F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) is a First Person Shooter that places you into the shoes of a super soldier with amazing reflexes.  You are tasked with investigating paranormal activities, and your first assignment is to track down a madman named Paxton Fittel, who has unleashed an army of clone soldiers. As your investigation for Fittel grows you begin to experience strange hallucinations and imaginings, in particular that of a small Asian girl named Alma, who carves a wave of destruction in her path.  It becomes apparent that you are somehow more closely tied to the case than you would have initially expected.

The core game play of FEAR is a composition of intense fire fights, with arguably the best combat and enemy AI seen in the FPS genre. As you exchange fire you are able to hear enemy soldiers communicating with one another and assessing the situation. They will make startlingly accurate remarks, such as how many soldiers you have killed or indicate that they need reinforcements. Your opponents are also able to effectively navigate around the environment by smashing through windows, taking cover, sneaking around to flank you or sometimes even creating cover by tipping over objects. The game is also aided immeasurably by some excellent weapons ballistics, giving your guns a suitably punchy and powerful feeling, as well as some very flashy gunshot effects, like decals that carve holes in walls, and bullets that ripple through the air as you move in slow motion. You can carry up to three weapons at a time, such as a pistol, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a pulse rifle and a bazooka. You also have several inventory items like hand grenades and mines.

Unfortunately, the excellent combat system reveals how mediocre the rest of FEAR is. The game is infuriatingly marred by lacklustre level design and recycled environments. You will travel through the corridors of decayed buildings, to sewerage tunnels, a laboratory and an office building, frequently blasting enemies and pushing buttons to open doors. It is a shame that this lazy and unimaginative level design also undermines the terrific AI in some ways too. Unlike Half-Life 2, the game is not daring enough in the ways it throws enemies at you. Rather you will frequently attack guards when they are patrolling or waiting behind cover for you. Only occasionally will they have some more interesting scripting, like rappelling and smashing down through glass. The AI – 90% of which consists of the exact same soldiers throughout - could have been utilised a lot better, in so many more exciting ways.

The game attempts to diversify its level design by having the player climb through vents or smashing through gratings and floorboards. Yet with such a flat context – that is a purposeful narrative that illustrates thoroughly why you are in these environments – many of these moments lose their impact and feeling strangely unengaging. Not enough effort was placed into the fiction of the game. Lazily, Monolith obligated to tell much of their story through text on a load screen, and therefore the narrative feels like an afterthought. For a game that demands to be taken seriously, like a cinematic action horror movie, it is surprising how little there is to the plot and context of situations beyond “search the building for Fittel”. There are sometimes message on answering machines, but many of this are superficial and not worth listening to.  Perhaps the main weakness of the narrative though is the lack of a main protagonist. In a bid to capture the same immersion as the Half-Life games, FEAR casts you as a silent protagonist, who we also never see. The problem with this is that – unlike Half-Life – you are not surrounded by thorough NPC’s who fill the void of the protagonist’s personality, and you also don’t have the appropriate amount of context for the games narrative. It detracts heavily from ideas and moments in the story that should be emotional, but are now cathartic. There is not a great deal of FPS with excellent stories. Regardless though, if FEAR wants to mimic storytelling elements from films like The Ring, then it should be critiqued in how successful its portrayal and replication of this is.

FEAR is a very easy game as well, and that is a disastrous combination with repetitive game play. A game can be easy but it can sustain its engagement through having a variety of challenges. There is so little variation in FEAR’s game play beyond shooting and pushing buttons that it quickly becomes stale. Playing the game on the second hardest difficulty will give you very few problems, especially since you are given ridiculous quantities of health, ammo and armour. The biggest mistake is giving the player the option to store up to ten health packs, which can be used at any time instantly during combat. It makes battles against even the toughest opponents too easy. The developers might as well have put a regenerative health system in.  At least visually the game is fairly consistent and looks very sharp, especially so with Full Screen AA. The decals and muzzle flashes and all the gun effects look outstanding. Though despite how sharp it looks the game still insists on taking you through some very ugly environments like the sewerage tunnels. It is a shame that the visuals are largely wasted in making everything a shade of brown.

One of the selling points of FEAR and its main attempt to mix up the game play is through its depiction of Japanese-influenced horror elements. There is a creepy atmosphere here and a few moments of tension, but you quickly become familiar the games tricks, like smearing the walls in blood. It is also tiring how discreetly the game divides its horror sections and action moments, to the point where you can pinpoint when the horror bits are coming up and going to happen. More thought should have gone into where these horror moments arise. It is also very strange to be walking through a warehouse and then having these hallucinations, seeing them end and then go right back to walking through the warehouse as if nothing has happened. It feels too disjointed, unlike a game such as Max Payne, which purposefully implemented its nightmare moments at separate moments from the action.  

There is no doubt that Monolith is going to be a talented development studio in the future. Yet their insistence to make games like FEAR and Condemned, with such repetitive and monotonous game play is concerning, as is their lack of respect and dedication for the cinematic stories they would like to tell. FEAR has terrific combat and AI but it is wasted in a game that represents both how far and how little the genre has evolved since the days of Quake.