Enjoyable, but definitely not next-gen

User Rating: 7.1 | F.E.A.R. PS3
By stijnf | Review Date:
Now what can I say about F.E.A.R.? quite a lot actually. Let’s start by saying that I’ve enjoyed playing this game. I played it on expert level and that’s what you should do too. The difficulty made sure that it took me +20 hours to complete the game, so it was worth the money. As a small footnote: I buy all my games on eBay, they’re available just days after the official release and much cheaper.

Back to the game itself. F.E.A.R. is a pretty standard FPS, the good thing is the creepy atmosphere. It’s kind of a mix between ‘The Ring’ and ‘Resident Evil’. The music and sounds contribute perfectly to this feeling. Still I must admit that after a while the horror effects start to fade as you get used to them. Another positive thing is the enemy AI. It is really very good, they’ll try to flank you or smoke you out (although you always know when a grenade is coming. A ‘Grenade Away!’ – shout gives the enemie’s intentions away most of the time).

On the negative side, F.E.A.R. is just not worthy of a next-gen game. The graphics are ok… for a PS II game. Explosions and bullets don’t have a lasting effect. Bullet holes, dead bodies quickly fade away. Even most light bulbs seem to have a protective kevlar layer. The number of opponents is limited. 95% of the time you encounter 2 standard enemies. The environments are repetitive. You spend most of your time in an office building and every office space looks like the next one, which is boring

The story behind F.E.A.R. unfolds slowly and difficult. A lot of hints, further explanations can be found in messages left on voice mails that are left behind. The problem is that some of these messages are very hard to understand because they are very silent compared to the background noise. Also, you learn nothing about yourself. Ok, you’re a rookie elite soldier suddenly able to kill dozens of enemies like a full-blown veteran … but besides that, no clue.

F.E.A.R is also an online game and that's where it goes really wrong. You can easily log in, but than you have to wait for like ages before being able to enter an online game. It looks like you have to wait untill everybody is logged in and ready (meaning having chosen it's weapons)... This can take forever and after a while i just got sick of waiting and left.

In short. Not bad, but definitely no next-gen game. We’ll have to wait for games like GTA IV I guess.

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