The Fabulous Fear Machine Review: Fear Factor

In our preview of The Fabulous Fear Machine, I praised this novel take on the real-time strategy genre for its unique spin on things, while calling out the terrible onboarding experience its tutorials represent. Much of what I covered in the preview absolutely still applies here – The Fabulous Fear Machine’s focus on manipulating the world’s population through fear and paranoia is still an interesting take on the territory takeover gameplay hook that this genre is known for, but one that is ultimately going to require a bit of trial and error to get the most out of due to the woeful job the game does at explaining key concepts.

Make Your Own Way

Before launching into one of The Fabulous Fear Machine’s three narrative-driven campaigns, you’ll need to progress through the exact same tutorial that the preview build contained. To see this tutorial make it through to the final release is a touch disappointing. I maintain that this opening practice run throws a lot of new concepts at you at once, concepts that even strategy veterans are likely to find alien; it fails to articulate effectively how all these systems work and link together. There’s a lot of unfamiliar jargon thrown at the player early on, and before you have time to digest one new idea, you’re on to the next.

Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of trial and error in the opening hours of The Fabulous Fear Machine that I could see pushing many players away. I hope that’s not the case, however, as once you do get familiar with the moment-to-moment gameplay, there’s a lot of fun to be had. Each campaign is ultimately a territory takeover experience.

You’re presented with a map and given various missions, with the ultimate goal being to grow your sphere of influence all around the world on behalf of a shady corporation that has you doing its bidding. The key thing setting The Fabulous Fear Machine apart from its competition, though, is that you’ll be using rumors and legends to slowly gain a grip on the population, rather than using conflict or diplomacy as you typically see in more traditional takes on the genre.

It’s a neat concept and works quite well in practice once you wrap your head around it. The main gameplay loop involves taking an agent, placing them in a specific country, and having them scout out a location within that country, such as a city, for example. With a site nailed down, you’re then tasked with making the population in that area accept a message or mission statement and convert to your cause. It’s not a simple task, however, as to get a population to convert to your train of thought and blindly follow you, they need to be scared out of their minds, which is where legends come in.

Legends are your primary tool for causing fear and spreading panic, and I loved seeing the weird and wacky concepts that these touched on. From ludicrous ideas such as poltergeist outbreaks and raining frogs, all the way through to terrifying scenarios involving highway kidnapping, selecting a legend and placing it in a specific region will cause the fear meter to increase. Thankfully, rather than coming across as distasteful, the insane nature of the legends lends a tongue-in-cheek feel to the entire experience, with The Fabulous Fear Machine falling largely into dark comedy territory rather than attempting to realistically portray the terrorizing of citizens.

While I enjoyed the core gameplay loops, I do think that the gameplay ultimately grows stale by the time you’re hitting the third campaign. It never really evolves beyond that core grind of placing agents, placing legends, and then extracting resources to be able to do the same thing over again while evolving the power of your existing legends. There are a few new mechanics thrown in here and there across the various chapters that the campaign is split into, but the missions tend to eventually just blend into one as a result of the repetition.

Trigger Warnings

I say that The Fabulous Fear Machine largely falls into dark comedy territory because I do think there is going to be a certain portion of players that take issue with some of the narrative threads that are woven through each of the three campaigns, which ultimately won’t appreciate the comedic value. Each story sees you take on the role of someone desperate for power and using the titular Fabulous Fear Machine to further their nefarious goals. There’s a campaign that sees you stepping into the shoes of a pharmacist who wants to spread a new virus so that they can then develop the ultimate vaccine and adoration of the nation. Then there’s the cult leader who wants to grow his following and brainwash them, with the ultimate goal being to lead them to an end that feels very familiar to a certain real-life tragedy. I personally didn’t take issue with either of these two stories; the Fabulous Fear Machine’s satirical humor does a lot of heavy lifting in taking the edge off what would perhaps otherwise be extremely sensitive topics. The third story is a little more of a grey area, though, as you lead a politician to power in a right-wing party. I won’t spoil the conclusion, but it’s a tragic tale of addiction and the lengths people will go to when at rock bottom. If there is one story I think may cause a stir, it’s this one due to the slightly hamfisted way in which it handles a topic that will no doubt have touched on many people’s lives.

Ultimately though, I think most people will appreciate the effort that has gone into fleshing out each campaign with intricate and, at times, nuanced narratives. Even when I did find myself thinking that the narrative was maybe a bit tone-deaf, the biting humor and often hilarious nature of the legends you deploy in each region meant I was never long before a smirk was spread back across my face.

Pulp Horror

Whatever your view is on the tone of the narrative, one thing I’m sure everyone will agree on is that The Fabulous Fear Machine looks absolutely gorgeous. The pulpy art style echoes vintage horror comics, helping give an otherworldly feel to the campaigns. The stars of the show are absolutely the designs of the legend cards, though, with their art changing as you level your cards up through resources gathered from the various map regions by your agents. I always looked forward to seeing the changes that increasing the level of a card brought, and there are dozens upon dozens of cards to play around with, adding a ton of replay value if you want to see the amazing art displayed by each one in full.

Conclusion

While not without issues—the worst offender still being the inadequate tutorials—The Fabulous Fear Machine is an incredibly refreshing spin on the real-time strategy genre. With unexpectedly detailed, if at times slightly questionable, narratives underpinning each of its three campaigns and an art style that looks and feels like nothing else in the genre, The Fabulous Fear Machine does the impossible and makes being evil a whole lot of fun through its fresh gameplay loops and devilishly delightful assortment of legends. If you’ve got a mean streak and have always wanted a safe environment in which to find out what it feels like to have people unquestionably devote themselves to you and your cause, well, firstly, you should be on a watch list somewhere, and secondly, you should absolutely check out The Fabulous Fear Machine.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available On: PC (reviewed); Publisher: AMC Games; Developer: Fictorama Studios; Released: 4th October, 2023; Players: 1; MSRP: $17.99

Full Disclosure: A review code was provided by the publisher.