Buried Treasures: The Fear Effect Series (PS1)

In 2000, Eidos released a ground breaking game that should have been the start of a mega franchise. Fear Effect was one of the first games to use the popular cel-shaded style of animation seen in games such as Jet Grind Radio, XIII, and Zelda: The Wind Walker. It was a survival horror game with a compelling and bizarre plot, three playable characters each with their own abilities, multiple endings, and LESBIANS! It was also heavy on cinema sequences which depict your character being instantly killed if you don’t do the sequence right, similar to old school adventure games. Even the “health” of your character was innovative. Instead of managing a life bar, you had to manage your character’s fear. Solving puzzles, stealth killing enemies, and overcoming obstacles decrease your fear, while being spotted, taking too long on certain sections, or triggering traps raise it. If it’s too high, you could be killed instantly. A sequel was released in 2001, which added a new character, Rain, and told the gruesome backstory of how the three mercenaries came together. It was an even larger game, and the action was spread out amongst a series of levels. Sadly, a third game, Fear Effect Inferno had been planned for PS2, but it fell through due to developer Kronos’s collapse. Fortunately for fans of the series, all is not lost; a movie adaptation is in the works for 2008. Hopefully this will revive interest in the game, and it can finally get the attention it so rightfully deserves.

Seriously though, how the hell could a game with this in it not be doing Grand Theft Auto numbers?