Reviewed: December 12, 2005
Reviewed by: John Bowlin

Publisher
Sierra

Developer
Monolith Productions

Released: October 18, 2005
Genre: FPS
Players: 1-16
ESRB: Mature

9
9
9
8
8.8

Minimum System Requirements

The story places you as a member of an elite Special Forces unit called F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon. This organization was created to investigate potentially supernatural phenomenon and deal with it using might military force. You are a new recruit, but apparently you're also a complete bad ass, since nearly everyone else who goes on the missions with you ends up toast. You're on your own in this one, but you've got the gear and the skills you need to complete your mission.

All told, the plot is pretty difficult to follow especially since a big chunk of it is told through pretty ineffectual answering machine messages and radio broadcasts. But the creepy scenes are good and sometimes even scary, and there's enough plot to keep you gunning through the opposition to reach the conclusion.

F.E.A.R. uses the now standard WASD keys for movement by default. You can lean left or right with the Q and E keys, good for taking shots around corners. You can crouch and jump and kick and use your weapon as a club in close-quarters fighting. You even have a separate hotkey just for tossing grenades, which is good because you don't need to first switch to grenade then throw, you can keep your gun ready while tossing one. Of course, the mouse is for aiming and firing, like almost all first person shooters. The controls are all fully customizable using in-game menus like all PC games should be.

The weapon selection in F.E.A.R. is for the most part, good, and each weapon has it's own unique feel to it. There are no cool or unique weapons that you've never seen before, but each weapon has a purpose. Even the pistols are useful, especially when you have two and you're wielding them John Wu style. There is also submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, rail guns, rocket launchers, and more. You are limited to carrying around three weapons, plus three different kinds of explosives (grenades). So you kind of need to pick and choose which weapon to take based on what you encounter. In practice, however, you'll be limited by whatever weapons you can scrounge up enough ammo for.

In addition to your weapons, you also have the ability to dish out some serious kicks and rifle-butts in melee mode, which can be a good way to take out enemies who get in too close. But the coolest special ability you have is your lightning quick reflexes. You can press a hotkey to go into "bullet time" like in Max Payne or The Matrix, where everything is in slow motion, making it much easier for you to react and take out multiple enemies very quickly. You can only stay in this mode for a limited time, but it does recharge fairly quickly.

The gunfights in F.E.A.R. are a true joy to behold and play. F.E.A.R. does a superb job of making you feel like you're in an action movie gun fight. Bullets rip holes in the nearby concrete, shred boxes and crates and throw up dust from the debris. Bodies fall in satisfying and realistic ways. The sounds are incredible and make you feel like you are right there in the battle. Overall there are few games that compare to F.E.A.R. with regard to the gun battles.

The enemy AI in F.E.A.R. is quite respectable and even encounters with small groups of soldiers can be a challenge. The enemy will try to flank you, they will use grenades appropriately, they know how to use cover and dodge out of the way of your attacks. They even know when to use melee attacks if you get in too close. The soldiers also communicate with each other and hearing them screaming for backup or telling other soldiers to flank you really adds to the immersion of the game.

F.E.A.R. is not without its faults, however. For one thing, there are only really a handful of different types of enemies to deal with, and throughout a large portion of the early game you will only encounter two or three different types. Most of what you encounter are the clone soldiers, and while these guys are worthy opponents with excellent AI, it can get a bit tiresome fighting the same old guys over and over.

Another flaw is that the environments you fight in are not particularly varied. You can look forward to hundreds of firefights in the same old warehouses and office buildings. On the plus side, the graphics are well done so these are good looking warehouses and office buildings. But it sure would have been nice if there had been some more variety to the locales of this game.

One of the ways that F.E.A.R. helps break up the monotony of the bland locations is through some excellent use of horror. You'll have strange visions, see ghosts, witness horrible events that happened at some unknown time in the past, and more. Not to mention some pretty gruesome scenes of carnage thrown in for laughs. F.E.A.R. is actually pretty scary at times, and this definitely keeps you glued to your seat eager to see more.

F.E.A.R. offers multiple difficulty settings to match the skills of just about any type of action gamer. The easy mode is still pretty challenging but you will not die very often, while in normal mode you can expect a much better challenge from the AI and you can expect to reload quite a bit after they kill your sorry butt. The good news is, the game has quick-save and you can save at any time. It also auto-saves at frequent checkpoints so you do not need to manually keep track of saves if you don't want to mess with it. This is very handy; since the game is so immersive it is easy to forget to save often.

F.E.A.R. allows a lot of customization for the graphics options. You can choose a resolution from 640x480 up to 1600x1200. There are advanced options to turn on shadows, the level of detail on shadows, pixel shader options, full screen anti-aliasing, and more things than I even know what are. Fortunately you do not have to mess with that if you don't want to and you can just auto-configure and the game will select the best configuration for your rig. From there you can tweak it if you think you need to.

As mentioned before, the environments in F.E.A.R. are not particularly varied nor interesting. Basically you have three types throughout the whole game, warehouses, office buildings, and deserted urban areas. There is a pretty good amount of detail in them, but seeing the same things over and over can get pretty monotonous. Also the layouts of the buildings are pretty unrealistically maze-like, but that is understandable since this is a game, after all. Shadows can be a bit too harsh at times, making things look a bit unreal. But overall the graphics in general are very good, especially if you have a high-dollar video card.

F.E.A.R. supports surround sound setups, and it even has EAX 2.0 support and EAX Advanced HD support. You have the option of using software sound mixing or leave it up to your sound card. Overall you really don't get much better sound effects than what F.E.A.R. offers.

Sure, you've played all those modes before, but F.E.A.R. does it right. Plus you can fight for control of "bullet time". You'll be able to see on your HUD who has the ability to use that special effect and if you kill them you can take over the power. This can be especially rewarding and offer some unique tactics in the team games.

With very high production values in the graphics and sound department, F.E.A.R. is a highly immersive experience. The creepy supernatural stuff also adds to the atmosphere, giving this game a unique flavor and making it that much more memorable. First person shooter fans really should check this game out, and even those new to the genre can have fun here on the easy setting.