F.E.A.R for the PC – Single Player Review
The Game:
Paxton Fettel (where did they dream that name up?) is a military commander, who has gone off the rails a bit. He has taken command of a battalion of cloned super soldiers who are all telepathically linked to him. Fettel and these super soldiers seem to be on a mission, a mission that you (as the newest member of the First Encounter Assault Recon team - F.E.A.R.) must discover and thwart. Kill Fettel and you kill the link.
The Review
Of all the different genres of games that are available, the first person shooter (or FPS) is my favourite. From "Farcry" to "Half Life" and from "Doom" to "F.E.A.R", the FPS has a way of pulling me in and holding my attention from beginning to end.
In essence all FPS games have a basic “look”; normally you see the action over the gun barrel and you move around the game environment killing bad guys/aliens and solving fairly basic puzzles in order to progress usually involving finding a button to open a gate or locating another character. What makes the games more engrossing are the involved storylines, the AI, the graphics and the audio. As new games become more graphically intense with complicated, believable storylines we get pulled deeper and deeper into them.
People of course play these kinds of games in very different ways: some people prefer the rush of charging in all guns-a-blazing. I prefer to sneak where possible; I like to go slow, picking enemies off from a distance if possible and leaning around corners to see what is there. I like to try and play the game as is I were in that situation myself, i.e. not wanting to get my arse kicked. Sad? Maybe, but I don’t care.
Another good point to mention here is that normally with games of this genre you start off with something low powered, a crowbar or a pistol for example and after a few levels these weapons just cannot deal with the enemies you are facing. Not so with F.E.A.R. Even on the last level a couple of well placed shots into the head of an unsuspecting Clone Soldier will take him out equally as well as on the first level. We get the standard set of guns - Pistol, Shotgun, Submachine Gun and Assault Rifle - then we get a nail gun which is awfully satisfying in slo-mo (more about that later) when you pop off three of them into someone's head and watch them reel backwards and slump to the floor. There's also a Particle weapon that leaves nothing but a seared skeleton (very deadly but use sparingly) and the customary Rocket Launcher which is not actually used as much as I would have liked.
Grenade-wise we have the standard frag grenade which will detonate instantly against any soldier (or after a few seconds if it doesn’t hit anything) and a proximity mine which will jump into the air and detonate if anyone (from the enemy) gets close (very messy) and lastly grenades that stick to surfaces and your gun is replaced by a joystick, press the button and kaboom.
Choosing the weapons themselves is easy too. You can carry a maximum of 3 weapons and five grenades of each type which I like this and it is generally a common theme amongst all shoot-em ups now that you cannot carry every weapon known to mankind at once. You will all have your preferences and each weapon has its advantages and disadvantages so it is down to you to select the ideal combination depending on the situation that you find yourself in. One slight alteration to the three weapon rule is that you can dual-wield the pistols, so technically you can have 4 weapons. Grenades are a matter of pressing #4 for Fragmentation #5 for proximity and #6 for sticky bombs, default is G to throw any of them, which can be annoying when you want the flashlight on quickly and you mistakenly press G instead of F and frag yourself! However, these default keys are programmable.
A novel idea that has been incorporated is that you have a small martial arts capability as well. You can jump up and take out your enemy with a scissor kick or slide in at floor level, something I could never quite get right but it is there is you want to use it.
There is no question that your array of weapons is impressive but it’s still going to be a tough battle. Enemy soldiers have the same weapons as you and they do the same damage to you as you do to them so you need to be careful. Use cover and sneak up on the enemy, where possible, and take out as many as you can before they are onto you. The enemy AI in this game is frighteningly effective, they will use squad tactics on you, aggressively hunt you down, even flank you in order to flush you out so you certainly need to be on your toes. In fact sometimes I think that you are “discovered” a little too easily. For example, you may be in a really dark area, crouched down and from a long distance away you will be spotted which I felt was a little wrong on occasion.
There will be times when you seem to be totally up against it and that’s where we get a little advantage. Dotted around the game world are “reflex syringes” basically this increases the amount of slow motion time that you can call upon. This is essentially the same as Max Payne, but much much better. Sometimes you will come across a foe that needs just a little more to take it out and this is generally the best time to use this feature, I would say that it can be used too often and the real-time, visceral gun fights are certainly better and more exhilarating than slo-mo.
On another level of the game we have “Alma”. She is a Spectral figure and seems to have some form of connection with Fettel, and likewise Fettel seems to indicate that he has some form of connection with you. Alma will pop up now and again in fairly un-nerving scenes and this supernatural element comes more to the fore as you progress though the game. I personally like this as it adds superb atmosphere to the game and pads out the story somewhat. My only complaint is that some of the storyline here is confusing and left unfinished.
Another slightly negative point is that the soldiers (being clones) are essentially the same guy so it can feel a little repetitive after a while. There are some additional soldier models that you fight but they are not shown often enough. I guess that having different skins for troops would be very resource hungry as well as upping the development time massively.
Graphics:
On a PC of course every week seems to bring out a new graphics card or a new processor and so the minimum requirements for a game to run well, and yet still look decent also goes up, I don’t have a top of the range gamers behemoth of a machine, I don’t have a lowly underpowered machine either, but I’ve put the spec of my machine at the bottom so people can compare should they choose to.
The automatic setting set my machine as high (see spec below for my machine stats) and the graphics are a joy to behold. There is a little bit of a frame-rate issue when there is a lot going on but overall it is occasional and generally very slick.
Sound:
I suggest you play it with the volume at a decent level, or, if you have neighbours then use headphones as the sound is incredible. The ambient sounds and the music are all top notch but where this really comes into its own is in the fire-fights. They will pump up your adrenaline levels to the maximum as you let loose with your weaponry. The thuds of bullets into bodies and body armour, the chunks of brick and masonry that fall off the walls, the dust and debris that fills the air as well as the sound of shell casings dropping onto the floor all sound so real and so meaty that you will find yourself sweating and tingling with the excitement. I sometimes played this late at light when I had to where headphones and it sometimes scared the bejesus out of me, but I loved it
Overall:
F.E.A.R is a fantastic, atmospheric rollercoaster-ride of a game that just looks and feels the part. In truth I enjoyed this more than I enjoyed Half Life 2 which although graphically is extremely good felt that it just didn’t capture the atmosphere of the original. The only complaint I would have is that almost every location you visit is pretty much deserted except for you and the bad guys (and sometimes members of your own team), it would have been nice to incorporate some civilians or other non combatants into the game. There are a few occasions when this arises but it isn’t enough.
F.E.A.R. (PC)
F.E.A.R (Xbox 360)
F.E.A.R. (PS3)
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Spec:
2 GB Corsair RAM
256Mb NVIDIA 6800GT Graphics Card
3.2 Ghz P4 Processor
Dell UltraSharp 2007FP 20.1-inch Black Flat Panel LCD Monitor
Logitech Speakers