F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon

The Good
The game incorporates most popular and proven things of its time. They are: 1) military combat very popular thankfully to Counter-Strike franchise, 2) Japanese horror critically acclaimed in 'The Ring' movies and its American re-makes, and 3) the talents of the developers from Monolith. The blend of such things gave the "F.E.A.R.".

Horror in the game was raised to the very high point. The plot is composed by you mostly not based on the straight-forward story-telling, but on the phone calls and laptop data you've discovered along your way. Some of the dead bodies are cannibalized and shown to you to scare you, but some of them are hidden, and you may find them if you want tracking the blood spots. The game is very bloody and the plot was scary even for me.

The music and sound effects are very atmospheric. The action is very challenging. Since the very beginning, you should be ready to the full hard contact with different enemies as soldiers in real world as paranormal creatures in your hallucinations.

The Bad
The game is very straight-forward. You should run mostly on only one road and it doesn't give the freedom to the player. Too much questions were left after the game finish than the answers were taken. Sequel should cast the light on several issues, but not on all, I guess. But also I guess that it was a twist of the designers to make the game in such way. You will not replay the game to revive the memories, for sure. These memories are too terrific to revive them. Instead of it you have a multiplayer option, if you want to play this game once more.

Some of the weapons are useless during the game. The shotgun was almost not used by me as well as mini-guns, but it is personal preference. However, I've played Extraction Point (the game's add-on), where shotgun was my one of the best weapons during 2nd Interval instead, but I'll review the add-on later.

It is definitely, that the game is not NOLF2 with all its best parts, but it is solid (yeah, I've remembered Metal Gear Solid, it is also Japanese and also military and slightly paranormal based game) action. Some of the plot twist are not clear for me. For example, why you've killed Paxton Fettel so easily, and why you have killed him at all? Why Alma've killed her creator and Alice? I've guessed that answer will be that Paxton should be dead because it was your main mission goal during most of the Intervals and that Alma is a monster who should killed her creator, but who knows...

I wrote much letters in this section, but I didn't think that game is bad at all. It is great, instead.

The Bottom Line
The game is a solid horror military Delta Force-based shooter, where you as shoot the enemies in challenging combat as untwist the story (if you want to). It should be played for the FPS fans, for sure. It should be played by adventure game genre fans also, because the story is not so simple as it seems, and the plot will capture your imagination and put it in a real-life's nightmare.

The Good
Uber developer, Monolith, has a long track record of high quality games. From the Doomesque, Lovecraft influenced FPS‘, Blood and Blood 2: The Chosen. To the zany spy shooters No One Lives Forever, and it’s sequel. Recently Monolith has gone back to it’s horror game roots, with the trailblazing horror series Condemned. And it’s “sister” franchise F.E.A.R.. Can Monolith strike gold yet again?

F.E.A.R., or First Encounter Assault Recon, is an elite group of soldiers trained to deal with the paranormal. You play as the newest member of the squad, a mysterious character with uncanny agility and strength, known only as the “pointman”.

“It is the way of men to create monsters. And it is the nature of monsters to destroy their creators.”

When the psycho killer, Paxton Fettel, escapes from his high security prison, F.E.A.R. is contacted to stop him. It seems that Fettel has some kind of psychic link with replica soldiers, these automatons will do anything to stop you. They feel no fear, no remorse, and cannot be reasoned with.

To make matters worse you keep seeing the ghost of a little girl in a red dress. And there is trouble at the arms manufacturer Armacham and something called project origin, can there be a connection?

F.E.A.R. is a first person shooter, with horror elements.(Like Half-life, or System Shock-MM-) And it can be quite creepy and unsettling, but it’s not quite as scary as say, Condemned. This is achieved largely by the great atmosphere.

There are lots of scripted scares. Including a really cool sequence with the pointman being haunted by a former F.E.A.R. agent. There is also the System Shock esque, use of messages you hear on answering machines, these help fill in the story and can be quite creepy.

I would like to now take the time to set the record strait on one of the biggest misconceptions of F.E.A.R. Every tom, dick, and harry, says that F.E.A.R. is like a Japanese horror movie. When it’s really not. The only element that is like a Japanese horror movie is the ghost of the little girl, but unlike crappy movies like “Dark Water” it actually makes sense in F.E.A.R. Furthermore this game is actually scary.

It also takes techniques from American horror films, namely John Carpenter films such as, Halloween. And even Italian and French horror films.

“You will be a god among men.”-Harlen Wade-

The graphics in F.E.A.R. are good. Not great, just good. Keep in mind that this game was released initially in 2005 for the PC, and a launch game for the 360. It looks better in HD, but it’s no Bioshock or Mass Effect.

The sound department is really were it’s at in F.E.A.R. The voice acting is all top notch. And the music is eerie and helps establish the mood. The gun effects are all accurate and sound great. But it is the creepy sound effects that steal the show, from the cues when you see something strange, to the screams and cries of the damned.

The Bad
The difficulty settings seem to be a bit askew. Easy offers almost no challenge, Medium is oft to hard, and the other two settings are just about impossible.

The auto aiming is dubious at best, and unnecessary. The critical attacks are very cool however.

Sometimes you can get stuck in walls. And even worse there is a bug where your guns disappear, and you must load to correct it.

I am also not a fan of the checkpoint save system. I prefer the good old days when you could save whenever you wanted. Or at least meet me halfway and have manual and autosaves. With this checkpoint nonsense, you can only quit when you get a checkpoint.(Thanks a lot Halo.-MM-)

The Bottom Line
“He deserved to die, they all deserve to die.”-Paxton Fettel-

Overall F.E.A.R. is a great game. And one of my favorite FPS games. It has the perfect mix of action and horror. Now I’m off to play the two expansions Extraction Point, and Perseus Mandate. And I am already looking forward to 2009’s Fear 2: Project Origin.

The Good
My first glimpse of F.E.A.R. was from a friend's computer; and after I had a brief go at it, I realized how good it was. The following year I decided to download it via Steam and thought that I would try completing it myself. The game was developed by Monolith Productions, a company that previously released Blood and its sequel.

In this game, you take on the role of “Point Man”. Due to your superhuman reflexes, the government has enlisted you as a member of the F.E.A.R. team, dedicated to the investigation of paranormal threats. The Dark Horse comic that comes packaged with the game sets the scene up quite nicely, introducing a psychopath named Paxton Fettel. In the game's introduction, you see him commandeer a group of supersoldiers and use them to seize control of Armacham and killed its occupants, then see him next eating someone's face off. You also see Alma Wade, a troubled girl who bears a strong resemblance to Samara/Sadako in the Ring movies.

F.E.A.R.'s first mission is to track Fettel to an abandoned warehouse in the Auburn district. What makes F.E.A.R. shine the way it scares you. It isn't long in the game when you have your first hallucination. Throughout the game, there are various types of these. The most common is either ghostly appearances of Alma or Fettel walking and turning to ash. The hallucination that I like has you in a different place, such as you walking down a long corridor, to a door where you can see Alma giving birth. These hallucinations are accompanied mainly by slow breathing and a series of heartbeats. Also at the start of the game, you witness the crime scene of Charles Habegger, whose face is rather unpleasant to see, being cannibalized by Fettel earlier.

While searching for Fettel, someone kills your entire team and this is where the action begins. The supersoldiers known as Replicas start to appear out of nowhere, trying to stop you from completing your given mission. You have to kill them using one of three weapons. At the start of the game, the weapons you pick up are very basic, but as you progress further into the game, more advanced ones can be obtained and you can kill enemies with one shot with these weapons. Although you are limited to just three, you can steal the weapons from dead guards. I enjoyed using the advanced weapons; they look brilliant, some of them able to display the amount of ammo you have.

The artificial intelligence is amazing. The Replicas, as well as other enemies, can duck, travel under crawlspaces, jump through windows, vault over railings, climb ladders, and push over large objects to create cover. Yes, the enemies can be difficult to kill, but you have the upper hand in combat. You have a built-in Slow-Mo feature and this is another thing that makes F.E.A.R. shines. Time is slowed down, Matrix-style, and you can kill them with ease. You have a limited amount of time before everything turns to normal, but until it fills up again, the best thing to do is hurl a grenade at them or just use melee attacks. With Slow-Mo enabled, you get to see a lot of blood splatter as well.

The game features some stunning views. On the rooftop of the Armacham building, I enjoyed looking out toward the lit buildings, as well as the ground and the mountains in the background. That is the only thing that I remember most of the game - this view. Inside Armacham, the offices are well designed, and I liked searching these offices for supplies and any phone messages I can eavesdrop on. There are also laptops that will give you more background on Alma, as well as frequent news bulletins about the explosion at the warehouse.

Everything else in the game looks amazing, including the appearance of the different enemies, the amount of lighting used, and the like. Unlike many first-person shooters of the past, you can see Point Man's shadow when you're up against a wall. You can even see him perform certain actions like getting out of the car at the start of the game and climbing up and down ladders.

When I finally completed the game, I have the urge to play Extraction Point due to the cliffhanger, which I won't explain here. It is supposed to continue where F.E.A.R. left off, so it is worth playing this expansion pack right after the original game.

The Bad
Due to so much detail and effort put into the game, F.E.A.R.'s system requirements are a bit steep. Not even a PC brought in 2000 can run this. So, anyone who read reviews and wanted to see what all the fuss was about was encouraged to buy a new PC. Also, I believe that the version of the game you're running does matter. I noticed some choppiness at the start of the game when I was still running Version 1.0.

Other than that, I did not find anything negative about the game.

The Bottom Line
Technologically superior for its time, F.E.A.R. tells the story of a team sent to neutralize a man named Paxton Fettel, only to be faced with strange paranormal activity that sees the entire team killed. Throughout the game, the main protagonist has hallucinations which range from glimpses of Alma Wade or Fettel, with major ones having the player moving a narrow hallway toward a door or through a dark area surrounded by fire and attacked by these things called “Nightmares”. These hallucinations are designed to scare the player, and I believe that the scare factor works here.

The player does battle mostly with soldiers known as Replicas, but also others, who are difficult to kill due to their fast artificial intelligence. Although you can use it for a limited amount of time, the Slow-Mo feature is useful for killing these enemies. The environments that the player walks through are detailed and look amazing. I recommend exploring the Armacham offices because there are things that allow you to do things that give you insight on what's happening around you.

I also recommend buying a retail version of F.E.A.R. so that you get a copy of the Dark Horse comic and the Alma interviews. They are worth checking out, because they set the scene for the actual game. If you used a download service, you can still read the comics. I'm sure that there are copies floating around the Internet.