F.E.A.R. Review

Once again, all of this would be put to the test with a game Monolith announced called F.E.A.R. , standing for First Encounter Assault Recon. Now looking past the somewhat unnecessary acronym, Monolith was promising an intense, suspenseful and supernatural themed FPS, the likes of which would bring games like System Shock 2 to mind. At E3 this past year, many PC game journalists were nearly drooling with what they saw of F.E.A.R. With every passing month, we were presented with hands-on previews, new screenshots and of course the single- and multi-player demos. It would be an understatement to say that F.E.A.R. was one of the most anticipated PC games to hit the shelves this year, but would the wait be worthwhile and would the game live up to its hype?

After an army of clones lead by the telepath Paxton Fettel go rogue, it will take the unique talents of the folks at F.E.A.R. to halt the threat to our country's security. F.E.A.R. , a highly trained military unit, is responsible for protecting our country from threats of a paranormal nature. As the newest member of F.E.A.R. , you will be tasked with finding and facing the leader of the clone soldiers and ending the threat before the public at large becomes aware of what is occurring. However, from the beginning, things have not been as they appear to be and suddenly you find yourself alone, in hostile territory, with little to no support. Chosen for the team because of your nearly inhuman reflexes and speed, you will need all of your skills to survive. As you proceed, it will be left to you to engage the enemy and save the day. Turn the lights off, crank your sound up and prepare to be scared…..as F.E.A.R. is a very aptly named title….

Gameplay

For an FPS game, gameplay is always a very important aspect. Using the standard WASD setup and your mouse, you will find that if you have played enough FPS titles, this game will feel very comfortable to play. However, it is fairly devoid of a true tutorial, so if you are unsure how to properly play and FPS you will have to use the trial by fire approach.

F.E.A.R. , like most FPS titles, contains a wide variety of weaponry. From pistols, to shotguns, machine guns, to high tech plasma weaponry, you will find a diverse arsenal that you will need to utilize in order to proceed. In addition to your weapons, you will find a variety of grenades to make use of. From scatter grenades to remotely detonated grenades to proximity grenades, you will find yourself making use of these throughout the game, especially as you are almost always outnumbered four or five to one. You are only capable of carrying three weapons at once, which while likely more realistic, means you will be forced to think very tactically about which weapons to keep and which to toss, especially in the later levels when you gain access to .50 caliber cannons and mini-rocket launchers. I strongly recommend keeping your shotgun at all times though, as you will find it to be one of your best go-to weapons in-game. I should mention that your weapons can also be utilized for melee attacks, so if pistol-whipping or butt-stroking is your thing, then you will definitely enjoy the combat here. You are also able to do a variety of unarmed combat maneuvers, including punching, roundhouse kicking and jump-kicking. While fun to use, I found that I almost always used my weapons against my foes, although sometimes unarmed combat in multiplayer was rewarding.

The enemy artificial intelligence (A.I) in-game is actually fairly well-done. You will constantly find yourself engaging relatively smart foes who use superior numbers to their advantage, flanking you and attempting to overwhelm your position. The most impressive thing I have found is the way the enemy communicates with itself, often using tactics to try and kill me. I also must admit that the enemy use of grenades for killing me or flushing me out of hiding were quite effective tactics. Do not be surprised when you find yourself dying and having to reload on a fairly regular basis. You will find various difficulty levels to choose from, which will also decide how much your health regenerates to when you are severely wounded. I played on the normal level and usually would never drop below 25% percent health, unless I was dead of course.

In F.E.A.R., you will find that with the exception of having to find a few switches, you are spared the chore of searching for keys. Most of your objectives involve finding people or computer terminals, with the occasional escort mission. While the levels are fairly linear, don't be surprised if it takes you a while to find your way around. You will often find yourself looking for air ducts or using your flashlight to illuminate something in the environment which in turn is needed to proceed through an area or room. One of my biggest complaints with F.E.A.R. has to do with how non-interactive your environment is. Whether it be your inability to blow up lights, throw a can to make a distraction or move objects to create platforms, F.E.A.R. really missed out on some unique opportunities. I realize that not every game can have an engine like the Source engine, where nearly everything is interactive, but this game could have made use of some of those things.

As far as items go, F.E.A.R. has the usual FPS staples. To start with, you will find your basic body armor suit. These suits are often necessary to help lessen the damage you take during combat and will often mean the difference between life and death. They also make excellent shielding from enemy grenades. You are also able to find and stockpile first aid kits for use when needed. Being able to control the use of the kits is a nice touch and it certainly allowed me to stay alive longer, particularly in the last level of the game. You will also find two high pressure injectors on your journeys, one for your reflexes and one for your health. Each injector adds to your permanent gauges and by the end of the game I had went from 100 health units to 180.

Perhaps the single biggest innovation in this game is the use of your heightened reflexes. Whenever you engage your reflexes, the screen blurs a little bit and all of a sudden everything is moving in slow motion. This essentially results in some Max Payne styled firefights where you are able to get the drop on enemy soldiers through the use of this short-lived ability. The reflex is absolutely necessary for progressing through F.E.A.R. and you would do well to master its use early on in your explorations. While it was a lot of fun, I do wish I had been able to fight without relying upon the reflex so heavily.

Combat in F.E.A.R . is somewhat of a hard thing to describe. Without body armor, you will find running and gunning to be similar to a game like Counterstrike . Enemy rounds, when they hit will hurt you fast and can even kill you if you aren't making proper use of cover. With your armor, you are able to take a lot more punishment, similar to games like Soldier of Fortune , so if you like fast combat with semi-realistic weapons and damage, then this is the game for you. The name of the game here is close quarters combat, so don't be looking for wide open areas to do your fighting, instead expect hallways and stairwells to be the backdrops for battle

Graphics

Outside of Half-Life 2 and its Source code, F.E.A.R. is one of the best looking games available on the market today. This is one game in which your graphics card and computer hardware will make the difference between fun and frustration. I was able to play on high performance thanks in no small part to my PC having a gig of ram and a 256mb X800 Pro. I had a steady-frames-per-second count of around 60 and played at 1024 resolution.

Even with the right hardware I had some initial issues with my graphics settings. For starters, I would load a level and have the background textures come out looking all washed. I would find myself the game stuttering from time to time whenever I moved and my graphics card even tanked after playing the game for an hour, forcing me to reinstall my ATI drivers. The forums online are full of people complaining of stuttering or other graphical glitches, although most simply do not have a PC capable of performing well with this resource hogging title.

Having said all of that, once you have the game running well, prepare to be blown away…literally. The in-game effects are second to none. You will find environmental aids like flammable barrels, leaking gas mains and electrical panels which can all be lent to the wanton destruction of your weapons. As you have no doubt seen from the screen shots, this is a very dark game to play. While you have a flashlight, the battery drains when in use, often leaving you in total darkness until it recharges. Weapons like the plasma coil unleash a gorgeous bolt of blue energy which not only kills your enemy, but cooks him right in front of you from body to skeleton in a matter of moments. The later stages are full of blinking lights, emergency flashers and energy discharges and these are among the best graphical effects I have ever seen, and this includes Half-Life 2 .

The levels themselves are all fairly similar environments to play in. From buildings, to stairwells, to air ducts and underground structures, you will not really ever see any wide open outdoors areas, unless you count a few rooftops. The enemies themselves are also fairly similar to one another with only a small amount of variation. Still, each of the enemy units is very well detailed and a pleasure to look at, especially the stealth troopers with the optical camouflage.

All in all, this was one of the best looking games that I have had the opportunity to play, although the effects themselves were actually better than the backgrounds and environments you found yourself wandering through. The very mind-blowing, scary and slightly confusing paranormal cut-scenes and playable areas all add to this eerie and chilling game.

Sound

When you are playing a game which attempts to be scary, sound can at times be more important and more startling than what you see. In F.E.A.R ., with my speakers turned up, I experienced a game which was frightening at times from the things that you saw or though you saw, but even more frightening were the things that you heard. Disembodied voices, the laughter of a child, even the mocking that Fettel subjected you to all lead to a disturbing experience. The sound effects in this game, especially the static which always seemed to precede a paranormal event all lead to this being one of the most startling games I have ever played.

The voice acting in-game was also quite well done. As you proceed through the game, the majority of the speech is either through your communicator or your enemies as they hunt for you. I was astounded at how the enemy communicated with one another, calling out tactics and even allowing me to know how many were left after I killed a few of them. Their speech coupled with the A.I. made it almost seem as though I was playing against human opponents at times.

The effects for the weapons and explosions were also very well done and matched the weapons being used very well. Perhaps the best part of all the sound effects in F.E.A.R. was the way you could simply stand still and listen. The enemies all wore boots and for the most part you could hear them coming long before you saw them. Some of the later mechanized enemies had distinct sounds which warned you they were approaching long before you saw them. It is very hard to convey how perfectly the sound was incorporated into this game, without potentially spoiling certain plot elements or describing my favorite scary moments.

The in-game music, like the sound effects seemed to fit very well. The music always seemed to carry a slightly sinister, yet action movie theme to it. The theme would change when you approached a large encounter of enemies, and I grew to hate it when I heard the music change as I knew I was likely in trouble.

Multiplayer

For those who didn't have the opportunity to play the multiplayer demo for F.E.A.R. what you missed was a slightly unique, yet chaotically fast-paced experience. F.E.A.R. comes with a choice of up to eight online gameplay modes and I will describe each of them shortly. As I said earlier, this game features online and offline combat that is sort of a mix between Counterstrike and Soldier of Fortune . Online, this begins to feel a lot more like Counterstrike as it is fairly easy to score kills. Part of the problem comes with how fast the online game is. Assuming you find a server with minimal lag, you will find yourself constantly spawning into deathtraps, often dead long before you see it coming. The lack of body armor is likely a great part of this, although there do appear to be some balancing issues with the weapons you have to choose from.

When I first played online, I only had access to a few weapons choices. It wasn't until later, after I had beaten the game, that I was able to gain access to the more powerful heavy weapons. There are also only a fairly small number of maps to choose from thus far, but this is more likely to change the longer the game is out. For those who found issues with the online play, a patch was released the same day as the game, containing fixes for those multiplayer issues.

The following is a list and brief description of the online gameplay modes:

Deathmatch – Standard frag-fest of racing for the most kills

Team Deathmatch – Same as above only with teams

Elimination – A contest to see who can live the longest with no respawning

Team Elimination – Same as above with team play

SlowMo Deathmatch – A canister allowing for SlowMo is on the map, find it and control

It the longest to win

Team SlowMo Deathmatch – Same as above with team play

Capture the Flag – Standard CTF where you rush the enemy base, steal their flag and

Return the stolen flag to your base to score

SlowMo Capture the Flag - Regular CTF with a reflex booster that allows your entire

Team to utilize SlowMo for some interesting scoring

While this may seem like a lot of different modes, many of the SlowMo modes are fairly gimmicky. In fact, with the exception of Capture the Flag and SlowMo Capture the flag, you will not really find enough unique material here to drag you away from online powerhouses like Battlefield 2. Once this game has been out longer and we see some newer maps and better balancing, perhaps this will change. I also think the mod community would love to have a chance at this engine, so hopefully the SDK is released soon and we start seeing some F.E.A.R. mods.

Replay Value

The single player campaign for F.E.A.R. took me just under 20 hours to complete at the normal difficulty level and that included numerous reloads and quick-loads. While the levels are fairly linear, I did find enough well-hidden equipment to know that I probably didn't find everything. Still, with the exception of replaying a few battles and showing some friends certain encounters, one play-through of the single player campaign, while intense and scary, is likely enough.

The multiplayer component I am less certain of. While I enjoyed playing online well enough, I still felt that the experience didn't match up to other online FPS games. Perhaps with future patches this will change.

As I purchased the DVD collector's edition of F.E.A.R. it came with some special bonus content. This content took the form of a making of F.E.A.R. documentary, a director's commentary, a short film with the title F.E.A.R. Prequel and a rather humorous machinima about F.E.A.R. Of the content, I found the documentary fascinating to watch and the short film was an entertaining prequel to the game featuring footage of a character from the game. As the game is fairly cinematic in nature, the movie fits in well. The machinima is actually very funny, and you can find addition episodes of the P.A.N.I.C.S. (People Acting Normal in Crazy Situations) team in action online. All of this adds extra value, especially if you chose to fork out the money for the DVD version of the game.

Conclusion

Believe it or not, F.E.A.R . was an extremely difficult game to review. Any time a review is undertaken for a game inspiring so much hype, a methodical approach is often the best.

Given the nature of the game, I found myself saving it constantly, granted part of that had to do with a certain amount of fear and panic, but another part was that sometimes things happened so fast, I had to reload the game just to see what happened again. F.E.A.R. is a game which relies on both the visual and auditory senses and does a spectacular job of scaring you through both elements.

Now if you haven't gotten the hint yet, F.E.A.R. is actually a rather scary game. It's not Doom 3 -monsters-coming-out-of-the-closet scary or Resident Evil scary, although there are certainly suspenseful enemy moments found in-game. No, F.E.A.R . is a true thriller in that it makes use of corner-of-the-eye imagery, unsettling voices, and effects to send chills down your spine which leads to a healthy dose of dread. When I say scary I mean truly scary, as in psychologically scary. This game doesn't rely on in your face scares, but actually makes use of all sorts of bizarre visuals, the kind of first you see it then you don't episodes. It isn't a constant thing either, as you will proceed through various parts of the game with really no paranormal activity, only to have it return unexpected and in your face.

Do the nature of this game, I would only recommend it for those old enough to accept the gratuitous violence and profanity included. In fact, I would say this is perhaps the most realistically violent game since Soldier of Fortune . Without spoiling the story, this game is a fascinating game to play. It plays across the screen as a mix of the Rock and the Grudge and will keep you playing until you finish it. Remember though, if you didn't like Max Payne 's bullet-time, then the combat in F.E.A.R. will not be fun for you.

Finally, as to the question of whether this game lives up to its hype or joins Daikatana amid the shattered expectations category, I think it obvious that I am fully recommending this game to all PC gamers. This is one of the scariest PC games I have ever played and I may even rank it above System Shock 2 if that tells you something about how creepy I found it. Assuming you have a PC with the power and the graphics card to match, you would be foolish not to buy F.E.A.R. immediately.

Key High Points

- Unbelievable graphical effects create a truly frightening experience

- Eerie use of sound lends a very chilling atmosphere

- Enemy A.I. some of the best I have been up against in some time

Key Low Points

- A resources hog of a game that requires major hardware for good performance

- Environments were not interactive enough

- Lack of different enemy character models and similar levels in-game sometimes tedious