Reviews - brutaldeluxe

It's one of those mods that's been hyped up for months and has lots to live up to, does COF satisfy expectations?, yes and no.
The normal maps are used very well and the teams' mapper deserves a pat on the back, the game looks a lot better then half life. The film grain looks cool and is perhaps meant to give the game a look similar to old horror films?, as this basically is a big interactive horror film. The games atmospere is at first unsettling, proceeding through the game to become more and more disturbing; the team delivered everything they promised in that context.

The game is without doubt scary in SOME places; but that atmosphere begins to wane around chapter 4. The problem is that they have made a game that consists almost purely of jump scares and weird music to convey the horror, neglecting the most important element, that being psychological horror. In the first chapter where the player gets in the apartment there is a subplot that is, in this reviewers opinion, the most scary part of the whole game. Simon goes down stairs into the basement to retrieve a videotape, on the videotape a killer cuts off a mans head with some shears; and when a message pops up that says you must use the elevator to escape the apartments this reviewer assumed that the killer was still in the building I actually hurried to leave.
After a while though the game just gets predictable and turns into a horror shooter, the only psycological horror left being whether an enemy will pop out or when the chainsaw man will come back, so you basically stay pumped up with adrenaline and the player becomes fearless. The monsters while initially scary lose shock value after a while perhaps because they are low poly and some are fullbright, maybe a more modern engine could be used in future because better lighting would have done a lot for scare factor.
Despite these faults Cry Of Fear is not something to turn your nose up at, Team Psykskallar have built a top 10 hl mod.