Within 10 minutes of installation I had goosebumps and shivers, but my PC struggled like an tazered old man.
First mission, kinda cool. Immersive insertion into the level via chopper, suitably chilling surroundings and some firepower with which to shoot possible nasties. Lots of emphasis on story here. Orders : find out what happened to so-and-so, ok fine, off I jog. Open this door, go through that door, dah-dah-dah. nice warehouse and.........hold on a minute what was that noise? I'm sure I heard someth......OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT? WAS THAT A PERSON????!!! BUT-BUT-BUT, WHAT WAS THAT T-T-T-TOO ARRRRGHHHHH.
And much more of the same in F.E.A.R. This game was invented to grip you by the short and curlies and make sure you play on, and also to make sure you're terrifyingly entertained while doing so. You play the newest addition to the government funded F.E.A.R. team, formed to deal with various paranormal and ghostly shenanigans. Which is handy in this case, because shenanigans is exactly what you get in this game.
Thrown in at the deep end you're tasked with establishing the meaning behind a number of nasty goings on at a warehouse in the middle of a city - and the game proceeds at a pace that quickly establishes that this is more than a case of voices from the telly. You're up against a team of extremely menacing super-soldiers telepathically linked to a Hannibal Lecter-esque commander, who has a passing fancy for human quisine. You're not defenceless. In fact you're remarkably well-equipped to respond to this sort of threat, ably assisted by a plethora of super-soldier dispatching weaponry and some very cool super-fast reflexes, manifested in the game as slow mo with real-time aiming. Very cool. What stands out most in this game is the intensity - the graphical and sound effects surrounding firefights has seldom been accurately represented in a FPS, but here you're right in the middle of it. Your ordinance (not to mention that of the enemy's) throw up a veritable confetti of debris and bullet holes - interacting real-time with the environment to accurantly render the experience of shooting someplace to pieces. Add to this your slow-mo, with corresponding slow mo blurring and added effects, and you have a recipe for a super-cool looking video game. And oh boy does it deliver.
This is not without it's costs however. F.E.A.R. is a hungry beast, and top of it's nosh list is RAM, GHz and more RAM. Your system will need to be reasonably beefy to cope with full settings, though to be honest it will look sweet even on the lower notches. Finding a balance is made easier by a short graphical testing scene, from which you can tweak to your hearts content. The sound in F.E.A.R. is something that will chill you. Something as simple as static on the radio in a suitable dark section will have stomach tightening effects, and the developers have made sure that each area of atmospheric ghostliness is relatively unique and entertaining. What you have here girls and boys, is a game that successfully blends the super fast hedonism of a souped up firefight with the atmospheric immersiveness of an adventure game. It is a rare blend, and one well worth adding to your particular broth. By all means play with the lights off, just make sure you've moved your PC into the bathroom before you do so.
Tenaka