F.E.A.R, a wierd acronym for First Encounter Assault Recon. FEAR came
out a awhile ago for the PC, now it's out for the Xbox 360 and
Playstation 3.
First off the graphics in FEAR are getting pretty stale as far as
design goes. It always seems like you are fighting in either industrial
areas or battered buildings, but when you get to one of the "scary
worlds" where you are running down hospital hallways and when you get
to the end a little girl named Alma will appear and scare your pants
off.
The atmosphere in FEAR is probably the games strong point. When the
action slows down and you are running through one of the buildings, you
will hear and see things that have happened in the past or just plain weird and scary things. When you see these moments, it will send a
chill down your spine. Unless of course you are playing in broad
daylight.
The story in FEAR is you are the FEAR front man, a nameless soldier, who
never talks, has a special ability. That ability is the power to slow
down time. It is essential to use while fighting your enemy's, and if
you don't you will die. You are sent to look for a cannibalistic man
named Paxton Fettel, he has created super soldiers to kill you, but
luckily you are far more superior than them. Along the way you have
encounters with a mysterious girl named Alma. You really know nothing
about her, but as you progress through the game you find bits and
pieces about her past. You do have squad mates but they are never with
you, they only talk to you on the radio but that's hard to hear because
they talk while you are shooting. It is a good thing that they are not
with you because it would make the game a lot less scary. The way the
game ended definitely leaves room for sequels hopefully to come.
The game controls can be frustrating at times. Mostly because every
button on the controller has a function. So you might be battling with
them once in awhile.
The weapons in the game are very good and have a good punch. Probably
the best gun or most enjoyable to use is your trusty shotgun. It's very
good when you turn your slow-mo on and get right up into the enemy's
face and if you hit them in the right spot, they will explode in a
cloud of blood with pieces of there body flying past you. It's also
nice to see rag doll physics that make the game a little more realistic.
The AI is probably the best you will see in any video game. Your
enemy's will talk to each other, flank you,use cover, and throw
grenades to stop you. So you can't just go runnin and gunnin, you have
to use cover or you will die. Sure this will cause a few frustrating
moments but it never gets old because the AI won't do the same thing
over and over again. So you never feel like you play the same thing
twice.
The sound is outstanding with creepy sounds of little girls crying and
evil laughs, you know the normal horror stuff. The music is also really
creepy with it ramping up when the action is hot and then toning it
down when your walking down a deserted hallway.
The single player campaign will take you about 10 hours on the lower
difficulty's. When you crank the difficulty up it would maybe take you
15-20 depending on skill level. When you reach the end it will feel
like you've come a long way since the beginning.
The multiplayer is pretty good with game modes like Deathmatch, Team
Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. Pretty much the standard game modes
is most FPS games. Slow-Mo has its own mode which is pretty exciting.
It's always fun to shoot your friends head off then watch it fly
through the air in slow-mo. When his body lands just run over and give
him the classic T-Bag.
The maps range from big to small so all different size parties could play.
Another mode in FEAR is the Instant Action mode. This is where you are
placed on one of the maps and you have 15-30 minutes to get as many
kills as you can. While that is going on you have a score that goes up
by how many kills you have and how much style you have in your kill.
This mode can get pretty intense when there are a ton of enemy's on
screen at once.
With all of those enemys on screen at once you probably are expecting frame rate issues. There are no frame rate issues at all which was a
surprise cause this came out quite awhile ago.
This is not a point whorey game. The achievements are hard and will
take quite along time to get them all. I finished the single player
campaign with only 85 points. Do not let this be a turn off though
because the game is worth playing no matter what.
So overall the game is superb but because of the level design and
frustrating controls bring the game down a little, but any FPS fan will
have a ton of fun with this game and it is definitely worth the bargain
it is now.
