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“The F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault and Recon story...”

written by rudeboymick on 19/05/2006

Good Points
Amazing graphics
Great AI

Bad Points
A bit of a hardware glutton

General Comments
The F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault and Recon story is that a psychic general has gone rogue, taking his batallion of clone supersoldiers with him. You have to find out what's going on and stop it.



Well FEAR is an amazing looking game. In my oppinion it looks a lot better than DOOM 3 on equivalent hardware, which is frankly unplayable for most people. FEAR however is completely playable on 1280x1024 with all the eye candy on (except soft shadows....it's a killer) using my x850xt 2gig ram and athlon64 3500+ rig.



Dynamic shadows, self shadowng and volumetric lights make the dark environments in FEAR come alive.



The enemy AI is just plain amazing. Enemy soldiers work as squads, providing cover fire for each other, tactically retreating, flanking and using available objects for cover. Enemy soldiers will move chars, tip over tables and pull settees away from the wall to hide behind. It's fabulous to look at, but a bit hard to try and play against. Without the slow motion option some of these squads would be unbeatable, which is a good thing. A lone special forces soldier could never take out an entire section of regulars.



Most of the time you will be crawling through air ducts and basements in low light conditions. Every so often you'll see a shape or a shadow that isn't there when you look again. This game plays with your mind rather than the all out zombie fest of some other games. The sight of a little girl in a red dress appearing in the corner of a lift during a flicker of the lights and then disappearing does more for filling my pants than 10 zombies would.



While you end up battling the same type of soldiers throughout pretty much the entire game it never gets old, as every encounter is a new challenge to outwit your opponents as they constantly try to seize the initiative in firefights.



The weapons are varied and incredibly fun. A huge lazer that turns your enemies into charred skeletons, and a giant nail gun that lets you pin enemies to the wall are always good in my book. Even the less exciting weapons like submachine guns are a joy to use. they look and sound great and firefights look amazing as bullets rip through the environment and enemies sending clouds of smoke, blood and debris up in the air. My favourite parts are watching the dust settle.



The melee combat system is quite nice, with scissor kicks, roundhouse kicks, punches and just plain old pistol whipping available.



All in all FEAR is great. If you have a dual x1900xt rig and all you want is eye candy then go get Doom. If you want a fun game that's playable on more modest hardware then get FEAR and enjoy!