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

The Good
After a brilliant career in the army, thanks to your special abilities (you can be very fast), you've joined the First Encounter Assault Recon or F.E.A.R., usually sent when things go wrong... but not in the way expected. If you prefer, the F.E.A.R. is used to interventions involving paranormal. Anyway, you're the rookie in the unit but not for so long as your first mission is to arrest a psychopath named Paxton Fettel, a psychic used as a lab rat since his birth for leading Replikas by the mind. Replikas are just genetically modified soldiers who can hear orders in their heads by the mind. Fettel escapes from his jail and uses this army to kill everyone involved in the project or everyone who will try to resist him. Unfortunately for you, a young girl named Alma seems to side with Fettel but you can kill her, she's like a ghost... You will try to solve the mystery behind Alma, Fettel and Armacham... And why do you keep to see your birth and your mother's scream when you're taken from her? Why the man is saying that you'll be a god among the humans? And why do you have the feeling that you're tied to Armacham, Fettel and Alma?

F.E.A.R. is a FPS released in 2005 who was a success, mainly because of its ambiance and plot. I mean, as you can see, you're a nameless soldier (nicknamed Pointman by the community) sent to arrest a psychic who has gone mad and killed a lot of people with his army. Well, the dead are from Armacham Technologies... When will the enterprises learn that playing with paranormal is dangerous?

Anyway, without revealing the end of the game (it's for the Extraction Point review - but in a game like FEAR, it's very difficult not to spoil everything), what looked like a simple mission will transform in a raging war between the Delta Force, the ATC guards, Fettel and his army and you. Fortunately, the Delta Force is siding with you but it seems that that Armacham wasn't really a clean corporation. Using a young girl named Alma, who appears in your mind when you don't expect it, to give birth to genetically babies (well, there are only two: the first prototype et Fettel) who can be psychic like her and imprisoning her in a sort of jail isn't very ethical, especially for Harlan Wade, the responsible of the project. Is it a mother's wrath? But why this little girl, Alma, seems to warn you sometimes about dangers?

As you can see, you will have a lot of questions in mind... and it will be in this context that you will learn more about yourself. Story is sad, hurtful and that's why it's one of the strongest points of the game.

With Half-Life and Doom 3, FEAR is one of my favorite games in terms of story. The results at the end are very interesting and even if Monolith wants to pretend that the expansion pack Extraction Point must be ignored, FEAR has one of the strongest universes for me but only if you count Extraction Point (and probably Perseus Mandate I didn't play).

Gameplay is simple. You have to shoot enemies, mainly Replikas and then ATC guards (Armacham has a lot of secrets). But shooting while running like a mad dog into enemies isn't the right solution here. You have to be careful, using the environment at your advantage. After all, you have a special power, a sort of bullet time: time is slowed while you have still the same speed. It's very useful when you're fighting against the EVE robots or a bunch of soldiers.

One of the features of this gameplay is the fact that you can only carry three weapons. So, you have to make some choices and you never know if it's right or not. It adds to the realistic part of the game but for me, it's not really a good point.

Your path is very linear but in the end, you forget about it. True, the passage in Armacham offices are long and somewhere boring but you'll find a lot of clues about the case and it's also strengthening the ambiance: you'll be scaried, oppressed by the small space and you will never know what will happened. You will never know when Paxton will trigger your memories or a vision, you will never know when Alma will appear.

Enemy AI is very good. The Replikas can duck, take cover or try to ambush you in order to kill you. Yes, everyone know that at the end, you'll be victorious (I hope) but having played games where the enemies do not see you even when you're in their eyesight or enemies running at you, making their death an easier task, I can assure you that FEAR can give some hard work to the hero.

Characters encountered are also very important: Jankowsky, your colleague, seems to have been killed in the beginning but you keep to encounter him, as if he was a ghost for example. Or Alice Wade, who prefers to escape because of her fear of flying and tries to find her father, leading you to him. Or Harlan Wade, the man who said to you that you'll be a god among the humans in your vision, who knew Alma, who was aware of what would happened, should the chamber opened (and Armacham PDG didn't seem to share his opinion). Or Paxton Fettel, your opponent, who doesn't kill you (even if he sent Replikas after you) and wants to explain to you everything. Or Alma, this young girl who seems to kill people (but you, you escape... well, you will understand why). Or Alma the Older who wants to kill you because she's angry and bitter.

Graphics are also very good. The engine is really performant and you can tell that the feeling of fear is coming primary from the game between light and shadow, between the old structures you're visiting and the technologies encountered. Enemies, despite being based on the same model, are very well designed, like the weapons (I love the futuristic sniper weapon for example, very efficient against Replikas). Your visions are also very well designed.

Soundtrack is excellent, I loved the beginning track during the sequence where Alma takes the control of Paxton's mind. You can sense the drama... like when Harlan will release Alma and is ready to pay the price of his sinful actions.

In terms of lifetime, a good replay value, difficulty modes and multiplayer justify a high thumb up from me. You know, that feature of carrying 3 weapons only will probably push some of the players to play the game but with different weapons. And then, it's also a long game, sometimes too long (Armacham is a good example). But it's worthy.

The Bad
It's very difficult to find negative points when a game like that takes you really in a dark and coherent world. For example, I'm sure that I would have found some flaws in the multiplayer mode but being not interested in this feature, I can't speak about it.

Anyway, my first complaint is about the three-weapons things. I like having all my weaponry on me, just for having the right gun at the right time. Making a choice isn't for me. Making a choice when you have more than three favorite weapons is frustrating. Yes, there is a cheat code allowing you to carry everything. And well, sometimes, having all the weapons can be useful in some cases. Anyway, even if it's probably a good thing - Vietcong for example doesn't let you use more than your primary and secondary weapon and if you want to change it, you have to throw away what you're carrying and well, it wasn't bothering me -, I don't like this system in F.E.A.R..

I didn't like the design of Alma the Older - the adult Alma who died long ago. She seems so creepy and wants really to kill you... where Alma in her younger form seems not willing to do this task. The story will tell you why and Extraction Point, the add-on, will go further in this matter.

As I've stated, if you love open spaces and movement liberty, you will not love FEAR. It's very linear, rare are the open spaces as the rule here is small spaces for more "fear", I mean, strenghtening the plot and the ambiance. But the Armacham offices level is way too long.

The Bottom Line
I wanted FEAR when I saw previews. It took one year after the buying act for playing it (remember that I've bought Painkiller when it was released and only play it two years later). And I enjoyed the game (minus the three weapons things). It's a very good game with a good ambiance, interesting weapons, a strong storyline and the emblem which is Alma, reminding the little girl from The Ring.

So, my bottom line is: buy it, you'll be not disappointed!

The Good
About F.E.A.R. you can say without any doubt, that it is the best FPS of its year. Yet this is not only a FPS, but also a very capable terror game. With the excessive proliferation of videogames in the FPS genre, it is always welcome when, at least, they try to do a thematic FPS, rather than just design another FPS based on killing aliens or soldiers from WWII till nowadays soldiers. F.E.A.R., FEAR for friends, is not specially original, as you kill nowadays soldiers, but, at least, the gameplay is surprisingly good and the terror script helps making you forget that you are playing another repetitive FPS.

This game places you in the role of a SWAT-like police of some paranormal division, called F.E.A.R.. As silly as most of the FPS game are, you seem to be the best of all in the department and everyone knows that you can do this alone and with a hand tied to your back. There are actually a couple of coop missions, and both remain coop for less than a minute. Of course, as a division specialized in paranormal incidents, you should expect more than just fighting some criminals...

What makes this game so playable is that action scenes are very intense. The key to this is based in a powerful AI engine, very spectacular explosion and shooting graphics, a great amount of well designed gore, a very useful slow-mo mode (sound slows in real time, enjoy it) and a voice acting that couldn't be better.

Every time you breaks into some fight, you are about to enjoy probably the more realistic close shooting combat simulation that you will find in any videogame. For every hit in the attrezzo, there will be some reaction and after some shots from both directions, the screen will be full of floating dust, and paper and cardboard pieces, and wait until you see the super cool explosion effect. After everything is finished you will see all kind of boxes and objects lying on the ground, walls filled with very realistic bullet hits and a lot of blood scattered all over the room. If you do things with more cold blood, you can hear how the soldiers communicate as a well prepared commando, explaining to the others how is the situation in their post and what is the intruder (you) doing in that moment if they have already noticed you. And wait to hear these guys screaming every time you hit them, I would really develop moral problems playing this game if they weren't clones created just to kill -as some side note, you will kill like 200 soldiers that look exactly the same; the "clone excuse" makes it a bit less silly than in the average videogame-; they also receive bullets in realistic movements and even limp if you hit them in the legs. They also shoot backwards while escaping from you, they shoot blindly without exposing themselves, they jump through windows and they have phrases for every kind of situation like "he is trying to flank us" or "he is behind that pipe".

Yes, the AI is superb (there is a trailer about it, very recommendable), the voice acting can't be better, the levels react very realistically to all shooting and explosions and you will feel every hit you make to your enemies. It is, of course, a difficult game, and if you don't use cleverly the surprise factor you will be in some difficulties. But what turns the advantage to your side is the slow-mo bar, that works pretty much like in Max Payne, except that you have no special movements and you are not faster than the others, it's just that everything goes slower. Actually you will do most of the killings in slow-mo, as you have more than enough slow-mo bar.

And yes, there is more than frenetic combat in this game, there is terror too. If you have seen the trailer you know what this is about, while wandering through different scenarios there will be some poltergeist and some events of ghostly nature that I wont spoil, as this is the second biggest feature of this game. To enjoy the best, raise the volume and turn off the light.

And the final scene (not the one in the helicopter, the previous one) is awesome. I wont tell you what it is, but I think it's the first time you can experience this in a videogame, at least in first person.

Oh!, I almost forget, and how cool is to kill an enemy with a flying double kick? Answer: Awesome cool!!, XD. That reminds me that the game has a multiplayer mode too.

The Bad
The bad points in this game are basically two: its length and the super-duper graphics.

It's too long, and this fact ruins greatly its better features. As I said, the combat is very intense for many reasons. You will fight group after group of soldiers without finding it repetitive at all during a large percentage of the game, and when you get bored of the soldiers, you will fight some other kind of enemies (well, nearly 90% of the enemies are soldiers). And I must remark the good work they've done with the lines of the soldiers, you will barely find them repetitive. But the game is so long, that by the middle of the game you will scream "no more soldiers please", and from them on, you will start hating more and more the combat scenes.

The length of the game also affects the horror mood of the game. It is easy to realize that during many levels after the introduction ones, the terror part of the game nearly disappears, and you barely get scared until the last part of the game. And about the creepy moments, the more you experience the less terrifying they are. This is a very endemic feature of FPS games and particularly of terror games, the lack of detailed design after the introductory levels. It happens too in Doom 3, very detailed at the beginning and with a lot of scripted action around the main character (remember the mirror scene?) and suddenly the game transforms into an average and repetitive FPS, and becomes no more terrifying. As a counter example, if you don't understand what I mean, there would be Max Payne, where most of the combats have some short of context and story around them, from the beginning to the end of the game.

Going on with the terror factor of the game, you must know, that you better don't play this game because of it. It works very well at the beginning and at the end, but you will begin not feeling terrified at all and predicting where the creepy moments will happen. I also must advice you that this is another rip off of the "era of terror" of "the ring", yes, there is this typical little creepy girl with black long hair that is a constant in Hollywood terror films in the last three years.

About the graphics. Yes, about the graphics! Following the tradition, a hardcore FPS needs a graphics card melting engine. The graphics are so good that you will enjoy each and every frame as you will have time to enjoy them, if you know what I mean. I played it in a 3700+ with a Radeon 9700 Pro mobile (in a laptop), and I must be thankful to the slow-mo mode which made the game playable. You better play in a last generation Graphic card if you want to enjoy it with shadows, and the last of the last if dare to use high quality shadows or lighting. With less than that it doesn't worth it, particularly, you can't play a terror game without shadows (in the second part is not a big loss).

Still there are some other minor things you may find bad done. For example, the soldiers seem to through grenades randomly, and eventually they'll kill themselves with them. The physics (mechanics, better said) engine is very annoying, too, you will find yourself hitting every object of every desk in the game (maybe is a part of the terror factor, ;)), and after they are out of their zero position they'll start jumping randomly. And don't try fixing it in computer settings, I didn't find any difference changing computer settings through its 5 levels.

Oh!, and you'll hate that fat bastard NPC, you'll see what I mean.

The Bottom Line
If this game were 5-10 level shorter it would be the perfect FPS experience. If you are planing to play to enjoy a good terror experience, you can play the first 10 levels and then use some save game of a friend to play the last 10. In any case, this game is technically a number one and you should try it if you are not to saturated of FPS games and if your video card can take it.

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.