Cold Fear (PlayStation 2) Review
Terror on the high seas or a cold fish?
~By tankMage (March 2023)
Score: 80/100 (Good)
Cold Fear is one of those games that could have been really great if the devs were able to realize the ideas behind it better. The concept of zombies on a ship is fairly novel and the setting has an excellent atmosphere. At the same time, the action feels flat and it’s hard to shake the feeling that this title is just a Resident Evil 4 clone. The sad part is I’m not even sure if the creators of Cold Fear intentionally mimicked RE4, because both games were released only months apart. That said, I enjoyed this game and it is worth playing if you need a survival horror fix. Just don’t expect a lot from it.
Coast Guard vs. Zombies
The overall concept is simple; you play as a member of the US Coast Guard who has been ordered to investigate the slaughter of some special ops soldiers on a Russian ship. No offense to the Coast Guard, but I’m not sure how someone with a bright red life vest and a handgun is supposed to succeed where a bunch of elite troops in tacti-cool gear failed. At any rate, the game turns into a fairly standard third person shooter/survival horror deal pretty quickly aside from the maritime backdrop. You’ll shoot zombies, figure out how to open doors, collect ammo, and shoot more zombies. Of course, this isn’t a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. The action, story, and exploration were all engaging enough to keep me playing, but they didn’t stand out for reasons I’ll get to later in this review.
Plenty of good ideas…
There’s a lot of good stuff to say about this title. The ship setting (and later on an oil rig) was really cool and well executed. I often had the feeling that I was on board a mid-sized vessel in the middle of a North Atlantic storm. Players not only have to contend with zombies and human mercs, but the ocean itself is an adversary. A big wave can damage you or knock you over board. On top of that, the rocking of the ship makes it tough to aim at times. The hero can even grab onto handrails and ledges to steady himself, which is a thoughtful mechanic.
There was also a cool weapon that could be used to distract enemies and a fairly well rounded selection of standard survival arms like shotguns and SMGs. The controls are also really smooth and the user interface is surprisingly modern for a game from 2005. It’s a good thing too, because Cold Fear would have been a chore to play if not for its strengths.
Something isn’t right…
While I enjoyed this game, it felt really…flat for lack of better terms. For starters, there’s no sense of impact to the action. It’s hard to explain, but in most games the sound and graphics are designed so the game world feels almost tangible. For example, in other games from this era, firing a shotgun or smashing a bad guy in the face had a graphical and auditory kick to it that made the action more immersive. This is somehow lacking in Cold Fear despite the fact that a lot of the environmental effects like rain and lighting were really well done. Perhaps this is a fault of the game engine, which felt way too smooth and artificial to the point where walking around often felt like sliding along a glass surface.
Don’t expect interesting enemies either. All of the mercenaries and zombies look like an army of clones. There are a few other monsters, but they are derivative at best and few and far between. I can’t help but think an opportunity was lost here, since the devs could have dreamt up all sorts of mutated sea creatures for the player to fight.
Not scary.
One of the main failings of Cold Fear is the lack of actual fear. Sure, there’s a few tense moments on the stormy deck of the ship and some cheap jump scares, but there’s no real sense of threat. This is partly due to the story being a bland rehash of survival horror tropes that were old in 2005 on one hand and that there’s no real stakes on the other hand. As far as the story goes, it’s your basic tale about evil bad guys trying to make a bio weapon. Where have we heard that before? A forgettable cast without any real antagonist makes the plot even more hollow.
Then there’s the fact that nothing feels threatening. There were no chainsaw wielding maniacs, cosmic horrors, or mutated super villains to fight. Usually a super tough enemy adds to the horror element in survival horror, since knowing some big bad brute can come and smash you like a bug at a moment’s notice is always a cause for alarm. There’s nothing like that in Cold Fear. On top of that, ammo is fairly plentiful and a player that can hit the broadside of a barn will not want for ammunition, which further reduces the sense of tension.
Did this game have a soundtrack?
There was once a time when devs had to rely on beautifully composed music to convey emotion and set the tone of a scene. Those days were long over by 2005 and Cold Fear has the sort of crap cinematic soundtrack one would expect from most modern games. At least the voice acting is mostly competent.
It could have been worse, it could have been better.
I put this game down a lot, but it’s really not bad. After all, I had fun playing it from start to finish. It’s just that this title could have been so much better given the premise and promising start. If you’ve played some of the more prominent titles in this genre, Cold Fear is worth your time just for some of the ideas it explores.
Thanks for reading my Cold Fear review!
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