"Eeekk... Kids!"

Ever since we were little kids our parents told us not to fear the dark because there's nothing there. They also told us that the stork carries babies in its beak, that all politicians are hones and that we'll never die, so why should we believe them? That's exactly the question that Monolith Productions and Sierra pose in F.E.A.R.., an epic FPS. Endowed with great graphics and AI, creepy and moody sound, orchestral music and a cast of weirdoes and murders F.E.A.R.. is one of the most cinematic FPS experiences ever, and definitely one of 2005's best games.

As F.E.A.R.. begins a murderous vampire named Fatell takes control of an army of super-clones and then begins wreaking havoc in a few governmental office buildings. His reckless behavior alerts a top-secret army squad formed to combat the paranormal, F.E.A.R.. You play as a rookie member of F.E.A.R. who's endowed with an amazing power and is seemingly build out of titanium. Unfortunately F.E.A.R. 's story is not all that compelling and it suffers from a few bad design decisions. First off, in order to get much of the required background story you need to find answering machines throughout the game's 11 levels and listen to the recorded messages. Second, even if you listen to everything that's recorded on machines or laptops, there's still a good chance you'll be confused as hell: The whole story deals with a governmental conspiracy involving several big branches of the US government and sooner than you can say "overdone" it becomes downright confusing. Fortunately there are a few plot turns that spice things up a bit and make the game rather enjoyable, but you certainly won't care much about the characters or what happens to them by the end of the game.

What F.E.A.R. loses in its story department it completely makes up in the audio/visual departments: F.E.A.R.. looks and sounds like a dream. Graphically, everything is highly detailed with a good degree of physics thrown into the mix: When weapons fire bright flashes of light surround the room, when light sources are moved or destroyed the ominous pale light they cast is distorted, enemies move and react gracefully to incoming fire, nails pin enemies to walls, shotguns blow them to chunky bits, particles fly all around you, etc. The framerate is also very stable on most computers and the added slow-motion effect allows players to capture the spewing blood right at the moment when their victims are hit by bullets. Lighting, flames, and flashlight effects are all of the highest quality and greatly enhance the areas in the game. The tile sets, while not all that varied, are so detailed that they make each and every floor of the office-building look unique. Nevertheless, F.E.A.R.. is quite a system hog, and while it's easy to scale the game down graphically much of what makes it enjoyable is lost on lower end computers.

The sound complements the graphics just as it should. Hitting a bucket, which then hits the wall and falls down makes for one of the scariest moments in the game. Enemies also react to sound, so firing a weapon at a metal railing or the frame of a door will get the attention of the nearby troops. Troops communicate with each other through their headsets and coordinate themselves in an effort to wipe you off the face of the planet building an even more perfect sense of realism. The music is equally as involving including a good selection of slow and fast tunes as well as a well-composed track of "scary music" which is of the highest quality. Voice acting is also surprisingly good for a game in this genre and the actors put a good deal of effort in delivering their lines without over emphasizing too much or emoting excessively.

Next to the graphical components the single best thing about F.E.A.R.. is its AI: Your enemies are smart, ruthless and very capable of doing anything humans can. The AI coordinates itself in preparation of an attack; it listens to sound queues and then prepares an attack plan accordingly. It will try to outflank you by running around and shooting you from the back or it might try to flush you out using a grenade. The AI also uses cover fire very effectively making great use of their weapons to advance on your position. The adaptive AI makes F.E.A.R.. into quite the challenging game: Without your special ability, slowing down time, it's nearly impossible to beat the game. The special ability is available throughout the game and can be used only if you have enough juice left in your "Reflex Meter". The reflex meter refills itself constantly but using power-ups found throughout the game it can be further enhanced. Similarly, your total amount of hit points can also be enhanced using a different kind of power-up, which is also found hidden throughout the levels.

No FPS is complete without weapons and enemies however. The weapons in F.E.A.R.. range the gamut from regular pistols, to dual wielding pistols, to machine guns, sub machine guns or more exotic weapons such as rail guns or rocket launchers. The weapon variety is striking for a game of this genre and some of the weapons are insanely cool (the nail gun actually nails people to walls). In order to limit your power, and insure that you don't become a walking tank, the game only allows you to carry 3 weapons at a time, picking up a fourth will replace the weapon you are holding in your hand. While the weapons are varied, one can't say they're quite as well implemented as those in Half-Life 2. Successful combination of weapons is the bread and butter of the game, but much too often it seems that certain combinations are much better than others. Also, unlike in Half-Life 2 weapons aren't used to their full potential, since some of the older weapons such as pistols and submachine guns become completely useless when more powerful weapons emerge. In addition to all the small arms, F.E.A.R.. also features 3 types of grenades (a regular type, a sticky grenade and anti-personnel mines) and the regular armor power-ups and health packs that one can expect to find in an FPS. Oddly enough however, in F.E.A.R.. players can carry 10 med packs at one time.

Enemies on the other hand, are a whole-nother issue however. While all enemies are well detailed and feature more animation frames than whole games, they're very plain. The main types of enemies you fight are soldiers from the goon-squad of clones controlled by Fatell and they all look the same. Even if they are clones that's no excuse to make nearly all enemies identical: Chances are that the only difference between the enemies you fight at the begging of the game and those you fight at the end is a minor hit point difference and a faceplate to make them less susceptible to headshots. Otherwise, enemies never go out of the conventions of FPSes: There's a few human soldiers that come to complicate things, there's a bunch of mechanical monsters that have nothing better to do than kick human ass and that's about it. What's really disappointing however is that, despite the fact that F.E.A.R.deals with the occult there are NO monsters in this game.

However, what does separate F.E.A.R. from the glut of other FPSes out there are the firefights: Hands down, F.E.A.R. has the best firefights ever featured in an FPS. If you can, try to imagine fighting against a myriad of smart and deadly AI enemies with particles flying around, enemies pinned to walls, death screams coming from your dying foes, explosions lighting the room all around you from the deafening grenade blasts, and now imagine all of this mayhem in slow-motion. Every firefight in F.E.A.R. is a thrill ride never encountered before in an FPS, because every enemy is deadly, the weapons are powerful, everything looks and sounds beautiful and everything can be destroyed. It's like John Woo movie without the crappy acting! In addition to the firefights, there's also a few switch throwing puzzles, a few “dream sequences” and a few less than inspired fetch quests. The only problem with the missions however is that the tile-set variety is quite skimpy. The first few levels of the game vary little between each other and the bulk of the game takes place in an office building, which is far from exciting. Monolith does spice things up later in the game, but they should've taken that into consideration far earlier.

Ironically however, F.E.A.R. isn't all that scary. While the game has its moments (mostly at the beginning when you're not used to the sound effects and powerful enemies) it really mellows down by the end. The same tricks are used 10 times in a row to try and scare players, but by the 10th time static mysteriously starts blurring your screen you already know what to expect. However, some moments will definitely catch you off guard and make you jump out of your seat or hold the trigger down in a crazy attempt to kill what wasn't there in the first place. Oh, and as a side note, the ending of the game is probably the most graphically amazing moment in video game history thus far.

Playing F.E.A.R. against other players across LAN or over the Internet is nothing to write home about. Even if the mode variety would be greater (the basic modes are CTF, deathmatch and team deathmatch) the actual fight mechanics, without any slow-motion are so lightning fast that you won't even get to turn around before being blown to bits. Needless to say that this is pretty much an offline experience. Luckily though, F.E.A.R. is a fairly long game, and the difficulty makes it quite challenging so little is lost due to the sub par multiplayer.

F.E.A.R. might not be all that scary and it might not have the best story
or biggest variety of enemies but it has what counts: Firefights. F.E.A.R. is a revolutionary game because not only is it truly cinematic, but it's also every bit as tense and thrilling as a Hollywood blockbuster and no FPS fan should be without it.

Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/06, Updated 10/30/06