F.E.A.R
Developer: Monolith Productions, inc. Timegate
Publisher: Warner Bros, Interactive Entertainment
Rrp: £6.99 (Steam), £6.99 (Gog.com)
Released: 17th October 2005
Available on: Steam and gog.com
Played using: Mouse and Keyboard
Paxton Fettle, a very dangerous man with some… Interesting tastes, has somehow escaped the secure facilitated he was locked away in. He now psychically controls a group of paramilitary clones. It is up to you, and the specialist team called F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon) that you are part of to neutralize him as quickly as possible.
FEAR is a FPS with a sci-fi horror storyline. Now, you may think that is a very strange way of putting it, ‘why not just say it’s a FPS horror?’. My reasoning is this, when you look at other games within the FPS genre such as Amnesia or Outlast what do they have in common? Dis-empowerment. The player can’t fight back, you run and hide and sneak, but never take the fight to the enemy. FEAR isn’t that though, in this game you have a ton of power to bring to bear against you opponents. The horror comes from the environment and events occurring around you.
You take the role of ‘The Point Man’ (no other name is ever given beyond ‘new guy’ or ‘buddy’) who, as was mentioned earlier, is part of F.E.A.R. Your task force get given all the jobs deemed too odd for the normal military to handle. Point Man is no ordinary soldier though, and has the ability to slow down time, in the game it’s either called ‘reflex time’ or ‘Slow-mo’. This power comes in handy greatly as you will end up fighting against multiple opponents and without it you would probably find yourself overwhelmed quickly.
The time you can spend in slow-mo is limited by a charge meter which can be increased by the collecting the reflex boosters that are hidden throughout the game. Once the time is out it takes a little time to recharge to full, although you can use the slow-mo time before its fully charged. Your maximum health can also be increased by finding the health upgrades that, like the reflex boosters, are also scattered about the levels.
There are many design decisions that Monoloth made that separated FEAR from many of its counterparts of the time (such as Quake 4 and Serious Sam 2). A prime example being the weapon limit, Point Man can only carry three weapons at a time, unlike in Call of Duty where you can only carry two or Serious Sam 2 where it’s nine I think. It’s such a strange number to be limited to but it works quite well, giving the player the ability to think a little tactically. Point Man can also perform melee attacks, now that’s not anything special really except that the attack is somewhat context sensitive and includes a scissor kick when you jump (if you time it right).The Point Man isn’t the only aspect of the game that was given a few extras the enemy soldiers you fight also have some skills. Unlike most games of its time (or even quite a few now) the enemy soldiers can jump over catwalk rails or create impromptu cover. They even react to the sounds you create and your flashlight.
FEAR has some interesting level design, there are times that you have to get a little creative in order to escape a room, and it’s not always obviously telegraphed how one might make an escape.
The designers also gave you somewhat realistically designed building layouts. What I mean by that is that often when you walk through an office you’ll find that there are several paths that lead to the same place, as opposed to most video games that will usually give you only one (especially in FPS). Something that FPS games of this era had real trouble with were ladders, or perhaps a better way to say it would be, ‘ladder physics’. What I mean by that, is that many games such as Half-Life had a very hit and miss relationship with ladders. Sometimes you’d approach one and your character would just climb it, other times they just wouldn’t grab it and you’d fall to your demise. FEAR dealt with this issue by making the ladder an object that has to be used like opening a door. There is a problem with this method though, while it does mean you won’t accidentally kill yourself by not grabbing a ladder, it also slows the pace of the game by more than you would expect.
For an FPS FEAR has an unusual button layout, for starters there’s no sprint function instead the default setting is to use the [SHIFT] to zoom in. The [RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON] is used to activate the melee function.
This game does have some quite good scary moments but many of the smaller ones can be easily missed simply because the player is facing the wrong way, leaving you wondering why a scare chord has happened.
There are a few jump scares to be found but they aren’t common, instead the horror within the game comes from the setup, the way a scene is laid out and framed for you when you first see it. Blood dripping from the roof, bodies eviscerated, and flickering lights that cause shadows to change rapidly. As I said though it does have jump scare that happen, just not often.
This game is… Well it’s not bad, it’s also not particularly great either though. I would recommend it for those wanting to find something a little different in their FPS’s. It is a bit dated graphically but if you can get past that there’s a solid game with a weird story underneath.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Singularity
Half-Life
Painkiller
