Fear Effect

Fear Effect
Information
Developer	Kronos Digital Entertainment
Publisher	Eidos Interactive
Platforms	Sony PlayStation
Release date	February 24, 2000 (NA) August 3, 2000 (EU)

"Of all the sensations, pain is the purest."

Fear Effect is a horror action-adventure game developed by Kronos Digital Entertainment and published by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation in North America on February 24, 2000 and Europe on August 3, 2000.

It is the first installment in the Fear Effect series. A prequel was released one year later entitled Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix while a sequel Fear Effect Sedna was released in 2018.

A sequel to Fear Effect known as Fear Effect Inferno was in development but cancelled.

A remake of Fear Effect, Fear Effect Reinvented, was announced in 2017 but cancelled in 2023.

Plot

Wee Ming Lam

Fear Effect is set in the early 2050s, likely in 2052 or 2053. When Wee Ming Lam, the teenage daughter of a powerful Hong Kong Triad boss Mr. Lam disappears, a trio of mercenaries search for her in the city. They have not been hired to find her, but they intend to kidnap the girl before her father's men locate her and hold her for ransom. Wee Ming has vanished into the fictional Shan Xi protectorate; Hana Tsu-Vachel, the lead character and femme fatale of the group, used to work in a brothel somewhere in that region.

Hana arrives in Hong Kong accompanied by her partners, Royce Glas and Jakob "Deke" Decourt. What begins as a simple snatch and grab turns into a fiasco: Mr. Lam attributes his fortune and power to a pact he made with demons long ago. Wee Ming, who is a paper doll given life, has been scheduled to serve as a sacrifice to Yim Lau Wong, the mythical "King of Hell". Hana's contact inside Mr. Lam's organization, Jin, is discovered, tortured, and left to die with a bomb strapped to his chest. Hana frees him, but he is killed shortly after. Meanwhile, Glas is attacked by a VTOL jet and forced to flee into Mr. Lam's building. After avenging Jin, Hana is captured and beaten by Mr. Lam and his thugs. Glas is able to rescue Hana, and the duo make their escape where they meet Deke in front of the hotel they are staying at. While listening to Jin's last message for Hana, the trio are forced off a bridge but are able to swim to a junk.

While sailing down a river, Deke spots Wee Ming among a burning village. Deke and Glas give chase while Hana gets dressed, but all three are separated by the undead villagers. They stumble upon a military train where the hostile soldiers shoot anyone on sight for fear of the villagers. Hana and Deke wreck the train trying to steal it, but Glas is able to find a jeep with Wee Ming sitting inside. She asks to be taken to a Madam Chen's restaurant, which doubles as a brothel, hoping to find answers about her existence.

Glas after his arm is cut off by Mr. Lam.

When Glas is caught sneaking in the brothel, Mr. Lam surprises him, cutting off his left arm. At the same time, Deke is murdered while trying to infiltrate the brothel from upstairs. Hana sneaks in by dressing up like one of the prostitutes, where she runs into Wee Ming again after she had been dragged off by Madam Chen, who is working for Mr. Lam. Wee Ming's powers activate, after being splashed with Deke's blood, transforming the working girls and Madam Chen's thugs into demons.

Wee Ming finds Glas in the meat locker.

The one-armed Glas reawakens in a meat locker, surprised to find he is still alive; he surmises that Mr. Lam must be planning a slow death for him. Wee Ming arrives and tries her best to aid him. When Hana storms in to confront her former boss, Madam Chen, she learns that Chen is actually a demon in disguise. In the ensuing fight, Chen and her minions are killed, but Mr. Lam disappears with his daughter into a portal to Hell. Determined to save Wee Ming from whatever fate Mr. Lam has in store for her, Hana follows them into the portal, with Glas reawakening, and frees himself to give chase.

Glas slits Wee Ming's throat.

In a surreal journey through Hell, Hana meets the Black and White Guards of Impermanence who give her cryptic messages about her fate. Glas encounters the reanimated corpse of Deke, who is being tortured for the many murders he has committed. Deke takes on a grotesque demonic form and attacks Glas. After he is victorious, Glas promises to avenge Deke. During a funeral procession, he tries killing Wee Ming by slitting her throat, but it proves pointless when she instantly revives.

Meanwhile, Hana confronts Yim Lau Wong, who turns out to be Jin all along. He explains that Hell has become overburdened with the souls of the guilty. Once Wee Ming is returned to the netherworld, Yim Lau Wong will be able to expand the reaches of Hell and consume Earth. Hana was chosen to look after Wee Ming because Yim Lau Wong desired someone "ruthless" to be her guardian.

The player choosing to side with Hana or Glas.

Yim Lau Wong transforms Mr. Lam into a demon. Glas reappears and tries to kill Wee Ming, believing her to be the root of the chaos. During the tense standoff between Hana and Glas, the player is given a choice over which of them should die. This decision will determine the final boss as well as the subsequent ending.

Endings

Fear Effect has five endings. The factors depend if the player chooses to side with Hana or Glas, if the player is defeated by the final boss, and if the player is playing on Hard and chooses the middle option.

"You can make a change, Hana. I hope I don't see you again. Farewell."

• Hana Good Ending: Hana shoots Glas and is sympathetic, saying "Goodbye, my friend." Wee Ming runs over to a side of the room to perform a ritual while Hana fights the monstrous Mr. Lam. After defeating him, Wee Ming says farewell before disappearing, hoping they never have to cross paths again. Hana, apparently escaped from Hell, walks away from the brothel on fire while making a snarky comment about how she has truly ruined everything.

• Hana Bad Ending: Hana shoots Glas and is sympathetic, saying "Goodbye, my friend." Wee Ming runs over to a side of the room to perform a ritual while Hana fights the monstrous Mr. Lam. Hana loses the battle and Yim Lau Wong stops Demon Lam from killing Hana. Hana and Wee Ming are seen outside the flaming brothel and Hana shoots her guns.

• Glas Good Ending: Glas kills Hana and mentions he never expected to kill her. Enraged, Wee Ming transforms into a monster. After defeating her, she returns back into a paper doll which Glas puts in his pocket. Yim Lau Wong laughs as the area collapses, causing Glas to flee. He emerges outside the burning brothel. He tries to be optimistic and feels like the paper doll in his hand may lead to opportunities.

• Glas Bad Ending: Glas kills Hana and mentions he never expected to kill her. Enraged, Wee Ming transforms into a monster. She defeats Glas and transforms back into her human form. Wee Ming mentions the prophecy is complete and says she can touch blood now. Wee Ming is seen back in the human realm and her eyes turn demonically black.

• Perfect ending: On the "Hard" difficulty setting, a third option will become available: spare the lives of both Glas and Hana. Neither of them shoot and the team works together to defeat Yim Lau Wong. In this ending, the pair emerge from the smoldering wreckage of the brothel, where they find a befuddled Deke sitting on a toilet. Deke has no memory of being killed, believing he has taken a bump to the head, and asks how they made out on the "deal". As he hoists himself out of the pit, Glas is stunned to realize that his left arm has been completely restored. The three partners walk off into the sunrise to continue their exploits. This is the canon ending due to both Hana and Glas being alive in Sedna, and the cancelled Inferno also made it clear this ending is canon.

Characters

Hana Tsu-Vachel, the protagonist

• Hana Tsu-Vachel - Hana is a 24 year old mercenary engaged in missions to receive money in order to buy her way out of the Chinese Triad. She has become emotionless about the act of killing. She once worked as a prostitute in a brothel as well, a time period that serves as an unhappy memory in her life.
• Royce Glas - Glas is a 34 year old U.S. military ex-officer that went AWOL due to being disillusioned by the actions of his employers. He is one of the main playable characters.
• Jacob "Deke" Decourt - Deke is a 37 year old with a love for powerful weapons. Not professionally trained, he learned all his skills during the wars that plagued New Australia for years. Deke takes various high paying jobs so he can satisfy his love of violence and pay for his extravagant lifestyle. He is one of the main playable characters.
• Wee Ming Lam - The 17 year old runaway daughter of Mr. Lam who has unfortunate truths regarding her existence.
• Mr. Lam - One of the wealthiest men in China, Mr. Lam owns the monopoly of an unspecified corporation and owns his own building tower in Hong Kong. He is quite powerful and has a number of bodyguards to protect himself.
• Jin (also known as Yim Lau Wong) - One of Hana's contacts who provides her with her missions. He originally helped Hana get off the streets when she needed help years ago.
• Madam Chen - The manager of the brothel Hana used to work at who runs a restaurant which doubles as the brothel. Chen adopted Hana after her parents died when she was a little girl. Hana and Chen grew to have a strained relationship however, with Hana being particularly resentful of the woman.

Gameplay

Hana exploring a building in Hong Kong.

Fear Effect features gameplay with unshaded characters textured to resemble cel-shading, notably being one of the first games to attempt the technique. Rather than using pre-rendered 2D backgrounds, the environments are composed of streaming or looping full-motion video. As a consequence, the game is composed of four discs. There are also puzzles interspersed between action sequences, similar to other games of the survival horror genre.

Hana performing a stealth kill.

The player controls one of three mercenaries (either Hana, Deke, or Glas) through areas filled with human and non-human enemies. The game controls are similar to traditional survival horror tank controls, with an exception being that the characters can run and shoot simultaneously. When wielding two guns (one in each hand), they are also able to shoot multiple enemies at the same time. Another feature is the ability to duck and roll; while facing a number of the armed foes, the player can roll a short distance and avoid taking enemy fire.

Glas stealth killing guards.

The game's title refers to the player's life bar, a meter which resembles a pulsing EKG. When the player is damaged, the green line of the EKG will pulse faster and turn red. It is possible to 'regain' health by performing acts that will calm that character's heart rate. These include solving a puzzle or sneaking behind a guard to perform a stealth kill. Both will be rewarded with a health boost that brings the meter back to green.

Fear Effect is somewhat unusual in that the game's save points are invisible. They require the player to find a certain spot in a room and hear a cell phone ring, which lets the player know they can save there.

Development

Fear Effect was inspired by director Stan Liu being incredibly tired of video games having juvenile qualities, such as awful low-quality stories, weird plot holes and poor embarrassing voice acting.

The story was intended to be a focus over the gameplay, with the gameplay being designed to support the unfolding of the story instead. Stan Liu also felt it was safer to have three main characters, since if players did not happen to like Hana for whatever reason, then they may at least like Deke and Glas more, commenting it's "less of a chance to screw up."[1] The look and design some of the environments was also inspired by the gritty aesthetics of the building in Kowloon City.

"Due to my film and gaming background, I’ve always envisioned this perfect union of games and movies somewhere down the yellow brick road. I have played my fair share of cinematic adventure-type games in my youth. As I’ve grown older and hopefully a little wiser, I found most of these types of games increasingly uninspiring. I simply do not care for the illogical situations, convoluted plots and terrible voice acting any longer. I wanted to play a game that is made for grown ups. I wanted intelligent and stirring content. I wanted a true Interactive movie in the best sense."

— Stan Liu

"Nowadays, we all know how extremely dangerous it is to put the two words "interactive" and "movie" together into one sentence, especially in the presence of a publisher. It’s basically a premature death sentence. When I set out to create Fear Effect, my inspiration was quite different than any other game we’ve made before. I ultimately wanted Fear Effect to provoke emotional responses from the player. I did not want a game about how many zombies I’ve killed in three hours or where to find my next weapon upgrade. Instead, I wanted to create a game that will make the player laugh, scream and cry! I wanted them to feel excited and enthralled. I wanted them to experience the game through being the characters on screen. In order to achieve that goal, I realized that the fundamental approach to create Fear Effect had to be drastically different than that of any traditional games. We basically took all the boundaries and limitations of what a game should be and threw it out the window. Instead of altering proven Hollywood formulas, we simply followed them precisely."

— Stan Liu

"We decided that it is OK to take control away from the player and seamlessly put them into story mode and vice versa. It is OK to dictate to the player which character’s role he will assume at any given time. It is perfectly OK not to have a life bar on screen. It is OK to tell the player where to use an item in their inventory without having them "pixel fishing" the entire screen. It is OK not to have an inventory system that pauses the game because it would break the suspension of disbelief, and in real lifetime would not stop just because you have to look into your inventory! (OK, maybe not) Most importantly, I strongly believe that content must take precedence above all else because at the end of the day when all the machines out there can do the same exact amazing things, when technology plateaus and high-end visual graphics become a standard commodity, the only thing that separates a good game from a bad one is the content and experience.We took many risks in making the original Fear Effect. We’ve learned that the majority of the fundamental concepts worked relatively well, yet some did not. We listened to all the comments and criticisms from the audiences and reviewers for the first game, and we’ve managed to come up with some relatively clever solutions to address those issues."

— Stan Liu

Reception

Fear Effect is considered a cult classic. It was praised for its detailed animated backgrounds, gritty mature narrative, and strong atmosphere.

It received some criticism because some players found the inventory and controls somewhat clunky. Additionally, the fear mechanic can prove frustrating to the point of rage quit; players can screw themselves over because fear does not lower with time, it only lowers after successful kills and solving puzzles. This means if a player saves their game with high fear in an area with enemies nearby, progression can become extremely difficult or potentially impossible. The save points being invisible also proved controversial, with many feeling that it is a poor game design choice as players may need to save and quit while being unable to find a close save point.

Comic

Deke and Hana in the comic.

A one-shot comic was released for the game. It is a short prequel to the game. The comic begins with Glas narrating over imagery of Hong Kong, with him mentioning a quote from Winston Churchill about how the only thing to fear is fear itself. The comic then shows the main trio in a rotoship, with Hana talking about how they are on a mission to find a relic for good pay. Hana mentions the pay is so good that she is fine with the client bring anonymous.

The group proceeds to enter a tall building, however, they become swarmed with humanoid demon-like enemies. Deke decides to open fire from the ship, which repels the demons but causes Glas to get a wound on his leg. Because Glas is injured, Hana goes in the building alone. Hana survives against more of the demons inside and she finds a man's corpse who apparently died while also trying to complete their mission. She takes his C4 and a map. Meanwhile, Deke assists Glas' wound in the rotoship, and the two are attacked by the demons. Hana finds a room with occultic imagery and theorizes it is a gateway to another realm of some sort, and she suspects the dead man had moved the relic and opened the way for a demon invasion.

Concept art of Jin which is how he appears in the comic.

As Hana grabs the relic, a phoenix statue, she is approached by a robed long-haired man with white hair and long fingernails; this is Jin as the King of Hell but Hana does not recognize him as Jin. The man says he is impressed by Hana, saying she is everything Glas said she would be, and more. He thanks her for completing her mission because he is physically unable to do it. He then activates Hana's C4, saying it will destroy the evidence of their mission, but not close the gateway. Hana is forced to jump off the building in order to survive and she is saved by the rotoship. Inside, Hana is satisfied she got paid in advance for the mission even though they were played, and says she would like to give that man some revengeful payback. Jin then laughs from afar, looking forward to seeing them again.

The comic, while being somewhat vague about some things, explains how demons are invading during the game. Hana also mentions encountering the demons has changed her mind on the occult being real and on a lot of other things. Even though Fear Effect 2 was released later as a prequel, the comic still gives explanation as to why the trio are not shocked by seeing demons later during the game since they are aware they exist.

Trivia

• The game was originally intended to be called Fear Factor. However, one of the representatives of the band Fear Factory saw the game at E3 and said they felt the game was infringing on their name, influencing the game to be re-named. This happened before the reality show Fear Factor as well.
• It is the third video game released featuring cel-shading, the first two being Mega Man games for the PS1.
• The game's manual shows three letters: one from Jin to Hana, one from Glas to Hana, and one from Wee Ming to Madam Chen. It is also revealed the flying car in the opening is called a Rotoship, and that the game begins at 11pm.
• Hana mentions she is born June 18th, 2028 in FE2. Her age in FE1 is confirmed to be 24. Because of this, Fear Effect is set sometime between June 18th, 2052 and June 18th, 2053.
• In order to make the world feel alive, despite being a PS1 game, the developers did several things in the moving backgrounds. They added things like flickering lights, moving shadows, smoke, fire and animated objects like fans. Sometimes, things will be moving which don't make much sense, such as a lamp swaying while inside a room with no windows open. The technique of movement and visual changes to create the illusion of a living world is still absent in some video games today, which tend to have static rooms with no movement.
• Fear Effect may have been inspired by the 1997 animated version of Anastasia which came out a few years before, though this has not been proven. There are some strong similarities, as both feature a group of three people trying to get wealthy by using a young woman who is unaware of her true heritage to a degree (Anastasia and Wee Ming). The protagonist is an orphan and she is assisted by two men; Glas can be compared to Dimitri, and Deke to Vlad. Both feature a train derailment scene which the protagonists need to jump off before it explodes, as well as a boat ride in which the protagonist wears a blue outfit (a towel for Hana and a dress for Anastasia). Around 3/4 into both stories, the protagonist reunites with a maternal-like figure they knew as a child (Madam Chen, Empress Marie) whom they recognize, though it is ironic Chen becomes antagonistic to Hana, while Anastasia is supported by Marie. Additionally, both stories start off grounded in reality, but dark magic is introduced and both have their own underworld which is ruled by a magical figure with a long black beard (Jin and Rasputin). Both Hana and Anastasia also have supernatural properties (Hana got Jin's blood on her which makes her immune to Wee Ming's dark powers, while Anastasia has a family curse).

External links

• Gallery of artwork
• Trailer

Gallery