F.E.A.R.

"A great port for those of us without a top of the line PC."

Sometime ago I bough F.E.A.R for the PC, thinking that I might be able to enjoy the game at the lowest game settings, me not being a graphics whore and all. Turns out that I was wrong and even at the lowest settings, with no shadows, lame particle effects and god awful rendering, the game still was fairly unplayable with a very choppy frame rate. The good thing is that I didn't invest much on the game, save for a few lousy fifteen dollars, thank god for discount bins.

When Monolith released Condemned: Criminal Origins back at the launch of the X360, a lot of people -including myself- began speculating about the possibilities of F.E.A.R being ported to our system, being Condemned a graphical superior game in almost any way. It was not much of a far fetched idea, since months latter Monolith came forth and announced they were working no only on a port of their best selling game, but also on a sequel for both PC and console platforms.

In F.E.A.R. you play the role of an unnamed “point man”, a member of the relatively newly formed First Encounter Assault Recon unit, a government agency made up of operatives specially trained to take down any supernatural eventualities that might endanger national security. How could some ghosts and limp aliens put the USA at risk, I have no idea, but think of yourself as a kind of silent agent Fox Mulder with a macho complex. Your first mission as a point man is to track down a psychic combatant named Paxton Fettel, the result of top secret research carried out by the Armacham Technology Corporation, a conglomerate that specializes in military and aerospace research and development. Fettel's importance and danger lays on his ability to control and coordinate an entire army of clone soldiers, known as Replicas. No one really knows what's on Fettel's mind, but he's gone insane, the Replica forces have suddenly been activated from their dormant state and an insurrection of sorts has taken place at the ATC headquarters. Kill Fettel and you'll put the Replicas offline.

There is an element of horror present through the game, present in the form of hallucinations, ghostly apparitions and the occasional sightings of a long black haired girl in a red dress, modeled after the style of the Sadako ghost, made famous by the Ring and other Japanese ghost movies. I cannot help it but thing this was just gratuitous homage, since quite frankly I am sick and tired of Sadako styled ghosts popping up here and there in popular culture; we had a Sadako in Silent Hill 4 and Cheryl was made into a Sadako in Silent Hill the Movie, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing a lot of other examples. The importance this girl will play around the story will become apparent as you go through, that is, of course if you can listen to what is being said.

Like many western games, the ambient and music sound is so loud you sometimes cannot clearly understand what is being said; most of the plot is advanced in the form of voice mails and phone messages and it seems developers opted to tune down these ones in particular, so unless you have a very good ear, a lot of the story is going to skip you. And no, there are no subtitles, which is a very stupid move if you ask me. The voice acting is good though, and you can understand what is being said during the cut scenes and, ironically enough, what the Replicas say through their electronic garbled communications grid during the middle of a noisy battle.

The game has very good AI; the Replicas have a very high degree of adaptability and will counter according to the techniques you are prone to use against them. They'll talk between each others, give orders and analyze your behavior. So for example you're Rambo and shooting all your rounds with no discrimination, one of the Replicas might say something like “Everyone, take cover! I'm throwing a grenade!” or “Flank him!” Replicas will hide and stalk you; some of them might for example move furniture or vending machines to use as cover, or a couple of them might have you pinned down and busy trying to back them off while the other two are silently flanking you. The combat is very dynamic and this adds up for a lot of reply value.

Unfortunately, enemies aren't that varied. Replicas come in many shapes and forms, some of them more resistant than others, but they are all Replicas in the end. Their uniforms determine their ranks and endurance so you'll have everything between ordinary cannon fodder and elite assassins. Some variation exists, though, and one of the most terrifying Replicas comes in the form of a heavily armored and tall soldier armed usually with an incredibly effective nail gun; this one in particular is of my liking since you never really know what is this guy; once you pin it down it produces a horrible electronic shriek that could be anything from a radio dying of or a cyborg's last scream. You'll face a couple of more variations, but that's it, nothing really important. One of my favorite enemy types, simply called Assassin, comes equipped with a cloaking suit that's almost impossible to make out; the only marker is the white noise the suits' systems make so whenever you hear that particular hum you'll feel your skin crawl… unfortunately Monolith decided to feed it to you in small doses.

Maps are not varied either; the game takes place in four or five different locations, but most of the game happens at the ATC headquarters. You cannot blame the developers, though; suburbs, research facilities and multinational conglomerates all look the same inside and out, so it was to be expected. However the maps are all fully detailed and are very combat friendly, so you'll have a lot of fun blasting your way through them.

The game is standard FPS business with a standard selection of weapons; Id's signature BF1000K finds it way in Monolith's equivalent as the coolest energy weapon I have played with; a stylish cannon that shoots a single purple beam or plasma of some kind that consumes all of the target's skin, leaving only a blackened skeleton on the ground. There's also the previously mentioned nail gun, a very powerful gun that nails targets to the walls or floors, depending on the angle. The rest of the weapons are what's to be expected of most action games; M4s, SPAS-12s, etc. You can also dual wield some of the weapons and there's some martial arts involved in the form of flying and roundhouse kicks, but novelty wears off and you won't be using these cute additions during most of the game. There's also the inclusion of bullet time, an addition that will come in handy when you're faced against many Replicas or any other tough enemies.

Like Condemned, this game has a very ambient oriented soundtrack, although it doesn't stand up as much as Condemned's and is not half as eerie, although there are a few shiny moments here and there.

Overall F.E.A.R is a very good port for anyone who doesn't have a top notch gaming PC and it is a very welcome addition to a FPS library; quite frankly I consider this game the best action FPS for the 360 to date. This game received little to no hype thanks to its parallel release with Epic's Gears of Wars, but don't let that discourage you, since this is a very strong and respectable title, despite its small flaws.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07