F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) is by no stretch of the imagination a new game, it is, in essence, two years old but as I will explain, this is no reason to dismiss it. was first released on the way back in 2005, then making its subsequent transition to the a year later. Being truthful I have not played either of the two platform predecessors, so unlike some others reviews I'm going to take the bold step of taking this at face value.

In F.E.A.R. you take control of the newbie point man assigned to the team of the same name. The team is special ops, dealing with the rather niche market that is paranormal situations, quite how common these situations are is unclear but as soon as you're in the squad it's time to lock and load; nothing quite like a baptism of (gun)fire. Once in control of your elite soldier, the squad are sent to investigate the unusual circumstances surrounding a military commander by the name of Paxton Fettel, who is in the midst of developing a taste for human flesh and has taken over a large battalion of cloned soldiers that are telepathically linked to him.

It's clear that the developers are keen on the Japanese Horror Genre with The Ring heavily influencing the game to give us the more paranormal 'scary' moments. For a large part this involves a little girl in a red dress and a rather sorry looking dead soldier that appears and disappears at periodic moments throughout the game. People have said that this game has scared them out of their wits, to put it politely. I will go as far as saying this game is eerie but not scary, the moments that do make you jump or take a slight intake of breath come from the enemies rather than the paranormal activities.

After starting the first mission the rest of your squad gets rather nastily turned into bones, out goes the point man approach and in with the one man army approach; for the majority of the game it's just you versus the rest. The game sees you take on the battle in three locations: an industrial facility, office block and run down urban setting. This, at the start, is not a problem but too quickly becomes increasingly repetitive; this involved me sometimes walking around in circles as every corridor looked the same and many instances of deja vu. There are 11 levels to tackle, equally spread out amongst the various areas. One particular bad point is the load times. Each level is roughly split into four sub-sections, upon reaching one of these the loading is in the 1-2 minute bracket, although this might sound pathetic, in mid-game this feels like an eternity.

The gameplay is a straightforward single player campaign with unfortunately no option for co-op play. The set is fairly familiar, there is the health bar that can be increased through special boosters and restored through medi packs that can be found in copious supply throughout playing. You also have additional light armour which can be restored when found. At the start you are equipped with two basic weapons plus grenades but these will constantly change upon defeating enemies. A maximum of three weapons can be carried at anyone time before you have to replace old for new. You will notice that you develop certain deadly favourites that see you through the game. An additional feature is the much used slow-mo function which allows you to slow down your surroundings for a limited time enabling progression in those tricky situations. This feature has a good refresh rate enabling it to be used in most battles. The controls are functional, but take some getting used to as I found it easy to throw a grenade when trying to crouch, this mainly being due to other games influencing my reaction and not really a fault of this game per-se. Alongside the standard campaign mode there is an portion supporting up to 16 players, this sees you running around similar locations as in the single player campaign. One drawback to this mode is the lack of communication, there is no method of talking to other players even when they are on the same team as you. There is also an instant mode that involves against the clock on certain maps; scores are then updated to a leaderboard online to check how well you did. Let it be known that this style of games does not lend itself well to such speed-based challenges.

There are two other major factors influencing the gameplay; the graphics and the AI of the enemies. I will start with the former. F.E.A.R. having originally been launched two years ago has certainly made an impact on the graphics. These are decidedly not the next-gen visuals that we would have hoped for. During the office levels a lot can be seen in the background but the business district looks generally very bland and non-descript. Away from the outside the graphics are better and do have some lovely touches (I've noticed some worrying behaviour in myself, whilst playing, that lots of blood and gore actually intensifies my enjoyment). Arming ones self with a shotgun and dispatching the bad guys can be an entirely entertaining as they disappear in a satisfying burst of blood. The graphics truly come alive in the shoot-out scenes, whilst spraying bullets, chunks will be taken out of the walls that lead to dust clouds forming that obscures the view which only time will clear. As mentioned, enemies can be dismembered depending on the choice of weapon, shotguns leading to complete obliteration whilst a weapon called a Penetrator (think of a large nail gun) will impale enemies to walls. The attention to smaller detail has also been applied with sparks flying off when bullets hit metallic objects, and when standing next to a low wall emptying a clip into some undesirables the bullet casings will stack up adding a certain realism.

Now for the most enjoyable part of the game: the foes, the bad guys in F.E.A.R. are among the best I've ever had to face, it's a glimpse of the future AI that the next-gen consoles should be able to realise. The battalion of soldiers you must defeat along the way are much cleverer than anything I've seen before. They do not stand idly by waiting for your attacks, once spotted they will prepare for your attack and hunt you down at the same time. One example of this seen on many occasions is that it is likely that a couple of the soldiers will have you pinned down whilst another will flank your position and blast some hot lead into your back. The gives rise to situations whereby you duck into cover to reload only on reappearing to notice that your rival's vanished and again creeping up on you. Put simply, the AI keeps you guessing.

The action in F.E.A.R. is not non-stop as in other FPS' such as Resistance, it is a more calculated approach, large parts of the game are spent by yourself wandering around the deserted locations. The game relies on building up the suspense that something big is going to happen at any moment. Certain tricks are employed to increase the tension such as falling light fittings or the scuttle of rats. Nothing in the game comes as much of a surprise though, as any X Files moments are preceded by a blurring of the screen and generally a slow-down in motion and the enemies, despite being more intelligent, have a communications system that is based on the megaphone approach, in that you hear them saying stuff like 'keep a look out' and 'close down this area'. Facing a clone army means that the enemies tend to get a little familiar as the game wears on with what would seem like only three types of elite soldier. You are faced with other, more advanced soldiers periodically that mainly consist of armour plating and meatier weapons. One bad guy I'd like to have seen more often is a chameleon fellow who is blessed with lightning quick movement but fortunately no gun, instead he has a rather hefty punch requiring wise use of the slow-mo feature.

As you'd expect from a game focusing on paranormal activity, sound is vital in building tension/atmosphere and in this aspect it's certainly not let down. Throughout the endless searching of the deserted locations the keeps you on edge, expecting a gun toting baddie around the next corner. During the shootouts, the panic of battle seems to have been captured perfectly, from bullets whizzing past, smashing glass, the tumble of objects and the cries of the wounded. The only blip in an otherwise perfect soundtrack is the footsteps, no matter how slow you are moving your footsteps are always the same volume and pitch, it somewhat dispels the impression of slowly, silently creeping up on someone. It is not just your footsteps that are monotone, when closing in on an enemy position, their shuffling can be heard but when listening it is hard to judge how far they are away or what direction they are coming from, with many times the suspicion being that they are coming from behind when they are actually around the corner to the front.

To summarise, F.E.A.R. may not be an entirely convincing next-gen romp but it still delivers where it is needed. Agreed, the graphics are somewhat dated but this is to be expected considering the game's just been tweaked and released. The main draw is the fierce, more involving shoot-outs, which given the variety of weapons and intelligence of the enemies are simply excellent. I personally found the paranormal parts a bit dull and repetitive, simply being a distraction from the main purpose of dishing out some ruthless punishment. I'm also disappointed that this game was not more chilling though, but then there is a Japanese Proverb that states 'Fear is only as deep as the mind allows'.

82%

By Tom Carpenter

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