Never Too Old To Play™

I purchased F.E.A.R. about two years ago and only just finished the game last night. Much of that two-year period was taken up by a lull in which I had absolutely no interest in playing the game and could find no motivation to complete what I had started. This is a testament to just how disappointed I was, especially considering how excited I was when I first heard about the game almost five years ago (when it was first announced as a PC game).

I went in with high expectations because of both high praise for the game from many video game publications and my respect for Monolith Productions, a previously independent company now owned by Warner Bros. that developed some of my favorite PC games of all time – The Operative: No One Lives Forever and its sequel, Aliens versus Predator 2 and Tron 2.0 - and one of my favorite Xbox 360 launch titles, Condemned: Criminal Origins.

F.E.A.R. sounded, from its description, like a supernatural horror-themed first-person shooter, which got me excited for the game since the first-person shooter genre is my favorite gaming genre and I’m a devoted horror fan. Unfortunately, the game is only a moderately good first-person shooter and, aside from a few cheap “startle” scares and some admittedly decent atmospheric work laid out in the first few levels, decidedly not scary.

Sure, you’re treated to some weird ghost-like beings a few times in the game, and you get to see the somewhat creepy Alma, a demonic girl who seems like some twisted cross between the title character in Stephen King’s Carrie and Kayako from the Ju-on series of Japanese horror films (adapted in the U.S. as The Grudge), every once in a while, but for the most part, you’re just running around dark office buildings, dark sewers, dark streets, dark warehouses, and dark research labs shooting very human adversaries.

At least the enemies are a little smarter than your run-of-the-mill video game cannon fodder – they’ll actually take cover, toss grenades at you from behind obstructions and try to flank you – but they’re still quite easy to handle even with the rudimentary sidearm thanks to your Matrix-style bullet time powers (which honestly you don’t even need most of the time).

Nevertheless, the game is, for the most part, a cake walk. I never once felt like I was in any real danger of getting killed (although I did die a few times during the game due to some stupid decisions) nor did I ever feel compelled to use much strategy or take cover – I pretty much just used run-and-gun tactics the whole time (save for a few fights with rather large armed robot sentries).

I could have forgiven the somewhat easy difficulty and loose controls if the game had nice visuals to look at, but unfortunately the game is fairly ugly. The graphics technology looks very dated, and I couldn’t imagine it looking comparable even to its contemporaries in the PC gaming world at the time of its original release. It seemed like the game used the same version of the proprietary Lithtech game engine as my preferred Monolith PC games, the latest of which came out in 2002, although in actuality it used the same version that powered the Condemned series of games.

F.E.A.R. offers standard multiplayer modes such as deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag in addition to variant modes that allow one player to grab, carry and use a power up that gives them (and their teammates in team-based modes) the slow motion bullet time effect but highlights them for the enemy players.

I didn’t play much of the multiplayer mode so I can’t offer much of an objective opinion about it. It is heralded by many reviewers as one of the more fun multiplayer offerings out there (more so on the PC). Of course, the game itself also receives a lot of praise so make of that what you will.

Ultimately, F.E.A.R. is in my opinion a game not worth even a bargain price of $20 due to rather mediocre gameplay, timid levels of psychological horror despite its marketing and very dated graphics. There is little redeeming about the game, which is disappointing to this Monolith Productions fan. Spend your money on a better game.

Final score: 2 out of 5

Parent to parent

This is supernatural, psychological horror game involving ghosts, terrorists and human experimentation. Need I say more?

While I find the game not very scary, some of the imagery in psychic flashbacks that occur throughout the game could be disturbing to even adults let alone children and the creepy mood is more than enough to spook most children.

Further, you’re using pistols, shotguns and assault weapons to kill people who aren’t overtly evil (most just look like cops or soldiers in somewhat sci-fi-looking riot armor).

You should probably keep your children away from this one.

Experience this for yourself!

• F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon Platinum Hits (Xbox 360) (Amazon)
• F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon (PlayStation 3) (Amazon)
• F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon (PC) (Amazon)