F.E.A.R.

"Frightfully boring"

To me, the idea of real-world shooter games aren't that interesting. I really couldn't care less about a bunch of military guys taking shots at each other from behind cover. Of course when the term “paranormal” comes up, I usually become interested very quickly. So I delved into the game, expecting lots of gore and crazy happenings. I was sorely disappointed.

STORY
You are a soldier (nameless of course) of a military organization known as FEAR, the First Encounter Assault Recon. The name really doesn't clue you in to the fact that they basically run into paranormal situations and get themselves killed. Anyway, you are charged with finding a man named Paxton Fettel, who seems to have his own army at his beck and call.

As the game progresses, you'll start finding bits of information that will at first seem completely inane. Yet by the end of this somewhat disjointed tale, you'll have a pretty good idea of what happened and what is happening, although the details are not as clear-cut as they could have been. Eventually it will become clear that Paxton Fettel is much more than just a madman on the loose and that all this strange psychic activity is not only connected to him, but a few other sources as well. By the end of the game, you'll have uncovered one of the most sick storylines in gaming, and if you're like me, you'll be wanting more.

GRAPHICS
I don't consider myself a graphics freak by any means, but there are two things every shooter needs to be noteworthy. Awesome guns, and sexy graphics. While FEAR has the former, it is sorely lacking in the latter. Starting with the good, character models are above average quality, and they usually stand out in stark contrast to the lifeless environments they'll be running around in.

As for those lifeless environments, I can honestly say I was blown away. The first thought that crossed my mind was, “Wow, I can't believe they're passing this off as a 360 game!” Some of the places you'll be running through are so bland they would have been right at home on the original Xbox. When on any given level, everything looks exactly the same, so it's often easy to get turned around and end up right where you started. Then again, it might not be that the graphics are bad, it could just be that the environments are lifeless, generic places to start with. Warehouses, abandoned buildings, more warehouses, corporate office buildings and research labs. Not exactly the coolest places to wage war.

To really top it off, it's not like the game is incapable of producing good graphics because there were at least two occasions where I saw something that made my jaw drop. The first was the most mundane thing ever, yet it managed to stand out against everything else. It was a puddle of water. Yeah, amazing right? However, the light was hitting it, and everything was reflecting off it, and I immediately looked around at the barren environment and said, “What happened?” The second was when I was running through one of those desolate buildings, and I came upon a room filled with water (seems to be a recurring theme, right?) Again, light was reflecting off it, and casting this green glow onto the walls, which managed to be weirder than the games “horror” moments. It seems strange (at least to me) to have a few examples of how absolutely sexy a game can be, when you aren't going to pursue it any further than that.

SOUND
Guns and cursing. Really, that's about it. I will say that each of the guns has its own unique sound. The grunts you'll be fighting have a habit of screaming, “Oh, ****” when you throw a grenade at their feet, which is fairly entertaining but eventually loses its touch.

A big problem comes from the fact that a lot of plot points and important information comes through your personal radio, and yet most of the time it's impossible to hear it. I often found myself cranking the volume up during these segments, hoping that I could make out what was being said, but soon gave up because none of it was important anyway.

GAMEPLAY
I could say that this game plays out exactly like every other sub-standard shooter on the market, and I would be giving you all the information you need to know. But, for the purposes of this review, I'll attempt to go a little more in-depth so I can arrive at the same conclusion.

First things first, you have the ability to slow down time. You'll have it from the start, and unfortunately, it never gets any better and you'll never gain any new abilities. Fortunately, it is very useful and without it, the game would be unbelievably hard. It's also fairly cool, even if it has been done to death. Take for instance, the ability to drop a grenade right at an enemies feet, or run up to him and give him the smackdown with the butt of your rifle, and my personal favorite, blow someone in two with the shotgun.

While combat is obviously the core of the gameplay, you'll often go long stretches without any action at all, only to step into one huge firefight that only lasts a couple of seconds. Then you'll be navigating bland hallways until your next fight. These long pauses really drag down the game.

The saving grace is the fact that the firefights are pretty fun. Enemies are wicked smart (but not omniscient like in Far Cry) and will use every possible option to their advantage. They'll run to cover, jump over barriers, flank you and generally just put up one hell of a fight. The problem with the fights lies in the fact that you'll never know when you've taken a hit. Since there's no on-screen indication, I was forced to keep a constant eye on my health at the bottom of the screen.

The game also suffers from a relatively small number of enemy types. Off the top of my head, there are soldiers, security guards, crazy electric claw things, and robots, and ninety percent of the time you'll be fighting the soldiers. Eventually, I quit caring about the combat and just killed who I needed to kill to get to the next level.

The weaponry you'll be equipped with does help the situation a little, though. While most of it is just your basic arsenal, everything does a good job of feeling powerful, especially when every shot causes a blood mist to come off of the enemy. Some notable weapons include an assault rifle that shoots spikes, a rocket launcher that simultaneously shoots three rockets, and my personal favorite, the “death ray”. I think the game refers to it as a particle cannon, but it shoots a lance of energy, that burns all the flesh off an enemy, leaving a blackened skeleton. See? It's a death ray.

One of the more interesting aspects of the game is that several times you'll encounter weird paranormal occurrences, usually revolving around a creepy little girl. A few times you'll be walking along, only to fall into a room filled with blood, or suddenly have the air around you explode. Unfortunately, these horror elements aren't well thought out, and most of them are almost exactly the same. To make things worse, they completely disappear in the middle of the game, only to resurface for less than twenty minutes at the very end. It was an interesting concept, but there wasn't enough variation or actual horror value to make it cool.

THE VERDICT
This is one of those games that is decidedly middle of the road. While the fights and weapons are pretty cool, the monotonous environments and boring presentation cancel the positives out. In the end, the weight of its own mediocrity causes it to fall short of being truly enjoyable. To quote the score – “Playable – Nothing special about it.” Yeah, that sums it up.

HIGHS
- Intelligent AI
- Cool weapons
- Deranged story

LOWS
- Few enemy types
- Boring environments
- Overall lackluster presentation
- Story was underdeveloped and didn't become a factor till the very end

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/08, Updated 10/03/08

Game Release: F.E.A.R. (US, 10/31/06)