#First encounter assault recon

[murphychips]

idr if i mentioned it here, but for the past few months i've been kicking about an idea for a F.E.A.R 4 (or F.E.4.R, if you will,) plotline, which since it's never going to happen i may as well make up a whole Thing! this is ezra, the baby alma has at the end of F.E.A.R 3, around 20 years old and realising WOW is her family FUCKED UP.

the plot(tm) under cut

okay so. alma has the apocalypse baby. point man whisks her away. he decides telling F.E.A.R that hey btw i failed to stop the apocalype baby being born is Bad idea, so he absconds with the kid and goes no contact. he moves from place to place with her because he's scared ARMACHAM may still have people out there looking for a new experiment to recoup the costs of a small multi-billion dollar lawsuit. no biggie. as she gets older he trains her in self-defence Just In Case but ideally it will never come to pass that she needs it :)

as ezra grows up, she proves a SUPER potent successor to alma, and point man tries to drive it home that she Should Not Use That Because People Will Torture You, Forever, If They Find Out. trouble is... ezra sees a lot of visions of alma as she grows up (since alma is Mostly Sort Of Really Dead now, this is more like a psychic ghost type deal). alma really wants ezra to use her powers and get good with them, and is willing to go to some pretty mean lengths to make it happen. thanks mom. 10/10.

so ezra's life is going from place to place, having a thousand fake identities, having the strangest relationship with her brother and mother, and also having constant nightmares of Some Guy chasing her down and trying to kill her who may or may not be a ghost of Beckett! YIPPEE.

ultimately, when she's like 20, ezra is too compelled to check out the ruins of fairport where the cultists have formed a sort of religious citystate, and she's captured by mercs from another company who have hired genevive aristide--who survived F.E.A.R 2--as a sort of advisor to their new weapons division which requires (you have one guess) A NEW PSYCHIC PERSON TO EXPERIMENT ON!!! CAPITALISM NEVER LEARNS,

ezra: captured. point man: losing his gourd. alma: begging ezra to kill them. paid goons: have no idea what kind of storm is coming. ezra ends up accidentally-on purpose making all the cultists SWARM the place like Bugs and kill basically everyone but ezra, but before she can really leave F.E.A.R drops in and is like. hang on aren't you supposed to be dead. point man shows up, nervously laughs, and then they all agree that right now given there's some Horseshit happening, they should probably have ezra become a part of F.E.A.R so they can a) help stop this and b) at least have some kind of entourage for when they next run off. lol.

from there it would all be about ezra helping to stop this new company from doing insane unethical things, and the game itself would have you choose between ezra rejecting her powers to keep herself safe OR leaning into the powers she has and becoming stronger but also more fucked up. also the player gets to muse over whether alma is using ezra for her own unfinished ends or if she actually has ezra's best interests at heart.

given ezra IS an apocalypse baby there would probably be a whole other storyline about ezra being a prophesied creator of some new world order or something. but if anything that would be a problem for F.E.A.R 5, or F.E.A.5, and i haven't gotten there yet so hold your HORSES

will this be a fic? i wish. i hope so. because i am actually quite enjoying this. anyway time to reveal my status as a fake gamer for i have never played a F.E.A.R game (try though as i might to get F.E.A.R 1 working on my pc) but i DID watch my dad play them at an INADVISEDLY young age so

[beetle116]

Random thing that pop in my mind

A Replica recon soldier dying to a propane tank

[sometimesraven]

Honestly I’d like to see the F.E.A.R. franchise rewritten with a modern lens and also maybe by a woman.

Alma’s scariness doesn’t come from the shock of what she can do. It’s not just because she can vaporise an army by looking at them that makes her scary. It’s not that she’s a feral animal, it’s that she’s a prey animal.

Alma Wade is the personification of prey animal rage. She’s a little girl with remarkable power who was tortured, experimented on, impregnated and killed before she was even fully aware of what had happened to her.

“She’s a woman now, and she doesn’t even know it.” She’s incapable of differentiating friend from foe because there’s never been a single friend, and even when she’s reaching out for help she has no control over the pain and rage causing her psychic abilities to go out of control.

She’s a feral prey animal who has no idea she’s even dead. Who has no clue she’s free. Who just wants to escape and get her children back, the only piece of reality she knows that was stolen from her. Fuck the rape subplot — make it so that she was pregnant already when they killed her and the baby survived the same way she did. Then you can still have the plot of F3AR without reducing a woman who by all intents and purposes shouldn’t even know what sex is to a rape-ghost for some free shock points.

[liquidrenders]

F.E.A.R

[khanlusa]

This took a while but finally put together a redo of my old F.E.A.R videos ✨

Goes over the plot of each game and then we try to change some things about said plots.

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

FIRST ENCOUNTER ASSAULT RECON - Thoughts (Part 1?)

So I went back and got the game "FEAR" up and working (I have an MSI gaming compooter with Win 11, so it took an FPS and .dll fix), but I'mm playing it again, after... well, Years.

And I gotta say, for an early 2000s game, it fucked then and it fucks now. I can't recommend it enough.

You've got dynamic learning game-AI enemies, that adapt to your stragedic style and will react to you. (And that's Pre-Statistical Intelligence (So what current-day buzzwords as "AI") so this is actual game-AI--let's get that knee jerk reaction outta the way). This dynamic learning is unique, so far, to FEAR. There are few games that have that kind of dynamic learning.

Secondly--everything is Horror. This is a rare game where First-Person-Shooter actually meshes with the Horror extremely well, without it having to be survival. With the dynamic-learning game-AI enemies above--you'll be struggling already on the Shooter side, whilst the story, the in-story politics and the Ghosts of the past take care of the Horror-Typical side.

FEAR is just beautiful.

( SIDEBAR: Its sequels...? No. Not, not so much. in fact, I'd argue that you should ignore the sequels and the Expansions. You only need FEAR. When I was young I would've accepted them and said "YAY THE HORROR IS REALLY HERE!". Now that I'm older and experienced and can actually appreciate the details and the steps, I'mma tell ya--the Horror of FEAR was beautiful by itself, and the rest is just oil-burnt-fat and flotsam. You just need to slow down, and consider it... that's how Horror works.)

( SIDEBAR: in truth, most of what is called "Horror" in games is just "Terror". And frankly we could do with less Terror-Genre. FEAR is actual horror, and uses terror more tastefully than most "Horror-called" games. )

And since I'm playing it again, slowly considering it, what it has and how it works, I've got... a random assortment of thoughts and I'm gonna make everyone suffer them :D

Let's begin.

One) The best part of the supernatural element of the game? Is the lack of explanations. There's no X-men descriptions of the powers used, there's no real explanation of why certain characters have them.

And personally, I like that. Because it makes it more fun to point out what powers are being used where, and the characters reactions to them are great--because these are "real people" written characters who reside in a grounded reality--and fucking psychic powers don't just show up outside of TV fiction.

So when the psychic and ghosts pop up, nobody is gonna fuckin believe it and its not even considered.

( What is interesting is that our Pointman knows that this psychic shit is happening, but seems to never report it... )

Paxton Fettel, our actual Psychic Commander, has several psychic powers we see.

Telepathy, is implied because he has control over a psychic-receptive army of clones (this game did come out 2005--golly I wonder what might've inspired an army of clones led by psychic people (Attack of the Clones)

Telekinetics. I mean this is implied outright? Because we never really see it. Alma mostly uses this one.

Projection (Self). Actually this is one of the most interesting powers by experience. Its implied, by how he appears and disappears, and how his "signal" also randomly appears and disappears, that Project involves also physically appearing in another place in part. You can be in two places at once (albeit the projection is more unstable).

Projection (Place). This one is more or less You, the person experiencing it, only Perceive that you're in another place, rather than actual teleportation. And thanks to how self-projection works, you prolly were semi-projected into those illusions (hence why the strange wraiths (called "Nightmares") can get you).

Consumption. The concept of eating something and gaining its power / presence. Fettel makes it a practice to eat targetted people in order to gain their memories, and he doesn't have to eat all of them, nor does he have to eat the specific brain. ( There's a fanfic idea of "memonic impressions" I could throw out)

Liquidfaction. I've never seen Fettel use this, but Alma uses it extensively. She just, fucking Liquifies you, your equipment, your armor, all of it. Till you're bone.

Alma has the "Empathic" ability. She can literally get into your head.

Two) THe Pointman has psychic powers, if he gets near objects, they'll fucking hop away. He jumpscares chairs.

( The game's gravity engine either works like Halo 3? Or fucks up like Gmod. But I personally subscribe to the idea that that's just Pointman's psychic abillites popping up--he makes the chairs jump )

Three) I fucking love the Replicas. They're clever, they're funny, and like any anime, after I defeat them, I want them as my friends. Shame this is a first person shooter.

I also like the ideas behind the Replicas. They can't think for themselves outside of combat. If you down them before they enter combat, they'll simply go down like dolls-- but you're engaged with them it takes a LOT to put them down, and sometimes, they'll get right back up.

( They peculiarly seem to act like puppets on strings if they're wounded enough. )

( There was at least one guy who went down, and then he pushed himself back up against like a normal person... before I downed him again. )

They don't have a psychic network between each other, so they do have to radio in things as situations evolve. They'll even tell each other to "Shut the fuck up" (Funniest things Imaginable) if I'm in the area and combat is eminent. In fact, that's the only way you know they're in the area and how many...

... unless you're a cautious player, like me, and they go radio silent to get the jump. Which they will do. Because game-wise, they have dynamic learning and countering your combat style is how they work. I've had so many Replicas hide behind things just to jump or flank me as I go through (i'm very stealthy).

Story implication wise--they are at least semi-conscious enough to both work in combat, have stress responses (like you can scare and piss them off), language and radioing in, there is, in fact, a Replica Command / Commander your never encounter who sets missions, so differing skills across all Replicas with a rank hierarchy...

... But the fact that they all fall under Fettel, suggests that every combat we face--we're technically facing Fettel. He can see through these soldiers' eyes and knows what we're doing and how, and can command them to perform certain maneuvers.

Implying in-game that the dynamic learning AI's analog is Fettel's psychic control.

Additional fun things is... the Replicas have a bad habit of just, leaving their stuff around. Armor, Medkits, weapons, EXPLOSIVES... like boys, don't you have an armory to lock that shit up in? Don't just leave it lying around, my gods XD

Four) One expansion wants to claim that the Replicas are all clones of Fettel.

I'm gonna claim, "Fuck no did you even play FEAR?"

Think about it.

All the weaponry the REplicas use, the Pointman can use. So both sides can use those weapons.

The weapons and armor found constantly, are also indicative of Replicas. The Pointman can use that replacement armor to armor himself up. Beyond Game-mechanics, It ALWAYS fits.

And consider between the Pointman and Fettel. Fettel relies mostly on his psychic abilities, or has a knife (which never appears as a weapon in-game). He's not the combat-kid outta the two "prototypes".

Meanwhile, Pointman gets sucked into every psychic event known to everybody, extremely easily, and in fact, nobody else even notices things. no events, no ghosts (Alice didn't even notice her own dead sister in the elevator with her).

I propose that the person the Replicas were cloned from... is actually the Pointman. Meaning the Replicas' voices are what the Pointman actually sounds like, if he could speak. Same combat abilities and training, same single minded drive to follow orders...

... the only differences are, is the Pointman's Reflex ability (which can be named a psychic power too--its that rapid movement shit ghosts do), his "psychic powers" to jumpscare chairs, and the fact that he is self-thinking enough to carry out nearly every mission given to him without question or problem, and just like a Replica's combat reaction, doesn't even react to being shot at by anything.

And if you're wondering why he's not with Armstech and Project Perseus anymore...

Well, thanks to in-game politics "cleaning up" the remains of Project Origins in favor of Project Perseus... (And failing spectacularly, which cause the games' events).

And Aristide having the state-government in her pocket...

Well, suddenly, you have an explanation of why Pointman is with FEAR. FEAR is a government program, and putting the Pointman in a place where he's both out of the way but also in easy access for more "DNA" for future possible clones, and what little psychic ability he does have can easily be explained away.

Effectively, there was no person greater to face all his clones, and the fact that he was constantly facing a poor replica of himself in each battle.

Five)... Why does the Pointman Look like transformers' Grimlock?

ME POINTMAN SAYS THAT'S SUSPICIOUS.

Six) Alma Wade and Alessa Gilespie would be the best of friends. Who knows, if there's ever a crossover, may it'll turn out that they're twins or something, and Harlan Wade got with Dahlia Gillespie.

Eugh...

Seven) Alma is a damn good example that being a victim doesn't exclude you from villainy--it just makes you a different kind of villain that still needs to be stopped.

Yeah she's a kid mentally, but she's killing people in horrible ways. She's actively made both of her sons miserable and beyond the capacity of a normal life, by her actions.

I pity her? But that's not gonna stop me from stopping her by any means necessary.

Eight) Thems who was eaten by Fettel become Ghosts. Like, they prolly project off of him. This brings the weird suggestion that Fettel was eating peoples' "Souls" in a sense...

Also means that Jankowski? He's dead, man. He got Ate. The reason he got ate, was prolly so that Fettel could learn more bout the Pointman. And in turn, Jankowski learned more about the Pointman in reverse.

Fettel is a collection of Souls.

Nine) The existence of Alice Wade, Alma's little sister, is... horrifying to think about. Its implied that she was born after Alma's sealing.

And the fact that Alma didn't fucking kill her, even though she was in the same vacinity, suggests that Alma is curious or fond of her too--though not necessarily fond enough to save her at all...

Harlan Wade apparently wanted to start over with a NORMAL family, rather than care for the poor child whose life he fucking ruined.

What happened to Alma is entirely this asshole's fault.

Ten) one of the fun bits I've had in this game is the slow uncovering of lore. Phone records, Laptop files, the slow and choiceful decision to know what's going on and how, I think, is a great way to share information with the player.

You learn why Fettel is targetting people. You learn why things went so bad, and how the game started.

You learn about you.

It doesn't stop the Mission... But it gives clarity of World-Build History and Character.

And I fucking love it.

Eleven) The Backdrop Enviroment is alive.

You're in a city with real people. You run into Radios of newsbroadcasts, which show off what the average person is seeing outside of your Interval missions, and what the situation looks like to the (local) world.

This makes the world feel more Real. Or Immersive as game magazines would put it.

In addition to the environments. We're not in combat zones, this isn't Call of Duty or Counterstrike-- we're in offices and work-plants you'd see in normal cities. Part of that contributes to the uncanny feeling that we're in the wrong place at all times. Supernatural Shit, Hostile Clone Soldiers, Future-Technologies... are all occuring in normal 9-to-5 places, and instead of being outta place--it contributes to the horror of the situation...

Normal people, example at the Water Plant, are being caught up in this god awful situation. The normal world is going away as clones, psychics and ghosts take the center stage, breaking the idea of normalacy forever... for all of it was just broiling under the surface of this one city.

Even in lore... Folks were avoiding an older part of the city, for unknown reasons, but we know the reason--Alma is in a Vault underneath the abandoned part of the city.. and good chance she was using it as her psychic playground.

And then it ends in the worse case scenario--straight outta the Cold War Safety Records: A nuke is detonated on site, IN the ground, with no evacuation order for the local populace (which given that its a city, is in the tens to hundreds of thousands)

Horror and Terror is balanced in FEAR.

From the hunting enemies who learn how you work and adapt to put you down, to the supernatural ghosts and powers that will invade your mind, to the horrifying inhuman apathy of politics and high power, and to those who believe that to stop one person you sacrifice hundreds of thousands to nuclear fire and damn the world in the process.

I can't recommend the game highly enough.

[devileaterjaek]

F.E.A.R. (PC) Join our community on //Discord// Support me on //Ko-Fi//

[kerri-the-skunk]

You know how in F.E.A.R, sometimes when enemies die, they let off a burst of post-mortem gunfire? Well, the Minigun Heavies from the Extraction Point expansion can do that too.

[mastercardpussy]

[theawesomehyperon]

Me getting the achievement Laser Showoff.

[sometimesraven]

"they would Not Fucking Do That" but it's a core element of the entire story

[mileena--kahnumm]

15 yr old me:

I'd totally be the Gas Mask Replica Soldier Dude from F.E.A.R.

[videogamepolls]

Requested by anon

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

F.E.A.R AND MISSING OPERATIVES WHO DON'T KNOW THEY'RE DEAD

Another big question about F.E.A.R., where the hell is Jankowski?

Yeah, readings say "Dude he's Alive", but game evidence goes "Oh no he's Ded". Straight up turned into soup.

And the existence of the phantom definitely says "Well... he's certainly not alive like we think anymore. He might just be TIkTok UnAlive--not Dead but definitely not Live."

Well, we're actually given an idea in the first game chapter. Remember the first phantom?

You prolly don't. His name is "Charles Habegger", and he's from Interval 01. We meet his phantom, but find his body partially consumed.

About the same time that Jankowski is reported missing (And we come across the second pile of soup), is the same time we're informed that Fettel is in the area--and that inspite of Jankowski's lifesign readings, we see his phantom.

Well, can only draw the one conclusion.

Fettel had consumed Jankowski.

Life-signs-implant-reader and everything. Fettel has been consuming people for their knowledge and memories--and he would do this to a FEAR Operative in order to know what we, as FEAR Operatives, are about to do and how we work and what we are.

( And who us, the Player "The Pointman", might just be. )

What everyone thought was Jankowski's readings... had actually been Fettel's.