Oldie, but Goodie

F.E.A.R. 3 was not a very good game. It lost everything that made the original unique and generally good.

So, let's do a review on the game that started it all...

Remember when the F.E.A.R. games were about horror? Released in 2005 by Monolith Productions under the Vivendi Universal label, First Encounter Assault Recon (F.E.A.R.) tried to make the First Person Shooter scary. While past games like Doom (to a degree) and System Shock 2 could pull this off, F.E.A.R.'s approach was to fully arm the player, but still scare them. They were cocky enough to call it F.E.A.R. after all.

The plot is about the eponymous F.E.A.R. with the player controlling the organization's new point man, the Point Man. The ghostly Alma afflicts the protagonist with disturbing visions as F.E.A.R. uncovers the dark secrets of the Armacham Technology Corporation and its links to the cannibalistic Paxton Fettel.

Not a zombie.

The game has two primary aspects: combat and horror.

In combat, the game is a standard FPS with the exception of the “Slo-Mo” mechanic, which boosts the character's reflexes, slowing down time. The game explains this ability by having the character have latent psychic abilities along with the other members of F.E.A.R. Slo-Mo offsets the fairly advanced enemy AI of the Replica clones and the ATC soldiers. But, despite Slo-Mo and the use of some cool futuristic weapons, like the wall-pinning HV Penetrator, the firearm combat feels above average, coming off as a Max Payne FPS.

Pin the tail on the Replica soldier, amirite?

The game's horror depends on the player looking in the correct direction to see the scary bits of the hallucinations, but otherwise it works. These scenes build up Alma's menacing nature, but ultimately cause her to fall short in the endgame...

They don't make scary little girls like they used to anymore...

Peter Lurie as the creepy and unsettling Paxton Fettel and Grant Goodeve as Harlan Wade, a character deeply linked with Alma and Fettel, greatly stand out in the otherwise average voice cast. The staticky, distorted voices and inhuman death screams of the cloned Replica soldiers make the combat sections especially unsettling.

While the character models look a bit off and many in-game items are often copy-pasted, the Jupiter Extended engine renders a well-polished urban environment, despite its age. The color scheme is firmly grounded in greys and browns to add realism, which works, though the game looks muted.

There's a slight disconnect between the combat and horror sequences of the game. A fight against some Replica soldiers can lead to a room where Alma eerily approaches as surrounding characters dissolve like ash. But overall, the combat's intensity mixed with the disturbing use of horror, satisfy both shooter and horror fans alike. I give the gave eight creepy Alma appearances out of ten!