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F.E.A.R. As a company, Sierra has had a long run of absolute quality. From the best selling King’s Quest series, to the Quest for Glory/Hero’s Quest games, the Gabriel Knight era, the Police Quest epics, the Space Quest farces, all the way though changes of ownership and up to the seminal Half-Life, Sierra has delivered quality. And F.E.A.R is not a bad reflection on that reputation, but still, it’s hard to feel excited about something that’s only a reflection of quality. Whilst most of the first games in these series felt like beginnings of quality franchises, F.E.A.R. doesn’t.
It looks beautiful, that’s the first thing you’ll notice. You’ll want to show it off to your friend to demonstrate to your mates why it is you like to play PC games instead of consoles. It’s the kind of game that makes certain low-spec machines quiver with a kind of conceptual cyber-fear. Properly accommodated, the textures in this game are beyond belief. It makes you feel as if they’re two years away from rendering reality. Like Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within and its ilk, F.E.A.R. makes you believe in the imminent possibility of realistic computer-generated people. Maybe then we can finally get actors that don’t come off as patronising liars whenever they speak off camera, so even graphic coolness aside this can’t be an entirely bad thing.
The game centres on a simple concept, a first person shooter in a horror movie. It comes complete with a spooky storyline, scary cinematics, sudden shocks, eerie in game actions – the works. It tries to take both parts as seriously as possible and manages to do it quite well.
As a first person shooter it’s good, if a bit … repetitive. You’re always either looking for ammo, shooting at standard enough bad-guys or running around what look like abandoned apartment complexes. So, pretty much nothing new here. The major difference is that it delivers Max Payne-style time control and counters it with a great enemy intelligence that means that you have to become adept at using your special abilities properly. The time-control element becomes not only a cool ability but a finely tuned tool that it’s necessary to use properly or else you will die.
Stylistically it’s quite different to other FPSs because the guns feel different. They feel more real because combined with excellent ragdoll physics when you shoot someone they really look like they’ve been shot. You’ll think of Half-Life 2 a lot as you play it because it shares a lot of the same sorts of situations and a lot of the same realisations. As a game, you’ll play in one of two ways, constantly re-loading quick-saves because you feel you maybe got shot a little too much in the last encounter or just running through gung-ho and relying on your excellent shooting skills to set you right. Both are fun.
Also, as a scary film, it’s also surprisingly effective. You play it and the sheer amount of horrific shit you see just incidentally whilst walking around is pretty hardcore. You’re constantly inundated with weird and scary shit that have no other point than to be weird and scary and freak you out. I have been playing games for almost my entire life, at this point I’m so desensitised that I could probably walk past a man who’s had his face ripped off and not bat an eyelid and I must admit there were times where I had to turn the light back on.
So basically it’s dark and fast and scary and violent and that’s pretty much it. You’ll either play it with the lights on and get bored because you’re getting half the experience or you’ll be hardcore and play it in the dark and occasionally wonder if in fact you’ve just pissed yourself. I know I did.
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