Is it a full-motion video Tomb Raider or a sexier Resident Evil? If we're talking about the Fear Effect series, the answer is all of the above. Twenty-five years ago, this franchise was paving the way for adult-oriented cinematic adventures, and then inexplicably disappeared. Now it's back, thanks to Limited Run Games, who just announced that Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix will be coming to modern consoles next year, featuring enhanced graphics, more cunning opponents and eight new areas to puzzle through. Yeah, that's cool news, but are either of these two games worth playing? To answer that question, I decided to flip through old issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Edge, Next Generation and more classic magazines that reviewed the Fear Effect series when it first came out. I hope you brought a towel, because things are about to get steamy in this episode of Fear Effect Review Crew!


Four years after first introducing the world to Lara Croft, Eidos was still riding high with the breakout success of Tomb Raider. The Last Revelation was coming out later that year, the Angelina Jolie movie was in production and she was still winding up on magazine covers. But what if suddenly everybody got bored of video gaming's leading lady? Don't worry, Eidos had another impossibly attractive action star waiting in the wings. Fear Effect is a weird mash-up of everything that was big in the 1980s and 90s, liberally taking elements from Blade Runner, Indiana Jones, The Sixth Sense, classic John Woo films and even survival horror. Despite its many influences, Fear Effect is an ambitious game that not only told an elaborate story over the course of four discs, but also toyed with the visuals. The graphics are a combination of cel-shaded characters interacting with a pre-rendered world made up of full-motion video loops. That's fun to think about in retrospect, but what did the critics say back in 2000?

Let's start with Electronic Gaming Monthly, who thought Fear Effect was another winner for Eidos. Giving it an average score of 9 out of 10, they appreciated that this was a more mature game. John gave it a 9 and said, “You really wouldn't know that this was an American game. In terms of production values and storyline, it has a lot in common with the very best that anime has to offer. Despite some niggly control issues, over-simplified puzzles and the fact that it's a bit short for four discs' worth of game, it has to be said that Fear Effect is top-notch. The plot is simply superb and it's filled with twists and surprises. A true ‘adult' game.” Dean largely agreed, though gave the game a slightly lower 8.5 out of 10: “Intriguing is the best way to describe Fear Effect. Sounds like hype, but the characters, plot, the Blade Runner-like ambience, it all melds together to create quite a surrealistic thriller. The fortunate part is, no one element weakens the game. If it had bad control or impossible puzzles, it would ruin the vibe. If anything, it's a little obvious at times, but nothing major. I highly recommend this one.”

As it turns out, EGM's average was actually Fear Effect's highest score. While PSM gave the game a very similar 4.5 out of 5, the rest of the critics went lower. This includes Incite Video Gaming, which gave the blockbuster release a score of 4 out of 5. That's the same score we saw from Next Generation, who argued that “you're bound to get frustrated at points – for every 20 seconds of gameplay you have before you die, you have to endure 10 – 15 seconds of loading. It's maddening! There's also a lack of intuitiveness with some of the puzzles. At times you will feel like banging your head into the wall. Still, if you love a good story and have the patience to live with the game's few flaws, Fear Effect should go a long way to tiding you over until you get your hands on a PS2.”

When it comes to the lowest score, we have to turn to Next Generation's sister magazine – Edge. They gave it a low 6 out of 10, arguing that “Although Fear Effect looks great, there are serious gameplay faults that undermine the experience. Fundamentally, the balance between puzzle solving and beating the end-of-level bosses is extremely flawed. And the game's clumsy control system makes the boss encounters absurdly difficult – you actually come to dread the arrival of the next big bad guy, which hampers the effectiveness of the storyline. In such a beautifully cinematic game, featuring clever plotting and scripting, such deficiencies are even more offensive.”

It will be interesting to see what kind of quality-of-life updates come with the re-release. This is a game that wowed me at the time, but some of the imperfections mentioned here may be a lot more glaring a quarter-century later.

Taking a lesson from the success of Tomb Raider, Eidos decided to strike while the iron was hot when it came to Fear Effect 2. Barely waiting a year to release the sequel, Retro Helix is a bigger and more ambitious take on the cel-shaded action game, with a deeper story and even more impressive visual effects. It was also a more mature game, in more ways than one. A lot of the advertising was centered around the two women in skin-tight costumes in suggestive positions, often with a risqué pun, like how “these two ladies put the ass in assassin.” The game really leaned into the sex appeal, something we were starting to see more of in the early part of the 21st century. This strategy helped to keep people talking about Fear Effect 2 and even got the third game greenlit. However, Fear Effect 3 was eventually canceled and the series languished in video game purgatory until 2018's Fear Effect Sedna, which was met with great disdain from both critics and fans. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because we're here to talk about Fear Effect 2.

We're going to start with Electronic Gaming Monthly, where there was a big disagreement between the three critics. Chris gave Fear Effect 2 a 7.5 out of 10, spending a lot of time talking about the full-motion video: “If it didn't have the gameplay to back it up, it would be nothing more than an excuse to serve up heavy doses of violence and sexual innuendo. Without question, the FMV makes the game look better, but also makes it look very grainy. Good thing the load times are quick. The control scheme takes some getting used to, but once you do, it's really handy to be able to switch weapons, bust up some enemies and reload all while running. It reminds me more of Out of This World than Resident Evil, maybe just because of the frustrating style of some of its puzzles.” Todd liked the game a lot more than Chris, giving it a 9 out of 10: “There's some hype surrounding Fear Effect 2 since it features two pretty ladies playing a brief game of tonsil hockey. And besides that, there's profanity, lots of bullet-to-the-brain gruesomeness, and a story that entertains, surprises, shocks and unravels into plenty of surreal weirdness. But shock value isn't the reason you should unlock your pocket at the corner gaming story; buy Fear Effect 2 because it's awesome.” Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game an average score of 8.5 out of 10.

It's worth noting that Game Informer also gave Fear Effect 2 a score of 8.5 out of 10, but plenty of other magazines liked it a lot less. PSM went down to an 8 out of 10, while the Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine could only muster up a 7 out of 10. Edge was even harsher, going with a 6 out of 10. They argued that “the original Fear Effect was one of those rare FMV-heavy games in which prerendered sequences actually added to the game, and Retro Helix is no less successful in this respect, despite adolescent leanings at times. But while Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix is a sufficiently accomplished enhancement of the original, it does seem that this genre, with its puzzle-heavy emphasis, has nowhere to go on more advanced hardware apart from down the more action-oriented path that the Resident Evil series has already traveled. Certainly Kronos has got about as much out of the old grey box as it is likely to, but for the series to make the leap to a new hardware platform, the developer will have to go try harder to push the limits of the genre.”

When it comes to the lowest score, that belongs to Maxim magazine, which gave it a 2 out of 5. But, seriously, who cares what Maxim says? Let's instead turn to Blender, who gave Fear Effect 2 a score of 3 out of 5 in their very first issue: “Anime-inspired gunslinging lesbian mercenaries not only put the ass in assassin but will leave Lara Croft reeling in her tomb.” Hey, that assassins line is literally from the advertising. Come up with something original, like: “They put the double-Ds in double agent.” On second thought, that's probably what Maxim said.

When we look at the top scores, we see the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine going with a 4.5 out of 5, the same score GamePro gave the game in their 150th issue. Believe it or not, the top score belongs to the notoriously grumpy Next Generation, who may have given it a 5 out of 5, but would definitely object to me using the P-word: “Sure, it's not perfect. Certain tasks are repetitive, and a few of the puzzles are needlessly obscure. But multiple endings add to the replayability, and the plot twist at the end is alone almost worth the price of admission. There's currently nothing quite like this on any platform, and though it's a little short, it's definitely worth the time.”

As you can see, the critics were still on board for the Fear Effect franchise, even if the detractors were a little more vocal this time around. With an overall average of 76%, Retro Helix isn't that far off from the 80% we saw from the original. While not all of the elements hold up that well a quarter-century later, both of these games are definitely worth playing. I hear that it puts the ass in, well, you know.