Trepang2 - spiritual successor to F.E.A.R., "sequel we never got"

[flyingjohn]

It just does nothing better than FEAR did back in 2005.

You can't just keep playing the same game boomer.
Buy the newest GAMERINO !!!

The game is actually worse graphics wise as well for me. This has too much exploding shit in your face and the screen is filled too much detail.
Modern Unreal game I guess.
Atmosphere is also non debatable as well. And Fear wasn't even that much of a scary game anyway. The devs just looked at the awesome slowmo fights and made a game around it, neglecting everything else unfortunately.
Also they should get a reward for making blander level design then the original FEAR. That is a achievement.

 

[Goldschmidt]

Not as good as F.E.A.R. sorry. More F.E.A.R. 3/Crysis hybrid. Also wtf no quicksaving and/or manual saving.

https://www.savingcontent.com/2023/06/19/trepang2-review/

 

[Naraya]

If it's like F.E.A.R., but it's not F.E.A.R., and I loved F.E.A.R., then it's pretty good I think?
I mean, more F.E.A.R. is always good...?

 

[Tweed]

Checkpoint system is gay. Also is it just a design standard now for everything to be so visually busy that you can't keep track of anything? Because I had this problem in System Shock as well. It's really hard to keep track of everything going on during firefights which wasn't true in F.E.A.R. at all.
Also, while the VA delivery isn't bad the voices are all a terrible fit for dudes that are supposed to be hardcore soldiers.

 

[Goldschmidt]

If it's like F.E.A.R., but it's not F.E.A.R., and I loved F.E.A.R., then it's pretty good I think?
I mean, more F.E.A.R. is always good...?

It is an action game with slowmo but minus the F.E.A.R. AI and good story.

Like I said it is more a spiritual sequel to F.3.A.R. with Crysis/Doom gameplay elements added to it.

To end on a positive note, yeah it is better than call of dudle.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1164940/discussions/0/3808404524160507476/

 

[Fargus]

Just like i thought. I played the demo a couple of years ago and it felt like devs not only didn't understand what people liked about FEAR, but their game also had an identity crisis. Now it looks like wannabe FEAR\COD\Doom mutant with some US marines and cultist shit. FEAR had good art direction, interesting fictional near future setting and cool backstory, unique weapons etc. And gameplay often was as slow or fast paced as you wanted it to be thanks to AI\map design. I dont see anything of the sort here. Don't even feel like pirating it.

But i guess zoomers already foam at the mouth how this is just like FEAR and shit if not better.

 

[Lemming42]

Dunno why everyone's ragging on this, it's not bad so far. The ballistics effects are the best since F.E.A.R., I actually jumped when I fired the shotgun. I like how enemies panic-fire and shit as well.

Seems fine for what it is.

 

[Jenkem]

Severed Steel is better

 

[Tweed]

And dropped. I wanted to play F.E.A.R. not Killing Floor.

 

[motherfucker]

Oh for fuck's sake, when have you last played F.E.A.R.? Trepang feels too samey and disjointed - but F.E.A.R. doesn't? Just the level design is magnitudes above F.E.A.R.'s ad nauseam "series of arenas connected by two corridors". Movement is fantastic, melee is a tremendous upgrade. Gunplay is much, much better(people remember the shotgun because that's the only weapon in F.E.A.R. that doesn't feel like a wet noodle). Also, don't forget that the F.E.A.R. AI was a lucky accident born out of time constraints, and there's a lot going on in Trepang's AI as well - AFAIK that was the most focused on aspect. The game was developed by two guys at no budget at all, and they did a fantastic job. The combat is great and the rest... what else do you need?
For fuck's sake, this forum keeps crying about how gaming feels stagnant and indie dev is all sellouts and conmen, but once two guys out of their basement make a game that's just solid, focused fun without any faggy pretense, modern casualization or any kind of poz, it barely makes a blip and those who do notice do nothing but shit on it. Turns out badly written isometric RPG with penis sliders and 10 homosexual romance options is all you deserve, sure you hate them, but anything else doesn't even register. I have nothing but contempt for you lot.

God, I hate this fucking place.

 

[Tweed]

God, I hate this fucking place.

 

[Lithium Flower]

God, I hate this fucking place.

I'm convinced that most people on this website wake up every day and then just proceed to stare up at the ceiling in a catatonic stupor - because they really like the pretty ceiling and since its basically the best ceiling one could hope for, they are content with solely savoring it for the rest of their lives - until their caretaker comes in to help them get about their day. And no, I don't even care about Trepang.

 

[Tweed]

I'm convinced that most of you have really shitty taste in games.

 

[Lithium Flower]

It's also really funny how defensive people get about this place. The pretense is that everyone here is this cynical, learned elitist with high standards, but when this position is put into scrutiny, the following is revealed about the average codexer:

-They have at least 1 mental illness
-This congregation of schizoids is their primary or sole social circle
-They embody everything they hate but lack the self-awareness to understand it

This website is like a one-man human centipede, constantly regurgitating its own shit into itself. There is no escape, no deeper purpose to discover, only poison and endless degeneration of the most pernicious sort.

When people try to log into this website, it should display the same warning as was suggested for nuclear waste sites:

"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. "

Afterwards, a hand holding a gun should emerge from the screen and shoot the user in the fucking face, just in case.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Oh for fuck's sake, when have you last played F.E.A.R.? Trepang feels too samey and disjointed - but F.E.A.R. doesn't? Just the level design is magnitudes above F.E.A.R.'s ad nauseam "series of arenas connected by two corridors". Movement is fantastic, melee is a tremendous upgrade. Gunplay is much, much better(people remember the shotgun because that's the only weapon in F.E.A.R. that doesn't feel like a wet noodle). Also, don't forget that the F.E.A.R. AI was a lucky accident born out of time constraints, and there's a lot going on in Trepang's AI as well - AFAIK that was the most focused on aspect. The game was developed by two guys at no budget at all, and they did a fantastic job. The combat is great and the rest... what else do you need?
For fuck's sake, this forum keeps crying about how gaming feels stagnant and indie dev is all sellouts and conmen, but once two guys out of their basement make a game that's just solid, focused fun without any faggy pretense, modern casualization or any kind of poz, it barely makes a blip and those who do notice do nothing but shit on it. Turns out badly written isometric RPG with penis sliders and 10 homosexual romance options is all you deserve, sure you hate them, but anything else doesn't even register. I have nothing but contempt for you lot.

God, I hate this fucking place.

spotted one of the two people who made this game

It's also really funny how defensive people get about this place. The pretense is that everyone here is this cynical, learned elitist with high standards, but when this position is put into scrutiny, the following is revealed about the average codexer:

-They have at least 1 mental illness
-This congregation of schizoids is their primary or sole social circle
-They embody everything they hate but lack the self-awareness to understand it

This website is like a one-man human centipede, constantly regurgitating its own shit into itself. There is no escape, no deeper purpose to discover, only poison and endless degeneration of the most pernicious sort.

When people try to log into this website, it should display the same warning as was suggested for nuclear waste sites:

"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. "

Afterwards, a hand holding a gun should emerge from the screen and shoot the user in the fucking face, just in case.

spotted the other one

 

[Lithium Flower]

If the Holocaust targeted Codexers, literally no one would give a fuck - and I would gladly be the first in line to get gassed.

 

[Lithium Flower]

Darth Roxor you practically grew up shitposting and writing reviews in this cretin-infested sewer, and now you wear its staff badge with pride. You are the moral equivalent of an abused teen who has internalized his own abuse and now inflicts it upon others.

I hope you realize that, decades in the future, researchers will be studying our brains in the attempt to understand what the hell went wrong here, just as now they may study the psychology of children raised by wild animals.

I congratulate everyone reading this with the fact that all of you have already reserved your spot in the next edition of the DSM.

"Doctor, my teenage son is getting high by inhaling his own smegma vapors, why can't he just huff glue like all the normal kids?"

"Must be Lithium Flower Syndrome - unfortunately, the condition is terminal. Next!"

"Help us doc, our little girl is eating all of the paper in the house."

"Ah, that must be Roxoritis, keep her away from any potential writing materials lest this issue develops into stage VI brain cancer."

 

[Darth Roxor]

you seem upset

have you considered self-ejection

 

[Lithium Flower]

There is no escape, no deeper purpose to discover, only poison and endless degeneration of the most pernicious sort.

 

[flyingjohn]

Oh for fuck's sake, when have you last played F.E.A.R.?

Last year.

Trepang feels too samey and disjointed - but F.E.A.R. doesn't?

There is a difference between "they need to spice it up to make it better" and "this shit is boring, why are they repeating it?"
FEAR urban areas were and are still unique but they do overstay their welcome. Trepang is just a badly made paintball arena.

Just the level design is magnitudes above F.E.A.R.'s ad nauseam "series of arenas connected by two corridors".

Yes, areas connected by corridors is bad design. No game in existence has areas connected by corridors whatsoever.
Doom is fucking Skyrim where you climb a mountain I guess. Seriously, you can use that critique on any single fps relapsed in the last 30 years, including Trepang. And please don't some autistic bullshit about a set amount of corridors being considered minimum to be considered good.

Gunplay is much, much better

No.

(people remember the shotgun because that's the only weapon in F.E.A.R. that doesn't feel like a wet noodle)

I also remember the dual handguns, grenades, nail gun,cannon,laser,rocket launcher and much more.
And i didn't know that a laser that makes people into skeletons is a wet noodle?

Also, don't forget that the F.E.A.R. AI was a lucky accident born out of time constraints

How does that invalidate its strength? Also it wasn't a accident, you do understand you can't make functioning AI by accident?

and there's a lot going on in Trepang's AI as well

There is a lot going in a retard's head as well when he encounters running water. Doesn't make him a genius though.
Trepang AI behaves like fear's retarded cousin.

The game was developed by two guys at no budget at all

Buhu, who gives a fuck. AI development doesn't take any money. You just have to understand how FSM functions.
But these people don't seem to understand how FEAR functions let alone something more complex.

The combat is great

Debatable.

what else do you need?

Proper level design(don't confuse getting stale with bad), decent atmosphere, minimalistic but decent story, great AI(because it is being presented as FEAR'S successor), graphics that don't just throw shit in my face constantly and actual consistency in what the game is about.
Trepang has no idea what it wants to be and it suffers a lot for that. An you can't fix that with money.

 

[toughasnails]

There is comfort in despair absolutised.

Imagine the situation of one in his 30s or older, without family, either unemployed or stuck with an alienating job, stuck in the same routine. And the interminable repetition of this situation is the only thing he can imagine for himself, and below it entropy and eventual death. He seeks the escape in video games, but his long overindulgence - which by the way might have had something to do with him ending up in the situation in which he is, but this is not something he'd like to reflect on - means that the satisfaction they once provided him is long gone. Like any addict, he consumes greater and greater quantities in desperate and - even he is increasingly aware of this- hopeless quest to regain that old spark. Yet this consumption means that they only ever turn into more of a grey, homogenous quantity. He loathes them more and more without actually facing that in them which is causing the real harm to himself. He will rage against the latest major RPG, at the same time playing it for perhaps hundreds of hours, coming back to it again and again. Compare this to the other critics of modern entertainment industry online who consume inordinate amounts of its dubious fruits: those raging against modern comics whilst interestingly enough having incredibly detailed knowledge of the minutia of their plots, fictional universes etc. Same for the movies, TV.

So this is his horizon, the unbearable real and the escape therefrom that is itself now a dull, grey miasma. But he can at least take this experience of his, this slow suffocating decay, and make it, for himself, into something universal. He's now having before himself a "certain" image of the universe, and this certainty, with the implicit experience of himself as above this image for himself, gives him the impression of being in control whilst not demanding of him any effort, any risks. So he will now actively seek everything that affirms this image, and will fight anything that challenges it. He is a mirror image of a naive, religious or humanistic, optimist who'd he'll likely mock.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's also really funny how defensive people get about this place. The pretense is that everyone here is this cynical, learned elitist with high standards, but when this position is put into scrutiny, the following is revealed about the average codexer:

-They have at least 1 mental illness
-This congregation of schizoids is their primary or sole social circle
-They embody everything they hate but lack the self-awareness to understand it

And yet, as true as that might be, most of them are perfectly capable of avoiding embarrassing meltdowns like these. Food for...

Yeah, whatever.

 

[Angthoron]

So guys if I try the demo, does it give a good idea about the rest of the game?

 

[Lithium Flower]

And yet, as true as that might be, most of them are perfectly capable of avoiding embarrassing meltdowns like these. Food for...

Yeah, whatever.

Alas, o Belshazzar, it troubles me that only I can read the words...

 

[Zewp]

Jesus Christ, did not think someone would have such a meltdown over people criticising this game, of all things.

It's simply a mediocre game made by people who clearly don't know an awful lot about good game design. It's a well-made mediocre game, but still a mediocre game and it should never have cost as much as it does. I would have loved a spiritual successor to FEAR, but this ain't it. It's no deeper than that.

Edit: Also, I've seen several critical threads on the Steam forums get deleted. The developer claims that it was deleted for "toxicity" and insults, but not by them. Which is bullshit, because if Steam Support moderated them, they would have just locked them with a lock message, as they usually do when locking threads that turn into mudslinging fests.

So guys if I try the demo, does it give a good idea about the rest of the game?

Yeah, pretty much. I played the demo before release and just hoped that the poor level design was a demo-only thing, but that's more or less what you can expect from the rest of the game. Story, voice acting, level design and combat in the demo is pretty true to the rest of the game.