First of all lets get one thing straight, F.E.A.R is out to scare you, let’s face it for one thing the title gives it away, it isn’t very often that a FPS game sets out to do this and that’s what make F.E.A.R so different. Your character is part of an elite group of soldiers who together are the First Encounter Assault Recon team, formed by the government to deal with unusual situations, namely the supernatural.
Thankfully (or maybe not depending on your view) the game achieves what if sets out to do right from the beginning by scaring you out of your skin, as soon as you land everything around you goes crazy, mainly due to the little girl who keeps popping up and playing tricks with your mind while disintegrating your colleagues at the same time.
In the main campaign mode there are 11 missions for you to sink your teeth into and although they all follow the story, to be honest you will probably lose track of it after a few missions such is the way that you are sucked into the whole atmosphere due to the games creepy music and eerie silences.
It’s not just about the atmosphere though as there are some excellent weapons to keep you occupied as well, such as the Type 7 Particle weapon which in one hit reduces your enemies to a bloody pile on the floor or the shotguns which work especially well when combined with your ability to slow time, yes that’s right slow time and it doesn’t half work well, you see there will be times when you are just overwhelmed with enemies firing at you from all angles and what better way to gun them down than by slowing time? and this ability seems to bring out the best in the graphical side of the game as you watch enemies tear apart as your bullets hit their bodies.
One of the other good things about F.E.A.R is the Enemies AI, they aren’t just standing targets but actually think about how they are going to gun you down, if you hide behind a crate they will come and find you or throw grenades at your feet, equally if you go into the open space all guns blazing then they will all come at you, it’s good to see this because in a lot of game these days Enemy AI is often forgot about in the pursuit of better graphics.
Perhaps one of the most fun aspects of F.E.A.R is the multiplayer option which is played via the Playstation Network, there are plenty options to choose from including death matches, team death matches, capture the flag, elimination, team elimination and slowmo multiplayer and with up to 16 players this really adds to the game, all of the things that make the single player mode great are present and although there are some glitches in the gameplay this is all forgotten when playing against you friends in a battle to the death.
Unfortunately there are some disappointing aspects to the game, for one the load times at the beginning and end of each level are very slow when compared to the PC and Xbox 360 versions, although to be fair once you are in the mission you don’t have to think about these, but it is still something that perhaps could have been rectified, also graphically the game seems to have lost some the shine it had on the Xbox 360, the graphics just don’t really compare unfortunately, this is mainly due to things like enemies being stuck in walls and the environments not being quite as detailed as they should be. In respect of the sound however the game stands up very well, it sucks you right into the game from the beginning with the footsteps that can be heard in the distance and the creepy music combining well to make sure you jump when startled by enemies.
There aren’t many game that could pull off putting horror and FPS action together in one package but F.E.A.R does it very well and therefore if you are looking for a game to tide you over until the next wave of PS3 games hit the shelves you wont go far wrong with this one.
Buy it now you won’t regret it.
