Cry of Fear

From the makers of the horror crown jewel of Half-Life 1 comes a new single-player game, Cry of Fear. No, not from the industrious They Hunger developer Neil Manke of Black Widow Studios, who is unfortunately rumoured to be ill1, but the Afraid of Monsters developers “ruMpel” & co! The team very recently published a highly effective if off-beat Christmas-themed gameplay video and boy, color me impressed – the game is looking nothing short of phenomenal for a GoldSource game.

I cannot recall any such high-quality work exhibited on the Half-Life 1 engine since Paranoia, the suspenseful Russian shooter that went so far as to incorporate low-level enhancements to the very engine.

The developers are indeed very keen to highlight the fact that Cry of Fear is a total conversion and as such contains zero unoriginal content. Here’s the delightfully vague lowdown, something that has never prevented horror games from maximizing their potential:

You wake up in a dark alley, not knowing anything. What has happened anyway? You struggle after the truth and answers. Answers you want to know in the darkness and fear, which makes your heartbeat race like violent blows against your head. Where do “they” come from? What has happened? Are you just turning insane?

Based on earlier gameplay video (see above) and the aforementioned holiday trailer, Cry of Fear looks to feature well-acted cutscenes, creepalicious animations, an inventory system for panic-juggling items and weapons and above all a fantastic-looking sprint function that propels the character to real running speeds. The game also looks to improve on the rather excellent production values of the previous game, of which an improved, multi-ending Director’s Cut version exists.

Finally, it does bear noting that both Paranoia and Afraid of Monsters made Richard’s end of the decade list. Paranoia can be downloaded here, and Afraid of Monsters DC is available here.

  1. http://www.moddb.com/games/they-hunger-lost-souls#948083 []

One Comment

  • 8bit
    Posted 09/10/2010 at 11:46  (Quote) | Permalink

    yeah,awesome game,cant wait for release

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared.