Retro Review - DEEP FEAR

The game I'm going to tell you about below I played relatively recently, I think only about 5 years ago, but it's a game from the 90's and it's a Survival Horror very similar to Resident Evil but set in a totally different place. As I said in previous post, after Resident Evil made me want to play other games of this genre, I found one that despite having very obvious similarities, still maintains certain characteristics that makes it a good game.

Today's Retro Review is about: DEEP FEAR.

DEEP FEAR, being the opposite of Resident Evil, is located deep in the ocean, specifically in a fuel supply and at the same time, in a research center, the problems for the workers of these submarine installations begin when near its base a capsule from space falls, in this capsule is a powerful virus that is gradually affected to the workers of the facilities, in such a way that they are being mutated, becoming totally grotesque and dangerous creatures, the few survivors send a call for help that is answered by the protagonist of the game.

At this moment John Mayor enters the scene, an ex-SEAl who is currently working in a rescue group, manning a small submarine, Jonh approaches the facilities without knowing that what he is going to find there is totally a scene of terror and because of this, our mission is to rescue all those people who have not yet been affected by this deadly virus.

The graphic section is very similar to what we see in Resident Evil 2, but perhaps not as detailed as in the zombie game, yet Deep Fear is able to convey that sense of suspense and terror that many survival horror games were able to create at that time. The characters had a certain level of detail in their design and looked very well recreated models, so you can see a level of realism quite acceptable for the time. Since Deep Fear is set in scenarios totally different from those seen in other survival horror games, it is capable of creating a totally unique setting (at least for its time), let's remember that all the events of the game occur on an underwater base, unlike Resident Evil that all the events of the game take place on the surface, therefore, in my opinion, having an ambience completely in the depths of the sea gives a unique characteristic to this game, thus increased, in a certain way, the suspense and the feeling of claustrophobia that helps a lot to create an atmosphere of terror.

Deep Fear is completely made in 3D, with the characteristic pre-rendered backgrounds, as in this way the developers are able to create scenarios with a greater amount of details, although in this aspect, Deep Fear is a little behind if we compare it with Resident Evil, but in general this game presents a more than acceptable graphic level.

The sound aspect of DEEP FEAR is everything we can expect in games of this genre, music that conveys mystery, tension and terror, the main characteristics of a Survival Horror, in itself, does not have melodies that are memorable or spectacular, but if they are good enough to help decorate and provide a sound atmosphere in each of the moments we are going to live while we are playing. In the same way, sound effects do their job, and it is of great importance that a horror game has good sound effects that keep us in constant tension and that help us in a certain way to be alert to any circumstance that is going to happen.

Video Author ForgoneMoose

DEEP FEAR SOUNDTRACK LIST

It is impossible to talk about DEEP FEAR without mentioning Resident Evil and this is because the similarities between these two games are many, leaving aside that these two games belong to the same genre of video games. Since DEEP FEAR is a direct competition to the zombie saga, it keeps a great part of its playable characteristics, but in a certain way, it's also much simpler and you could say that in terms of difficulty it's much easier than Resident Evil, one of those aspects is that the inventory of our main character is much bigger than that of our character in Resident Evil, therefore we will have the ability to have more objects at our disposal, quite the opposite Resident Evil that because the inventory capacity is much lower, we must have a good use of the objects and have a better administration over them. In general terms it maintains many of the main features of the famous zombie saga, but simplified to such an extent that there isn't really a very high level of difficulty in this game.

Also, a criticized feature of the old Resident Evil was that you couldn't shoot while moving your character and in DEEP FEAR this aspect is completely the opposite, because if we can do it while moving and this is certainly a great advantage of the game. Although there is a very characteristic point as for the gameplay in DEEP FEAR, because being set under water, we will need oxygen on many occasions, there will be some rooms where the oxygen supply is running out little by little and we will only have a few seconds to stay in that room or if not, our character will die, also in some other rooms where we must perform some action the oxygen supply will be scarce and we must supply it with this element through generators that are located along the facilities.

DEEP FEAR is not a game that surpasses Resident Evil in almost none of the aspects, however, it is a game that brought with you a new setting for what is the genre of Survival Horror, it is a good game, very entertaining and despite its many similarities, in a certain way it is a game that can be enjoyed a lot.