F.E.A.R.

"First Entry Abysmal Review"

First Encounter Assault Recon, or FEAR... The worst acronym in a gaming title yet, and a game that couldn't decide if it wanted to be first person shooter or survival horror and ultimately failed at being both of them.

STORY: 1/10
Unoriginal and poorly executed. You'll love this if you love characters with barely even one dimension, and when writers "pay homage" ie rip off stories you love, in this case The Ring and the original Silent Hill. You play a nameless point man with no personality who, on his first mission, is assigned to hunt down a crazy scientist who can control clones of highly-trained army soldiers telepathically. Along the way you start seeing images of a little girl in flames and *spoiler* if you know what happens in Silent Hill and The Ring you can pretty much guess the rest.

GRAPHICS: 5
Not bad, but given this is a next-gen console they could be much better. There are some nice lighting/shadow effects, but the fire and explosions are more on par with Resident Evil 2 than a next-gen console game, and the environments are incredibly dull and monotonous.

GAMEPLAY: 3
There really are loads of better shooters and horror games out there, even on the other consoles. The original DOOM is scarier, moodier, and more entertaining thatn this game. If the controls were better, FEAR might play a bit smoother, but in trying to be a tense and creepy horror game this FPS lost out in that enemies are fewer and there is much less action. So ultimately you're just running around dark warehouses and office buildings which seems a bit creepy at first but the novelty wears of very quickly with the monotony of environments and lack of excitement that ensues.

The AI is not too bad with enemy squads that can be quite unpredictable and seem to react somewhat to the way you play. I've read somewhere they were programmed so that one can distract you with gunfire while the others will close in from behind/the sides like those raptors in Jurassic Park or something. However, with terrible levels that are very linear, there's usually no way they can actually get around you.

Enemy squads rarely exceed four, so the action is always over pretty quickly. They also communicate with each other very loudly so you can read their moves pretty easily. There is very little enemy variation and for pretty much the entire game you'll just be battling with the cloned soldiers who don't really seem to get any more challenging as the game progresses.

As far as the horror aspect of this game goes, a few things jump out at you every now and then which is pretty cheap but still fun for horror fans. There are also some flashback/telepathic state type parts which involve some weird reality shifts and lots of blood and creepiness and so forth and are reminiscent of those paranormal moments in The Suffering in how they are executed and quite similar to The Ring in terms of their horror content. While these parts are pretty awesome, they probably make up about 3 minutes of the total gameplay which isn't really enough to warrant this game as a horror must-have.

What REALLY bugged me about this game is that *SPOILERS* you spend about 95% of your time running around boring office blocks and warehouses trying to capture this badass scientist and then finally some cool paranormal stuff starts happening and you think "ok NOW we're getting into the action!" AND IT ENDS! You have about one minute of the creepy reality shift stuff, THEN IT ENDS! No boss fight or any real climax whatsoever. You don't even finish your assignment. It just ENDS with a dodgy cutscene that leaves it wide open for a boring sequel.

CONTROLS: 3/10
Pretty messy here. Not exactly intuitive. I dont play a lot of FPS games so I'm not locked in to any one way of playing a game with certain controls, but if you are you will find FEAR to be a hellride. Also, the XBOX 360 pad is very easy to bump a different direction, so you'll often find things happen such as when creep up to a corner to take a peek around, your torch comes on and the enemy spots you, thus blowing the whole point of sneaking up in the first place.

There is only a weapon cycle button, so you can't quickly choose a close range weapon or vice versa if it's not the next on your cycle. And there simply aren't enough buttons on the controller, so for a lot of functions you have to hold down one of the buttons that is already in use for something else. eg reload is X, and open door is holding down X. Probably the worst one though is the melee button which is B, and the holster weapon button which is hold-down-B or hit-B-repeatedly. So you're in a gun fight and suddenly one of the enemies has flanked you and is there POUNDING you with their FIST. So you start hitting B, but your guy just stands there and puts his weapon away. Then, by the time you realise why punch isn't working, you're dead. Not good.

SOUND: 8
Clearly the best aspect of this game by far. Very nice deep explosions and lots of gun sounds. The music is very good with lots of creepy ambience and some nice tense upbeat tracks. The voice acting is mostly poor though but I think I'm getting used to the mediocrity of these American action game voice "talents" so it didn't really detract that much.

VALUE/REPLAY: 1
I'll be selling this game on eBay immediately.

But in terms of bonuses and features, when you complete the game you unlock a bonus mission. Unfortunately, it lasts about 5-10 minutes and is not at all challenging. There are lots of different ways to play the game to earn Xbox Acheivements such as going through using less than 500 rounds of ammo or finishing it under a certain time etc. There is an "Instant Action" mode which is pretty much a survival mode which you can post your scores online and compare how good you are with other people who have no life. There's also the multiplayer options which I didn't bother with but I'm sure that given the rest of the game they would be pretty standard.

If you're into FPS in a big way and think the sound of a small injection of horror would be right up your proverbial alley, you might like to rent this one and give it a try. However anyone looking for a serious survival horror game on XBOX 360 (no, not Dead Rising) should be patient a little longer, and anyone looking for a decent FPS should definately look elsewhere.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/07