Great graphics, tense gameplay, spooky atmosphere, great sound and human-like A.I? That's F.E.A.R. all right.
If you don't know, F.E.A.R. stands for First Encounter Assault Recon. What that basically means is that when things go from bad to worst, these guys are the first guys in to check out what is going on, and in this case, something has gone completely wrong.
The story is based on this factory building or manufacturer named Armacham. One day, the building is invaded unexpected by these clone soldiers and the person behind this is Paxton Fettel, a gruesome man that eat people! (gross) and supposedly can control the soldiers via telekinesis (or a similar power). But as you are deployed in to track down and kill Fettel, weird things start to happen all around you, a mystery girl in red appears randomly, taunting you along the way. Who is that girl? and why is she targeting you?
OK, the story isn't the main focus, as the story isn't fleshed out as well through the game. As time to time, there will be cutscenes to help you understand the back story more, but for some people, this can cause even more confusion.
Enough with the story, time for positives. There are a lot of positives in this game, starting with:
Graphics - Half Life 2 and Far Cry were graphical beasts that show what graphics can be - F.E.A.R. is now on that list. F.E.A.R. boasts the new Jupiter EX engine, that although most of the game darkness doesn't show, it still can stand out. The lighting effects are spectular, textures are crisp, the partical effects are the best seen and all contribute to building the dark and spooky atmosphere in the game.
Sound - another standing out feature. The sound throughout the game is perfect, shooting a gun feels satisfying as it ejects out of the gun's barrel, walking around and hearing the ambiance, and the sharp tingling sounds of when the little girl passes by surely brings goosebumps. Voicing on the characters ain't that spiffy, but the speech among A.I soldiers is great as you can hear the random chatter among them, giving out orders and yelling out commands and status to their team.
Gameplay - this game takes a lot of features from other game, one noticeably is the Slow Mo. This is no different to the focus in Enter the Matrix or Max Payne, but it executed perfectly, thanks to the physics, as you shoot a soldier in Slow Mo, the rag doll physic interacts according to the collision, you'll see slow flying bodies, heads flying off bodies and even the shockwave from a detonated grenade. Slow Mo is meant to be used to give an advantage in battle so use it in the thick of heavy battles, you'll thank it.
Value - the game is only around 10 hours long, and doesn't leave much to replay the whole campaign again. The problem is how the campaign is set out. The campaign follows the suit of a linear path of 'go here then go there', throughout the campaign, it just going from point to point with battles along the way. More variety would have helped. However multiplayer is included in the now called F.E.A.R. Combat - which is also free. Multiplayer consist of the usuals such as deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag, but what makes it interesting that it includes all single player weapons - even the Slow Mo. Yes, players who retrieve the Slow Mo device can slow down the enemy to the point where it will be an easy kill for your team. Problem is now that multiplayer games like Battlefield 2142 and now Halo 3, there isn't any playing multiplayer anymore (and since Sierra seperated the multiplayer community, its been on its own since then) and the gameplay in multiplayer is really quite similar to UT, and UT does it much better.
Overall, F.E.A.R. is still a great game to play, even with these shortfalls. Fans that love FPS and is waiting for something as scary as Doom 3 was, then F.E.A.R. will not disappoint.