"Please don't waste your money on this ridiculously (below) average game."

Alright, so I went out and picked up F.E.A.R., Director's Edition on Wednesday and played through it. This title has been a VERY strongly hyped game and was believed to be THE new FPS game that would be gratuitously innovative and fun. Well, after finishing the game, I'm prepared to give my review of this game and compare it to the hype in each area (assuming there was hype in that area to begin with).

GRAPHICS: 6
The game's graphics are in the upper-division of the current graphical level of expectations in today's games. However, both of Id's more recent creations (Doom 3 and Quake 4) have FAR better graphics than this (yes, I know they're a different company altogether, but they've set the bar, and F.E.A.R. falls short). However, the fact that the game itself almost entirely takes place in rather common indoor settings, using what appears to be the same, boring tile sets OVER AND OVER AND OVER again really gets under one's skin (I'm not kidding...I was praying for the game to end due to the lame locations and the ridiculous amount of time spent in them. Also, the outdoors areas seem rather poorly done, having the same dull, bland colors and "everyday" feel to them. However, the enemies ARE well-designed, graphically, appearing quite attractive. Why a 6? Magus, this game has GREAT graphics! Why such a low rating? Well, at the time of release, its graphics are NOT the best to date, meaning an automatic 9, and the overall "mood" of the game is highly influenced by the tedious repetitive areas around you, which made me want to quit playing altogether. This cost the game two more points, as it seriously offended me that the game developers thought they could trick me into thinking the game had good graphics by just making a FEW tile sets that look above average. Sorry, but I don't wanna be anyone's fool.

CONTROLS: N/A
Since the game has customizable controls for almost every key, I have decided not to rate this area, as every game SHOULD have customizable controls, seeing as how it has been possible since long long ago. If a game didn't have customizable controls, I would have to deduct a point from the total score, since that is an insult to every gamer, as the developer shows a lack of concern for anyone's preferences.

STORY: 4
Well, this was hyped up to be fantastic, and did it deliver? Judging by that big fat 4, I'd say NO. Deep plot? Hmm...not even close. Without spoiling anything, I'll simply say that there are some ridiculous holes and/or unexplained events. One main character just goes missing...PERIOD. You never see that character EVER again. I kept waiting and waiting to see or hear something about them, but nada. It's like the developers had something planned then just shrugged and decided we were morons and wouldn't remember that it had ever happened. Once again, the developers think we are idiots. Not only that, but the aforementioned plot holes leave you confused and angered, wanting to know what the hell happened. The game gives you the plot in little first person scenes a la Half-Life (except for the VERY beginning, which is movie-esque). Throughout the game, you'll have little bits and pieces of plot thrown out at you...in fact, some pieces come SO soon that you figure out one of the game's biggest plot points that's SUPPOSED to be a secret right at the beginning! Also, you'll find little laptops that give you nice plot info along the way...of course, if you MISS one, then you miss a chunk of the plot. Great idea, developers! Make people wanna play again to ACTUALLY understand the plot! Weak...totally weak.

REPLAY VALUE: 3
Why would someone WANT to put themselves through this boring hall-crawling "adventure" again? Secret content? Hmm, unless you count one or two gags that you most likely caught the first go-around, there is NO reason to play again, unless you're dead set on finding EVERY stat-boosting item in the game, which is just a big waste of time, as you'll most likely find a good 85% of them if you look around the FIRST go-through! The only reason I could think of to go through again is as I mentioned in the story section, to find out WHAT happened, since the game does a bad job of explaining it. Thus, once you finish this, you'll be pretty much done with the single player. Naturally, multiplayer will offer "replay", but not in the sense of replaying the SP campaign, which is what this section is dedicated to.

MULTIPLAYER: 5
This is pretty much the standard multiplayer action. you have team deathmatch, death match, capture the flag, elimination (be the last man standing), team elimination, and slow-mo (think bullet time/slow motion) versions of a few of the previous. The hype was that it was going to be fantastic, but once again, nothing more than a lie. I would have given this a 7, but the fact that the developers and marketers think our trust in them is unimportant, turning out an "average" multiplayer just to pad sales by saying they have "new" multiplayer is just sickening.

SOUND/MUSIC: 7
Hmm, I can't even remember the music in this game. However, that's not bad. It means they didn't go over the top, trying to make their own wonderful music that would turn out to be annoying. Thus, for NOT angering me, I give them kudos. Also, the sound effects in this game are pretty darn good. The gunshots SOUND like gun-shots, etc. Above average quality. Of course, due to the repetitive nature of the game, there were only so many sound effects.

GAMEPLAY: 5
Alrighty, last but not least, and TRYING to leave out the aforementioned things, let's discuss F.E.A.R.'s gameplay. Here's one of my biggest pet peeves of all...squad combat. I'm in a group called F.E.A.R. What elite group sends people in SOLO or with horribly inexperienced back-up that LITERALLY dies in under 10 seconds? None? Yeah, that's right. So, I have a group with almost no members, and I only see them once in a blue moon. I do NOT feel like I'm in any team. I feel like I'm a typical FPS character with no affiliation. The ONLY thing they did right was having a commander talk to me, and he didn't even act like INVISIBLE enemies were ODD! He freaks out over normal things, but when some truly freaky stuff happens, it's like he was busy doing a cross-word puzzle or sleeping...that or he just doesn't care.

The fact that you have no name is pretty pathetic, leaving you feeling unimportant and irritated when everyone refers to you as "the pointman" and "F.E.A.R. operative."

The overall action of the game, while fun for about an hour, wears off, as there are only a handful of different types of enemies. You see ungodly amounts of cloned soldiers, a so-so amount of other humanoid enemies who act basically JUST LIKE the clones do, except for a couple of differences, and a dozen of each other enemy type, of which there are far too few. In other words, you will be killing almost EXCLUSIVELY cloned soldiers. This gets VERY boring VERY fast. The Slow-Mo keeps things a bit interesting, making it standable for maybe 3 hours. The game takes a good ten hours give or take, meaning you'll be agonizingly bored for a good 7 hours or so.

The weapons are okay, but due to the frequent distance of enemies you will find yourself using the same set of weapons throughout the game, while being forced to drop other kinds, since you can only have THREE weapons at a time, which is crappy.

The only thing saving this category from a 3 is the artificial intelligence. This game has some of the best, if not THE best AI to date, bringing this category up two points. However, as I stated, the AI HAS to be good since all you fight are soldiers who all use the same basic tactics over and over again in the same types of typically indoor settings.

OVERALL SCORE: 5
Basically, this game is so-so to look at, featuring good graphics...of boring low-detailed settings. You won't remember the music too much. The sounds are alright. The controls don't suck because you can customize them. You will likely not understand something and become irritated because of something they didn't clear up in the game's "plot." You will most likely never play the single player again, unless perhaps to try and get your money's worth by not tossing it in a dark corner forever. The multiplayer will keep you moderately entertained for short periods of time. The actual action, enemies, weapons, and feeling are just average, if not less than that, leaving you feeling like this game was incomplete, rushed, or just plain badly produced. Magus says save your money or spend it on anything but this. Thank you for reading, and I hope this helps you with your decision on whether or not to purchase F.E.A.R. Happy gaming! =)

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/24/05