Day two of our PC First-Person Shooter Essentials 3in5 REVIEW ROUNDUP continues with F.E.A.R. on the PC from developer Monolith (Condemned: Criminal Origins). Critically acclaimed when it was released, F.E.A.R. merged the FPS genre with survival horror to create an experience unlike we had ever played. But, in 3in5 REVIEW ROUNDUP we grade games based on how they are TODAY. Does the late 2005 release still hold up to standards today? Jump in and find out! (This review is SPOILER FREE!).

 For, what seemed like forever, rumors swirled that a game was in the works that would meld first-person shooter elements in the vein of Half-Life with survival horror elements comparable to Silent Hill. The fusion of both genres seemed like a perfect fit; essentially a bird’s eye view of insanity. When Monolith first showed off F.E.A.R. I was ecstatic. I was primarily a first-person shooter aficionado on my Xbox and craved a new game to take me to a different level. Monolith, best known for Alien vs. Predator 2 and the No One Lives Forever series, had always impressed with slick visuals and interesting take on a flooded genre. F.E.A.R. is no exception.

 In F.E.A.R. you play as a new operative for the military’s top-secret First Encounter Assault and Recon squad that concentrates primarily on paranormal activity. Your first day as a part of the team promises to be a busy one when a military commander named Paxton Fettel loses touch with reality and hijacks an army of clone soldiers which he controls telepathically. Fettel and his band of elite super-soldiers tear up the city and seem to be in search of something as they bounce from locale to locale. Throw into the mix a small girl named Alma, a ghostly figure (reminiscent of girl in The Ring) who shows up to tear soldiers from limb-to-limb with her mind before vanishing into the shadows. As you battle your way through the city, which seems to be completely comprised of factories and warehouses, Alma will appear and lay waste to your enemies, allies and in memorable situations, you.Â

F.E.A.R. to this day is visually stunning. The gun models are picture perfect and react properly. The environments are as animated as the characters, kicking up smoke and debris whenever you find yourself in a firefight. Watching the smoke clear in a room your just releases thousands of shells into adds to the total interaction you can expect from the title. Sadly, the animations of the characters and the character models themselves do not fare as well. Because F.E.A.R. is so heavily invested in the clone army storyline you will be battling the same soldiers’ time in and out. The soldiers are built on a level of hierarchy so you will see different, more powerful, variations but it pretty much ends there. The animations of the characters move awkwardly unless performing a scripted evasive maneuver. However, overall the graphics are truly in the vein of the next generation of games.

 Pitch perfect sound creates a realistic environment and adds to firefights in a way that is worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster film. The perfect gun models are bested only by their partnered sound that creates a perfect blend for a game truly revolving around the term gun-porn.

 The game play is superb and only made better by the games terrific artificial intelligence. Gun play is fantastic but you can also jump in and lay enemies out with a vicious drop kick or a silent scissor kick. The real treat, both graphically and game play-wise is unleashing your ability to move at superhuman speeds. This translates into a kind-of (and overused) bullet-time effect that slows down the game for as long as your meter allows.

   

 Sadly F.E.A.R. is not without faults. As mentioned before you will basically battle the same enemies from start to finish (with a great twist on some enemies later in the game) and while the A.I. is so sophisticated the firefights do change, more enemy models would be a welcome addition. The environments, as fantastic as they perform during a fight sequence, are extremely repetitive and feature (for the most part) boring factory and sewer like locales.

 Multi-player is quite fun in F.E.A.R. and adds great elements to a traditional setting. The bullet-time effect shows up in the middle of the map, as a power-up for all to see and once it is obtained by another player they show up on your HUD adding good balance to the game. Online modes include the standard fare but are refreshing after spending time playing Counter-Strike and Halo...for a while.  Multi-player does add to the replay value of the game, but really it is something you will move on from quite quickly once you play through it.  The level designs are direct ports from the single-player and in some situations that isn't a good thing.

 The game also suffers because of its heavy system requirements, which by today’s standards are still quite high. The story is solid and though it doesn't plug all the holes up, it is still great to play through for its twists and turns.  The story is well told through a series of in-game cut scenes but lack the elements that tie it together.  The menu system is simplistic but on lower-end machines saving and loading can be a chore since the menu system seems to overlap the game really chewing up your RAM.  Overall, F.E.A.R. is a fantastic adventure and a joy to play besides the nitpicking I mentioned above and it truly deserves a spot on the shelf of any first-person shooter fan.

BETTER THAN: The next-gen ports

YOU'LL NEED: A computer from NASA

WAIT FOR IT: Crysis (PC)

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