Cold Fear : Games : Web Wombat

You have to ask yourself, what's with all the zombie stuff around these days? There's Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead and even Resident Evil, which is both a movie and a game.

What's the media telling us here - are all consumers zombies? Zombies to television, music, movies, games and any other watered down waste of the human spirit?

Ashlee Simpson is a zombie, a zombie miming music to other zombies, blaming her band for the fact that she is a zombie, her band are also a bunch of mindless zombies...

Anyway, this masterpiece of zombie vomit is the newest edition to the world of "horror gaming" blessed with the "R" rating from the man upstairs (though in Australia R-rated games get banned, so technically it's a MA15+ game).

This is not a game for your five year old nephew to play just before bedtime. This is frightnight stuff. Rip-your-throat-out-while-you're-still-screaming kind of stuff.

You play meat head coast guard Tom Hansen. Your team has been called in to investigate a rusty old Russian whaling ship called the Eastern Spirit (ES), which is floating about in some turbulent seas. A team of CIA frogmen cells were recently wiped out upon boarding the ES, which is what brings your team in to the action.

Sadly (unless you hate the coast guard) the team is quickly ripped to pieces and your boat is turned back to port due to the rough seas, leaving your character Tom all alone on the ship, armed with only a handgun, a few rounds of ammo and a freshly soiled pair of lukewarm underwear.

Instantly he discovers that there is something evil lurking between the dark and dingy corridors of the mysterious ship, and it appears as though a supernatural massacre had taken place...

As you find your way between all the locked doors, gathering up the information of recent events, you discover that scientists - and not Russian whalers - had created what could potentially be a powerful military weapon, if controlled. They named this weapon the 'exocels'.

They are similar to the arachnid-like creatures that nest eggs in the chests of victims from the Aliens movies, which is a bit unoriginal, yes, but in this case the exocels crawl in through the mouths of corpses and reactivate the brain and nerve centre of the dead, instead of gestating inside them. Viva-la-zombie.

Play with fire and you might get burned, pal!!

As with all zombie media, headshots will send those zombie bastards back to the grave, where the eternal slumber awaits them. Shooting at the torso will buy you some time in this 3D Survival Horror game, but it's a waste of precious ammo.

After three or four shots to the body, the target will have been knocked to the ground for a few seconds, giving you time to line up the skull with the infra red laser beam (found on the pistol and AK).

This is a common strategy early on in the game, as lining up the skull straight up is difficult and requires practice.

Being a Survival Horror game, most of the time Cold Fear is viewed from a third person perspective, and the camera angles change quite frequently when going from room to room, which may have been designed to give the game a Resident Evil sort of feel.

The modelling and texturing of the structures, levels and rooms is high quality stuff - it's a good looking game by today's standards.

Drenched in sea water, the rusty old boat has a nice dull shine to it and the surrounding ocean is made up of a massive looping tidal wave, cleverly animated rain and wind gusts, and they are all highly effective in enforcing the title of this wintery game, setting a sombre, spooky mood.

Human and zombie modelling and animation is also of a high quality, although I do believe that Hansen is sometimes difficult to move about accurately, especially in a confined space where he gets himself into awkward positions. Blame the camera angles if you want.

Saving ammo is made possible by shooting objects which go boom, thusly engulfing your undead foes with a fiery blanket of vengeance. Like gas drums, fire extinguishers, pipes, and valves all have reactions, and shooting the little explodies can often take out a whole bunch of bad guys; it's both fun and economical. Ironically, this strategy does burn and destroy any "goodies" that the dead zomboids may drop, such as ammunition.

The game is saturated with blood, and really gives the MA15+ rating a workout. Creative smearing of old red is consistent throughout the game: blood spattered kitchens and bathrooms come complete with flies buzzing around human torsos and this makes for an eerie, ultra-violent atmosphere. Just like grandma's house really. You know, Wheel of Fortune, biscuits and tea and the odd zombie corpse dangling from the kitchen ceiling. Another cup of tea dear?

Your character, coast guard Tom Hansen, sometimes enters rooms which are pitch black with only a small circlet of visibility provided by light from his weapon. SCREACH!!

Even though you expect it, you can't help but getting a genuine fright from a zombie jumping out of the darkness, violently swinging a rusty meat cleaver in your direction.

At points like this things can get very frantic, and you may disregard the conservation of ammo as you forget the headshots and just start firing in every direction with that trigger finger firmly pressed. "Blam! Blam! Whose your daddy? Blam!"

"There's only one thing they taught us at
coast guard school: how to kick undead ass"

Weaponry is fairly standard stuff. A handgun is used for the first part of the game, then access to an AK rifle is granted, then it's shotgun time, sub machine gun and do I have any takers for the hand held grenade launcher? But you know the coolest weapon in the fight against evil is the gas dart gun.

This gun was originally invented by scientists as a means of trying to control the exocels. The zombies love this stuff, they love the gas that is excreted from the dart.

Once fired, all zombies in a 20 metre space will run towards the green "love drug" and start grooving like stoned children at a Bob Marley rave in the green mist.

I like to fire the darts into fire pits or at exploding chemical drums. It's very effective at taking out groups of these undead "gas addicts".

A flame thrower is also made available towards the end of the game. It gets pretty messy though; a crowded room of flaming zombies, running crazily about usually in your direction will see your a$$ on fire too...

That's why I like to stick to the good old shotgun. It's neat and tidy and comes equipped with enough stopping power to ensure some insane zombie ragdolling.

The sound is good, but very limited. There are few object-triggered sounds apart from the explodies. There's no sounds of shattering glass, mostly just bullets hitting steel. Shoot a light globe = a steel sound effect? And the light is still perfectly intact. The light globes in this game are invincible, believe me.

There are attempts made at creating some humorous dialogue, yet I can only describe them as shisen housen up the ring ding. You want funny? Try looking in the mirror, pal.

My memories of playing Cold Fear involve seeing a lot of doors, backtracking and more loading times than I wanted, which created a stop start effect. This last issue is maybe the worst and most deterring element of the game. But if you're like me and don't mind being late for work, you'll keep playing.

And that's it. If you like your gaming intense and frightening and you enjoy Survival Horror games (and you're of a legal drinking age), I'd recommend giving this solid little zombie title a crack. I found it enjoyable - though not as enjoyable as listening to Ashlee Simpson on full blast with a metal bucket on my head, banging away at it with monkey wrench, simultaneously losing all control of my renal system. But still it's a bit of fun.

Game: Cold Fear
System: PS2
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: DarkWorks
Distributor: Ubisoft

Rating: 75%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Cold Fear is on the shelves now.

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