F.E.A.R. 3

For me, the F.E.A.R franchise was one that opened with more of a "pop" than a bang. I am not ashamed to admit that, for a significant amount of time the PC version of F.E.A.R. represented something akin to CRYSIS. My school laptop pissed itself at the specs and then BSOD'd to neutralize any perverted inclinations I might have to emasculate it further. I contented myself with reading positive reviews, ogling a couple screenshots, and moving on.

It wasn't until some time later that I encountered the ravenous fanbase of forum posters who insisted that THIS game, on a stacked PC, had the best office partition textures, eye-popping explosive battles with badass armored enemies, an assortment of fun weaponry to experiment with, the best implementation of "bullet-time" in a game since Max Payne, and to top it off it was SCARY. Like, if you're the sort of person who says "games aren't scary to me," FUCK THAT, this game will have at least a handful of moments that will change your mind.

This allegedly frightening and tense atmosphere was what initially drew me to the first F.E.A.R. Not explosive water coolers and boot textures, but the hyped sense of imminent doom and gloom throughout. When the console ports inevitably came, I was underwhelmed to say the least. Frankly, the "dark-haired child" gimmick has been stale to me since the first time I saw The Ring. I was surprised to find that the game that was allegedly so frightening could be boiled down into scripted "POP - got ya didn't I?" scares and an elusive little girl whose appearances and perceived threat to the player could be compared to G-MAN from the Half Life series. The action was decent, and the mechs were badass as promised, but I was left feeling deflated and bored despite it all.

Jump forward to F.E.A.R. 2, and we had a game that improves upon nearly ALL of my complaints about the first. The action was tauter and more robust. Alma had grown up, which all but eliminated my complaints about hackneyed tropes that were passe in the 80's. Now a teenager, her character was re-jiggered to be more complex and threatening in creative, new ways. And most importantly, the environments were dripping with creativity and atmosphere. Gone were the sterile warehouses and cubicles. I had a blast as I fought through the diverse locales, and the now-infamous climax had me fiending for closure.

F.E.A.R. 3 tastes like mealy hard tack. The developers fumble with the prior plot twist to such an extent that Alma is practically banished from the experience. For most of the game, Alma's "contractions" are merely cheap devices to change the environment or crash a helicopter. Her Ringu manifestation is made commonplace again, making this feel like a retread of the first game. The action is a repetitive chore, making the whole game feel like a war of attrition against awful pacing and level design. The developers added a persistent leveling system, which while now practically a standard for modern FPSes, feels sub-par and tacked on. The progression feels silly, the upgrades too little, granting an extra grenade or spirit meter notch for what amounts to possibly an hour or so of gameplay.

It should be noted that I've only played the single-player campaign so far, and as such cannot properly judge the merits of the multiplayer and co-op.