F.E.A.R. (PC CD) |
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By
Sierra
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £29.99
Our Price: £10.15
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Audience Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Sierra
EAN: 3348542195882
ESRB Age Rating: Adults Only
Label: Sierra
Manufacturer: Sierra
Manufacturer Minimum Age: 132
Platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP
Publisher: Sierra
Release Date: 2005-10-18
Studio: Sierra |
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Fantastic game but not frightening, 2009-02-08
despite its supposed reputation. And I also think it needs two plays to appreciate, as it is only on my second play of it that I got past the hype and enjoyed it for what it is.
Even though it was released in 2005 it has good graphics, great EAX sound, partially destructible environments including bullet hit dust clouds and a nice set of varying weapons. The AI isn't great, but they make attempts to outflank which can lead to quite rapid deaths when it works. There is also the always fun bullet time from Max Payne.
Minuses are what I found to be a fragmented and hard to follow storyline and also dull and repetitive maze like levels. Expect a lot of repeating concrete or office block corridors peppered with very few outside urban areas. This for me was a -1 on the fun score. There can also be some quite long gaps between firefights where you just trudge around a lot.
My acid test is that having just completed the game I have ordered the platinum collection for the expansion packs and once I have played these through will, depending on the reviews of it, get FEAR 2.
 F.E.A.R, 2009-04-30
Cool Game !
Love the time slowing feature !
Excellent in general.
Gets more exciting towards the end of the series.
A bit boring and samey ... gets better though, 2008-05-21
There arn't that many types of enemy in FEAR, there arn't that many types of guns (and you can only hold a couple at once for crying out loud) and there only seems to be one type of environment! So yes it is rather samey for a long time and bordom may set in. Whilst we are on the negatives I do not like the fact that the decals in this game (bullet holes, explosive marks etc) disapear within about a minute! It's ridiculous and takes away from the realism. On the plus side the slow motion ability (stolen from Max Payne) is always good. The game has its fair amount of scares too and these can often lead to a nice intimidating atmosphere.
When the pros and cons have to be weighed up though, I find the game to be lacking, not bad, just average.
Whoa, what a game!, 2008-05-26
When you have a sub-woofer and turn the bass up, this suddenly becomes a whole new game. You can hear every drop of blood from the roof. The graphics are immense, even more so on a higher end machine. I think the storyline is excellent, it is a science experiment gone horribly wrong. With a vast array of weapons, (although only 3 are carried at a time) such as multi-rocket launchers to the common sub-machine gun, what is to stand in your way. Many questions are to be asked, such as what the hell is this dream world in which your character keeps getting dragged into. It is nasty. Like blood ceilings, blood here, blood there, mutilated people. I do not understand it and it is not explained in the game. And also how the evil people manage to disappear and leave behind confetti-like shards. It is a game of the mind aswell and just a usual shoot 'em up. The scariness is established by the sense that you don't know whats coming next or whats behind the next corner. It is creepy and mystifying which makes a perfect atmosphere for a game like this. The multiplayer is great aswell, the layout is similar to halo, but the levels are more interactive. (Medkits etc) You had better get some practice in though. The people that play online are usually near impossible to beat as a newcomer
A review for Project Origin owners who have never played F.E.A.R., 2009-05-19
When a sequel to a successful game comes out, there are always lots of people who'll say that the original was better. Sometimes you wonder if they are remembering only the good parts of the game and no matter how good it is it can't live up to their expectations. I never played F.E.A.R. the first time around, but I enjoyed Project Origin and managed to pick the original F.E.A.R. up cheap. So my review is for those people who have played the sequel and wonder if it is worth tracking down a copy of the game that started it.
The first thing you'll notice when playing is that compared to Project Origin, the graphics for F.E.A.R. are slightly disappointing. That's to be expected, as it's an older game. Play on though, and you'll soon get used to it, and it really is worth getting used to, as the maps in F.E.A.R. are far better than those in F.E.A.R.2.P.O. As the game goes on, it keeps presenting you with better and more varied setpieces, and there are some very clever levels and visuals, especially towards the end of the game.
The weapons interface takes some getting used to after the intuitive HUD of F.E.A.R.2.P.O., but the weapons are just as good and there are some there that are far better balanced, even some that allow double wielding. The railgun and automatic cannon are excellent fun, and even the shotgun is better. Remote-detonation grenades allow for far better player strategy than the proximity mines you get in both games, and it is a wonder that they didn't appear at all in the sequel. One bad thing? Flashlight with extremely limited battery life before switching off and recharging.
The story is good - no better, no less than P.O. - but where this game really excels is its excellent and imaginative use of sound effects and creepy freaked out hallucinatory visuals. There are parts of this game that are genuinely terrifying when played in the dark with headphones on (as all good psychological horror games should be) - and I couldn't honestly say that about Project Origin, which I found generally more unsettling than frightening.
Where F.E.A.R. also scores higher than Origin is in its gameplay. You get slow motion from the start (which, as in Origin, you can increase by finding boosters), and charging at enemies and dispatching them in various ways before the clock runs down is much more fun and far better implemented.
There's no email pickups either - you get backstory clues by listening in-game to phone messages and letting your tech-guy remotely hack nearby laptops.
Having played Project Origin first and then F.E.A.R. afterwards, I can honestly say that I had more fun and frights from F.E.A.R. than I did the sequel. Although it's very difficult to get a new copy anymore, there are a few second hand copies out there - although these too are sparse, and I guess that says more about the longevity of this game than anything.
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