| F.E.A.R. : First Encounter Assault Recon review |
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As children we’re told that there’s no reason to be afraid of the dark. There is no such thing as ghosts. There is no monster under the bed. There is no bogeyman waiting to leap out of the shadows and snatch you away. Yet despite all the assurances to the contrary, even as an adult, that nagging doubt still persists that there could be something nasty lying in wait down that pitch-black corridor, or lurking behind that creaky half-opened door. No matter how well-conditioned, the rational part of your brain seems to do a runner the minute the lights go out and there’s the slightest eerie creak or thud.
It’s this theory that seems to be driving the recent output from developers Monolith. With both Condemned: Criminal Origins and F.E.A.R., they have set out to scare and entertain in equal measure. There are certainly similarities between the two titles – both games utilise darkness to invoke confusion, fright and isolation and both use a first-person viewpoint to place the player at the forefront of the action with an 'in your face' style. However, essentially, the two games are very different in their approach. Putting aside Condemned’s slower pacing and preference for melee combat, F.E.A.R. aims for all-out action and puts a greater emphasis on firearms and shooting.
Players take the role of a new recruit in an elite but clandestine government agency put together to tackle the more unusual (read: supernatural) threats that exist – the unit’s name is First Encounter Assault and Recon (the F.E.A.R. of the game’s title). However, the player’s character is a little out of the ordinary themselves gifted with lightning fast reactions that come in handy during a firefight. This skill allows the player to slow down the action for a limited period whilst they retain their normal speed, making it easier to track and shoot targets or dodge projectiles. This naturally gives players the advantage they need against the large number of highly adept opponents that they encounter throughout the game.
Oddly for a game based around the supernatural, most of the enemies are human and mechanical-based with very little in the way of otherworldly nasties to take out. The plot explains this is down to a shady corporation’s project to perfect a psychic commander going haywire. Driven by some unknown force this commander has broken out of a secured facility and is on a murderous rampage. While one man might not necessarily pose too much of a problem he is ably assisted by a battalion of heavily armed meat puppets created to be under his direct control. Naturally a bit too unusual and sensitive for the normal enforcement agencies, F.E.A.R. are called in to help contain the situation and find out what has gone wrong.
Puppets they may be, but that’s not to say that the hordes of adversaries are mindless targets. In fact, F.E.A.R.’s enemies are perhaps some of the best examples of how those in First-Person Shooters should behave. As soldiers they act in squads using tactics to flush the player out or flank them. Moreover they will actively seek cover when under fire, vaulting over obstacles or diving behind them. When pressed and outgunned they retreat to safer ground (even laying down blind covering fire over their shoulder as they go). The accompanying audio cues and chatter is also able to identify tactics employed by the player such as rushing or evasion, giving an added feeling of believability to their actions.
As well as the gift of heightened reflexes players are capable of arming themselves with some pretty powerful weaponry to take down enemies. Shotguns, submachine guns, and combat rifles are all de rigueur by now, but Monolith have also given the player more exotic toys to play with. In due course the player will be given proximity mines, remote sticky bombs, a high-powered rail-driving gun capable of pinning enemies to the walls and a hi-tech particle beam which flays the skin from a target leaving nothing but their smoking skeletal remains. In a bid to balance things out and prevent the player from becoming a walking one-man armoury, it is only possible to carry three different firearms at any one time so careful selection and some planning ahead is required.
The effect of the weaponry on the enemies and environment is undeniably impressive. Sparks fly, flames from explosions produce rippling waves of heat distortion, bullets pepper walls causing plaster to erupt from the holes and obscure vision. Meanwhile enemies shower their surroundings with blood when hit, limbs and heads are blown off, or if hit close enough and with a weapon powerful enough, they disintegrate in a cloud of blood. All this means that after a hectic firefight an area can truly look like a massacre has taken place. The added bonus of the slow-motion effect means that the player has time to take in all the carnage and destruction as it happens, tracking each bullet trail and gory splatter with bloodthirsty delight. The downside to this is that the game engine and physics can feel a little bit muted, incapable of creating enough satisfyingly large-scale destruction of the scenery. While chunks of masonry can be taken out of walls and floors, it doesn’t feel devastating enough for the level of carnage that has occurred. Similarly some items of scenery are more prone to damage than others and while a desk light may fall over and smash when shot, a swivel chair will simply spin around on the spot. The same can’t be said for the ragdoll effects, which have some realistic animations and impressive fluidity. It’s jaw-dropping action movie stuff at times with things like an enemy, knocked clean off his feet by a shotgun blast to the chest, careening through a window with his gun firing wildly and fragments of glass flying in all directions.
The environments in F.E.A.R. are extremely dark but as with Condemned this is done on purpose to create tension and mood. While the player is given a flashlight this only lasts for a few seconds before the battery runs out and needs to recharge. While this may initially have the player cursing (particularly in the more tense sections where the craving for some form of security blanket kicks in) it quickly becomes an understandable design decision as the game looks far superior when left to its own system of shadowing and lighting. In fact the game is best enjoyed using the flashlight when only absolutely necessary (which it very rarely is).
Perhaps the biggest failing of F.E.A.R. is the blandness of its earlier environments. The first few levels take place in a water treatment plant and office complex, both of which look quite throwaway and repetitive in terms of design and appearance. In particular the office level seems to go on far too long. However perseverance certainly pays off with F.E.A.R. as it gets significantly better and more interesting as it progresses. There are some good setpieces to be found towards the climax but it can feel like too little too late, leaving the player wondering why more of these weren’t incorporated earlier to hook and reel them in. The game does reward exploration of the environment, with hidden snippets of storyline and reflex / health boosters to be found for those nosy individuals willing to brave the darkness. The narrative is certainly quite loose in parts, incumbent on the player finding various laptops, answer phone messages and flashbacks to fill in some minor details and backstory.
The biggest question of all is, does F.E.A.R. live up to its name? The answer is yes, but only just. The influence of recent films such as The Ring is very clear but most of the scares found throughout the game are very cheap and often overused. For example, the Eternal Darkness bathroom-style scare is repeatedly used over a short space of time, deadening its impact. Similarly the use of the ghostly little girl, seen throughout the game accompanied by the sound of static interference over your comm link, loses its effect quite quickly. More often than not there is no real feeling of threat from the various visions and flashbacks, the implementation and setting of which are continually reused. This gives the impression that figuratively speaking the player is doing little more than chasing ghosts and the result is them ending up very blasé about what is happening on screen. The greatest danger comes from the soldiers themselves and by not really pulling the rug from underneath the player’s feet the opportunity is missed to enhance the experience and make it truly memorable.
It would seem that in this instance the old adage has never been truer; there is nothing to F.E.A.R. but fear itself.
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System: PC
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developer: Monolith
Publisher: Sierra
Players: 1-16
Version: European
Reviewed: Feb 2005
Writer: Jamie Davies
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Pros:
- Excellent enemy A.I.
- Impressive firefights
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Cons:
- Not as scary as it wants to be
- Repetitive in the early stages which will make some lose interest
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F.E.A.R. : First Encounter Assault Recon Video: 6.1MB
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