Almost takes Half-Life 2's crown. Almost...
F.E.A.R. tells the story of an unnamed agent, you, who is a new member for the First Encouter Assault Recon team, a top secret military unit, otherwise know as F.E.A.R., that investigates unusual para-normal activity. Your mission is to locate Paxton Fettel, who can telepathically control an army of cloned soldiers, and has all of sudden gone AWOL, taking the clones with him. It’s not known what Fettel is up to, but it’s up to you to find out. The story is presented in very much the same way as Valve’s masterpiece, basically with you (as the protagonist) observing everything play out in front of you. If your character isn’t there, you generally won’t see it unfold, just the grim aftermath (with the exception of the game’s opening cinematic).
You can’t talk about F.E.A.R. for long without mention of two of the most impressive aspects of the game: the combat, and the graphics. I’ll get to the graphics later, but combat in F.E.A.R. is a thing of beauty. You literally have to see it to believe it. Playing through F.E.A.R. almost feels like you’re in the midst of John Woo’s latest action blockbuster. The sheer chaos that unfolds during the many gunfights is a sight to behold, as bullets fly everywhere, explosions punish the environment (and anyone caught in them), and bodies get torn apart and litter the ground. The combat is one of the best qualities of F.E.A.R., and someone is bound to steal some of Monolith's ideas from it sooner of later.
The artificial intelligence Monolith developed for the game is, at times, downright scary. They will employ all manner of tactics to flush you out, hunt you down, and generally see to your quick and painful termination. They make for a terrific opponent, even on the lower difficulty levels, as they make full use of cover, and all the weapons and training they have at their disposal. A large part of what makes the combat in F.E.A.R. work so well is the A.I., as you will have to use every bit of cover, and every tactic you can think of to get through the armies you will be facing.
Fortunately, you do have some assistance. As I mentioned earlier, the ‘bullet-time’ effect is once again used, this time as an extension of the main characters heightened reflexes. However, as many times as bullet-time has been done in a game, it's still cool, and it's still useful. It also doesn’t hurt that effect looks so ridiculously cool, but more on that later.
You also have access to wide variety of weapons, ranging from FPS stalwarts such as machine guns and assault rifles, to some very new, and very cool weapons, such as the staple/nail gun and a sniper cannon that fires electrical slugs that literally fry whoever is unlucky enough to get hit. And as cool as these weapons sound, you have to see them action to get a feel for how great they really are. As is the case in most shooters now, you have a limited number of weapons you can carry at any one time. You can only carry around three weapons at any given time, so the choice of weapons also adds a slightly strategic element to the gun-play. Combine this with the melee attacks that your character is capable of, such as a drop-kick and an awesome looking scissors kick, and you have more than enough offensive capabilities to deal with anything the game throws at you. It's also a massive help that Monolith decided to go the way of Halo, and map grenades to a separate button, so that you want have to fumble around with weapon selection to get a grenade out and get back to your weapon.
For the most part, F.E.A.R. takes place in tight enclosed spaces, such as office complexes, parking garages, alleys and sewers. While making the combat tighter and more cinematic, you may get a little bored seeing the same sort of environments over the course of the 10-12 hours it takes to play through the game.
Monolith talked quite a bit about the horror influences they were trying to use in the game, particularly influences from Japanese horror films. These touches add a great deal of suspense, and to freshen up the FPS genre, as you never really know what to expect next, or even what you’re really seeing unfold in front of you. While not over the top, it’s the little things that count. The flashbacks, the hallucinations, the random sounds coming through the radio, and the appearance of something out of the corner of an eye, all combine to make for a much more cinematic experience. Plus, that little girl in the red dress gives me the creeps.
Graphically, F.E.A.R. is, in a word, amazing. Everything in the game looks great, and the elemental effects such as water, gases and fires look really good too. Once you’ve witnessed the aftermath of your first gunfight, you’ll fall in love with the game. Blood soaks the walls, bullet holes riddle the walls, and bodies are strewn all over the place. Plus, once you see bullet-time in effect, your eyes may well fall out. Bullets fly through the air, creating trails through the air as they whiz past your head, and explosions send out a shockwave to capture the blast radius. A special mention has to be made for the aftermath of the two weapons a talked about earlier. Stapling someone to the wall is an amazing effect in it’s own right, but the electrifying effect of the sniper cannon, like I mentioned, is something to behold.
However, be advised, because F.E.A.R. is a resource hog. You need a hefty amount of processing power to get the most out of F.E.A.R., and as good as F.E.A.R. looks, it can come at a price, with frame rate fluctuations occurring throughout the game. Fortunately, the game will often automatically configure the graphical settings to the point where it will run comfortably, and you can even test it in a 15 second sequence, with the game displaying the frame rate statistics afterwards, so that you can then tweak the settings accordingly. It should also be noted that F.E.A.R. still looks quite good on the lower settings.
The sound is another area where you can see great care was taken in it’s development. The voice-over acting is almost spotless, the sound effects are well done, plus all the atmospheric noises and voices help to add to another layer of tension to an already amazing experience. It should also be noted that F.E.A.R. is not a game for kids. Forget the violence for a moment, as the sheer amount of F-words and S-words could possibly make even a sailor cringe.
Basically, F.E.A.R. is a game that you must experience for yourself. The combination of amazing AI, brutal and fun gun-play, and fantastic graphics and sound all add up to one of the best games for the PC in quite some time, even after all this time. It's right up there with the likes of FarCry as a serious challenger to Half-Life’s throne. If haven’t bought it yet, what are you waiting for?