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  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • Anishenko; you just shoot at him until he is dead.
    • The final boss,Kamsky, during the "second round" is one if you know what to do.
  • Cult Classic: Sold poorly and was derided by critics as being a carbon copy of Resident Evil 4, but still found itself a small fanbase who consider it a good game nonetheless.
  • Demonic Spiders: The crawlers are Ambushing Enemies which soak up a half dozen shells of buckshot at point blank range and will use the ventilation shafts to sneak up behind you. As an extra little 'fuck you', they cannot be looted for health or ammo after they have (finally) been killed.
  • Disappointing Last Level: The game is a unique gem of sixth generation consoles, challenging the player with zombie gunfights on the slick decks of the rocking ship and then you go to a creepy abandoned lab on a drilling platform. The game remains good up until the final boss whose mechanics completely go against everything you've done in game previously and is just plain not fun to fight at all.
  • Goddamn Bats: The parasite forms often appear in groups, present only a tiny target, curl up into a ball and roll away after being hit, and to top it all off, they'll often pop up out of the neck hole of a recently defeated zombie.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Creepy not-quite-dead guys are scattered all throughout the game; their skin is very pale and they are largely unmoving, but their eyes are wide open and their jaws are slack, and their heads bob slowly up and down. Though they are not in any way a threat, you will likely find yourself blowing off the heads of every. Single. One.
    • It is later revealed in one of the discarded notes that these guys are former hosts to parasites that have used them up, eaten their brains, and moved on to find a new host.
    • The elevetor of the Scientific Module has three huge "asymetrical specimens" in jars of yellow liquid. They're still breathing. And yes, you'll feel like they're about to jump at you at any time. Only one of them does.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • There is no way to choose when you save. The game automatically prompts you to save at certain spots, some of which can be nearly thirty minutes apart, without ever indicating when they are going to appear. They also only get activated once. If you somehow miss the prompt, or cancel the save accidentally, you're screwed until you can get to the next one.
    • There's no map. Because of this, combined with the fact that a lot of the environments look very similar to each other, it's very easy for the player to get lost.
  • That One Boss: Near the end of the game Tom fights against one of the invisible specimens inside the drilling station's explosives storage room. There are explosive barrels EVERYWHERE. Basically, you have to shoot something that is completely invisible, moves very quickly and has loads of health, and if you miss a single shot you'll most likely hit a barrel and blow yourself up. And if you run away, the stupid specimen will set off the explosives and kill you before you can leave.
    • Or, you can try to get attacked, grapple him and successfully score a Critical Hit, which kills him instantly without setting the explosives.
    • The final boss Kamsky, you can't hurt him directly, you have to shoot him to lure him towards you and away from Anna (if Kamsky grabs her it's game over) and then he'll do a difficult to dodge charge attack which will send you flying if it hits you(and if you crash into the grates on the sides it will do even more damage) and once the charges are planted then you have to let Kamsky grab you (easier said then done as half the time he'll miss grabbing you even when you're standing right next to him as the hitbox is overly picky) then do a QTE and shoot him and you have to do this three times. The annoying part is you have to dodge his attacks and stay close to him at the same time which is harder then it sounds, oh and there's no save between boss phases AND there's no health pickups whatsoever during the fight, so you'd better go in with full health or you're SOL..
  • They Copied It, So It Sucks!: One of the primary criticisms of the game is that it uses a lot of elements featured in Resident Evil 4, released two months prior. Both use the same over-the-shoulder style (though Cold Fear gives the option of using a fixed camera instead, and also unlike Resident Evil 4 allows you to move and shoot at the same time, something Resident Evil wouldn't do until Resident Evil 6), take place primarily in a European setting, and has enemies that were created using a Puppeteer Parasite. On top of that, Tom himself looks a bit like Leon.

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