F.E.A.R
(FIRST ENCOUNTER ASSAULT RECON)
review by Head Cheeze

When you first step into the shoes of your unnamed character in Sierra/Monolith’s new first person shooter, F.E.A.R., you can’t help but feel as though you’ve been here before. After all, this is very much the same sort of FPS we’ve all played countless times, albeit with much more appealing visuals (on par with Sierra/Valve’s Half-Life 2), and the promise of a horror story guaranteed to shock you silly. However, a sense of déjà vu also plays a big part in the game itself, as you are regularly bombarded with whispered warnings, hallucinations, and moments where you seem to move around in a dream world, all of this hinting toward something about your character that he may or may not be aware of.

F.E.A.R. (an acronym for First Encounter Assault Recon) opens with a rogue operative taking over a laboratory, feasting on the flesh of his victims, and aided by an army of “Replica” soldiers. There’s definitely a sense of the paranormal about this mission, and that is the specialty of the F.E.A.R. outfit, so you, a fresh recruit, are sent in to capture this madman and uncover his secrets. Once in, you are assaulted by wave after wave of Replica soldiers, as well as a series of disturbing visions and the specter of a little girl whose whispers suggest that this battle is not only your duty, but your destiny. As you progress through the game, you encounter other characters who flesh out the story (and can also assist you or get in the way), as well new enemies and the means with which to eradicate them. The game is fast, tense, and insanely addictive, with a storyline that demands you see this one to its shocking conclusion!

When playing F.E.A.R., the first thing I noticed was just how incredibly advanced the enemy A.I. was. The Replica soldiers roll, duck, run, retreat, and take cover, call in for reinforcements, and even flank! This single player experience was more difficult and “organic” than many multiplayer games I’ve played. There was one instance where I was hunkered down around a corner in what amounted to a labyrinth of computer servers, firing at a squad of Replica grunts. I counted five of them, but they all took cover and I could only see two of them clearly. I heard them bark out some orders, but the firefight was loud and intense, and smoke and debris was obscuring my view. Suddenly my body jerked as I was hit from behind, outflanked by the other three Replica troops! I died there, restarted that section, and the battle played out in an entirely different fashion. Sure, as each level begins the enemies are in the same spots, but, once the shooting starts, all bets are off, as each individual enemy seemingly follows random paths every time out, making each battle a fresh and exciting one.

F.E.A.R. borrows a page from Max Payne by offering up a slow-motion option (which is timed, but can be increased with various “power-ups” hidden throughout the game) that allows you to slow down the action and get into some serious John Woo style battles. Your character can also resort to brutally efficient hand-to-hand combat techniques that include a flying scissors kick, slide kick, and the good ol’ fashioned rifle butt to the head technique. Fisticuffs work well against standard troops, often killing them with a single blow, however they are useless against the better protected heavy armoured guys, and some of the paranormal forces you encounter later will kill you if they even touch you.

I really enjoyed F.E.A.R., but I do have some gripes. Firstly, I found the locations to be a bit uninspired as the majority of the game takes place in the confines of office buildings and laboratories. There are a couple of outside arenas, but these are small and few and far between. After playing games like Far Cry, where you have the run of a huge tropical island, or Battlefield 2 where you play over miles of virtual landscape, F.E.A.R. feels mighty constrictive. The graphics are fantastic, and your surroundings are incredibly detailed, but, after awhile, you’ve seen it all, and it loses its visual punch.

While the story is involving, it’s also a bit of a rip-off of pretty much every Asian horror film made within the last decade. The little girl looks like Samara from The Ring, moves like the ghost from Ju-On, and the plot borrows heavily from Pulse. This stuff is really only here to add some jolts to the game (and it does), but the focus is really on the fighting, and this stuff all feels like an afterthought.

Multiplay is fast and furious and, while not quite as graphically pleasing as the single player game, still looks fantastic. However, the levels are once again the letdown here as they are simply remodeled versions of the offices and labs you’ve fought your way through in the single player campaign. Once again, when gamers have already tasted the freedom offered by titles like Battlefield 2 or Unreal Tournament, the comparatively small and constrictive battlefields of F.E.A.R. seem quaint and outdated despite their marvelous visual qualities.

F.E.A.R. is a very solid single player experience that will eat up at least fifteen hours of your life (or twenty if you explore every nook and cranny), and the multiplay, while somewhat limited, will certainly entertain hardcore shooter fans who like close quarters combat. In the end, the enemy A.I. is what really sets this one apart from all of the other shooters out there, and is worth the purchase alone. Just be aware that this is a “next-generation” title, and has some serious hardware requirements. My rig was cutting edge stuff less than three months ago and even I had to sacrifice some graphic quality to make the game run at an acceptable frame rate. Ignore the box specs because I can’t even see someone being able to install the game with such meager minimum requirements, let alone run it!

So, at the risk of sounding like the Reverend Jesse Jackson, if you’ve got the gear to play F.E.A.R., this is one of the best games of the year.

Hallelujah!