ic-games Review - Cold Fear - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Cold Fear - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Cold Fear

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Darkworks
Publisher: Ubisoft
Reviewed: Xbox
Genre: Survival Horror
UK Release: 05th Mar 2005
Article Date: 02nd Mar 2005
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: £39.99
Price Comparison:
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Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 85%

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Pros

Groundbreaking enviroments

Adds some unique features

Cons

Uninspiring puzzles

Control System

Short

Screenshots

38 of 38

Survival-Horrors, if they are good for anything it’s that they give us journalists the opportunity to use grown up words like plethora and abundance during the introduction. To be fair though, it’s true. Almost every single console has been fed on a staple diet of Resident Evil and its ever increasing carbon copy wannabies. Cold fear (The first action-horror title under the Ubisoft brand, and developed by Darkworks) certainly does want to be different, and from the moment you set foot on ‘that ship’ you may just think they have pulled it off. Cold fear looks every bit as good as they’d have us believe.

Cold Fear is actually set amongst a pretty decent story. In 2002, a new drilling platform Star of Sakhalin was built in the Bering Sea. However for some reason it only produced oil for a very short time. Shortly after it ceased production, the CIA noticed suspect activities onboard. The personnel changed, new equipment was installed and strange structures built. Special Agent Bennet was particularly interested by a whaler that regularly docked at the rig and seemed to be loading and offloading suspicious items.

When the game begins, the whaler has been sighted drifting aimlessly in US waters off Alaska. This is the opportunity that SA Bennet had hopped for and he decides to make the call. You play the lead character, Tom Hansen from the US Coast Guard, and you have just received this call to board the ship and investigate. However a violent storm is waging, making the boarding extremely hazardous. Eventually the team board and splits for inspection, you however investigate on your own, assigned to check out the starboard side of the main deck. For a while, everything seems normal. But suddenly the screaming starts. Something is taking the rest of the boarding party out. To begin with you see nothing, but you can hear everything. You rush toward the front of the ship, looking to help your team, but you’re the only one left alive. It’s now up to you to help uncover what happened to the whaler, and eventually the mysterious Russian Oil Rig itself, the Star of Sakhalin. During these missions you will be fighting solo but will recive help from other people from time to time.

The graphics are certainly polished, but what really impressed us straight away was how Cold Fear makes the player feel (and think) about their environment. The actual experience of walking around on an abandoned ship out at sea has been transferred almost flawlessly into the gameworld. The duel roll technology is superb and it’s not just cheap camera trickery either, for example on the ship you’ll feel the boat being forced up as large waves hit, you’ll also experience the movement (and shake) as the ship comes crashing down again. In short, if you suffer from serious seasickness perhaps Cold Fear isn’t the game for you. The weather effects also work particularly well, especially considering your surrounds, and it’s in these areas that Cold Fear shines though as a stella title. For one, we certainly haven’t encountered a graphics engine portray an environment as realistically as this. Obviously rocking boats, crashing waves and rain are bad combinations and it’s actually possible to find yourself going overboard if you fail to watch your step. That’s right, a graphics engine that can virtually knock you off your feet! The level of abandonment and isolation has also been portrayed quite successfully and at times puts even the superlative Resident Evil to shame.

Character models are pretty decent, especially up close and coupled with the almost titan like graphic engine it’s safe to say things look pretty realistic. You’ll normally find yourself playing in third person perspective and because of this; even more effects can be thrown into the realism pot. Rain will splatter against the screen, and so will blood if you get a little too close to the action. Dispatch someone outside and the blood will smear the screen and then get washed away by the rain – someone somewhere at Ubisoft is a sick little puppy and we love them for it. Because of this, and many other reasons, Cold Fear will certainly not be picking up any awards from the Daily Mail for its use of gratuitous violence. Blood will literally be covering the environment at times. As we mentioned earlier, zombie like creatures have taken over a ship and it’s your job to write them a ticket back to hell. When you first get acquainted with the zombies in Cold Fear you’ll do what any decent person would do and take them down. However depending on how accurate your shot was you could find the little critter getting back on his feet and walk towards you again. You soon realise that the only way to finish then off is to completely decimate their heads. You can do this with a clean head shot – the serious gamers method of choice, or shoot them anywhere but the head, knock them off their feet and crush their heads with your shoes. Seriously, I am not making this shit up! Whatever style you eventually adopt, one thing will still be guaranteed; the end result will be pretty gruesome.

Voice acting does slightly let the side down and doesn’t seem to be able to match the overall presentation of an otherwise impressive setting. It’s not horrendous but it does seem out of place when you appreciate the amount of work lavished onto the environments. Sound effects get the job done, and the odd scream or moan emitting from a room does build up the right amount of suspense.

With this being a survival horror you can expect to come across a few puzzles on your travels. Early on we encountered an unhealthy amount of locked or jammed doors which constantly blocked our progress and this didn’t help to keep us motivated. Persevere though and slowly but surely things being do begin to open up. The actual puzzles are pretty standard to begin with and consist of the usual ‘find the key’ or ‘overcome this obstacle’ however, later on though things do begin to get slightly more complicated.

The control system does take a little time to get accustomed to. Movement is normally in third person unless you decide to drop into sniper mode. In the third person mode the right analogue stick serves no purpose and you can often find yourself fighting with the camera as you desperately try to see what’s around the next corner. Dropping back into sniper mode alleviates most of these problems, as during this mode you have the ability to manoeuvre the camera. It’s just a shame that some level of control wasn’t also lavished onto the other view.

Cold fear has everything in place to become a successful game, it has an abundance of gore, genuinely scary moments and its set amongst a sure fire winning formula of flesh eating zombies on an extremely rocky boat. Cold fear is certainly trying to break the mould and it should be applauded for its efforts. Some may view the graphical effects as nothing more than a lavish gimmick, but for us, Cold Fear has something special going for it. Not quite the classic we may have hoped for but still a thrilling ride nevertheless.

PEGI Rating

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