Cold Fear (Xbox)
This was a bit of a risky purchase. It’s only been out a couple of weeks and the box in Game was wreathed with overlapping stickers saying “£39.99”, “£29.99”, and “£19.99”. The only one missing was the one saying “Please, for the love of God, will someone buy this?”
Anyway – I did. And I’m glad I did, too! So far, it’s an enjoyable and very atmospheric action survival horror title set at sea somewhere in the Bering Strait. There’s a real sense of being on a small vessel in very rough seas, created by the way the screen lurches around. I wouldn’t recommend this title to anyone who suffers from seasickness as the constant moving can be very tiring and stressful, but it’s certainly atmospheric.
The lurchy theme continues below decks too, with water and furntiture slopping about all over the place.
The controls are a bit strange, but you get used to them fairly quickly. What you don’t get used to, though, is the way you have varying amounts of inertia depending on which way the boat happens to be rolling. It’s tricky to move carefully around things when you’re being thrown about all over the place, but that adds to the game rather than detracts.
One thing that does annoy me quite a lot, though, is that I can only seem to save when the game prompts me to – there doesn’t seem to be anywhere I can pop off to for a quick save before continuing. Really, I think the game is built for long playing sessions – something I no longer have the luxury of.
For 20 quid, though, it’s money well spent.
An Edit From The Future
I lied. It’s a big pile of poo. This rapidly becomes apparent when it stops being a “wander about on the deck” game and starts being a “big things rushing at you armed to the teeth” game. At that point you realise that the controls are deeply DEEPLY shit. The End.
