. I was rather alarmed to see that everyone else was experiencing totally different events to me.

Eventually, I noticed the problem. The antidote was still on the table. And yet, in my possession. So, I picked it up for the second time, and then the necessary events were triggered.

On-screen error caused by interruption of a cut scene event by a previously-fired grenade exploding behind the enemy.

Glitches aside, some of the intentional features of the game can be a thorn in your side. You don't actually carry medipacks, but instead use them instantly as and when you come across them. This is obviously problematic during a big fight.
It's very easy to run out of ammunition for all of your weapons. You have to loot the bodies of Exomutants for some, but they fade after being separated from their brain matter, so you've got to be quick about it.

It's easy to become overwhelmed in Cold Fear. Before you know it, you've got Exomutants on all sides, Exocells at your feet and healthy humans being idiots with their bullets in your direction. The important thing, it turns out, is to remain calm, not to shriek at the television like I did.

Rapid firing in all directions isn't a good idea. You need to pick one Exomutant at a time, and if you can't be neat about headshots, shoot their middle until they fall backwards, and then stamp on their heads. Later on though, the little Exocells do come out and cause trouble of their own, when you do that.
Don't forget to make use of the environment around you; inconspicuous barrels, fire extinguishers, pipe valves and electrical boxes, especially when dipping into water, can all help you take out a few mutants.

Oh dear.
Unfortunately, you can't save at will, which I certainly did not appreciate when running around for hours during the antidote glitch. You will only be asked to save when going through doorways, before something big is about to happen.
The save menu itself is slightly odd, in that I had to push down ridiculously hard on my controller buttons in order to merit any response.
The opportunities to save the game really should have been more frequent, especially towards the end.

So aside from the glitches, ammo issues, lack of carried medikits and the saving situation, I also have to question an aspect of the environment design; why on earth are experiments in freezer pods lining the corridors? Who thought that was a good idea? Does that not violate some sort of laboratory safety policy? It certainly makes getting around a pain in the bum (because those experiments break out and jump on you).



The musical score of the game did not seem all that varied, but it was nice to hear more mellow versions of the main theme in the background on occasion. There's also a Marilyn Manson song during the credits.


Honestly, the game's front cover pretty much encompasses the whole gameplay experience. There's also some absolutely cracking art on the bonus menu.

It's quite short as games go, and you could probably complete it all in one day or night with some some friends, if you have a vague idea of what you're doing. I may have only done so well because I remembered a lot of things.


So, Cold Fear has problems, and can certainly be very frustrating in places, but I really like it, and you might too.


Cold Fear on Steam, £6.99



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