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Entertaining. . . But Several Disappointing Flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Overall Score: 7.5 out of 10

The Good: Graphics are very good. Sound is excellent, although there were a few sounds - such as barely touched boxes - that seemed unrealistically loud as if they are thrown across the room. The slow-motion feature is well implemented. The battle sequences are entertaining and suspenseful. The horror aspects are somewhat frightening.

The Bad: The single player campaign is short. The environments are often sterile and repetitive. It appears that every office and hallway has a wrench and hammer laying around. Too many maze-like offices and hallways. Many of the environments appear the same except for some slight texture changes.

The most disappointing element in F.E.A.R. was the story and characterization. Deus Ex or Half-Life this is not. The characters are very generic and sterile. The story is not well implemented. There are many occasions when files are uploaded and buttons pressed to activate certain machinery without any idea why. Even when the game is finished, there is not a full understanding of what the story was about.

Overall, F.E.A.R. is an enjoyable first-person shooter; however, it lacks environment variety and the story and characterization that would have made it excellent.

Good-- But No Half-Life 2 killer

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

FEAR is, without a doubt, the big-name PC FPS of Fall 2005. Great graphics, stunning enemy AI and a novel Japanese-style horror theme are the hallmarks of the game. It was released last month to rave reviews and has been doing quite well on store shelves.

My appetite whet by the demo, I got it as soon as it came out and eagerly dug in as soon as I got home. I have to admit that, at first, I was blown away. The graphics alone are simply stunning at first glance--the lighting and shadows are phenomenal, the weapons and character models are great, the environments are believable and the shootouts are UNbelievable. Unfortunately, I found that the novelty bleeds like a slashed artery, leaving a good but flawed and repetitive game. From a gameplay standpoint, there's two really major problems with this otherwise pretty good game that keep it from the level of greatness of Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Halo 2 or some of the other big-name shooters of the last couple years.

First, the combat--the core of the game--is a mixed bag. Sometimes, there are some really exciting battles, but often--despite all the flashy, cool destruction going on--firefights can get tedious. I think this is because most of the weapons in the game are severely underpowered, or strangely imprecise, or both, so it takes forever to kill enemies and resolve any given encounter. I often found myself plugging away repeadedly at enemies that, in most other quasi-realistic military action games I could probably put down in one shot with my eyes closed. Also, the trigger control seems mushy especially on the automatics, and it seemed like the weapons would keep firing for a couple rounds after I released the mouse button, thus ruining my aim. As the enemies are often frustratingly hard to kill and there are a lot of them--and due to the restrictive level design there is generally little room for either you or them to maneuver--the only way to fight most battles is to shoot, retreat, go back to where you just were, shoot again before they can hit you, retreat, go back, etc etc.

This brings us to the second problem: level design. FEAR is almost completely linear. That's pretty much par for the course for FPS games, but I was hoping for some more open-ended level design with this one given its emphasis on AI and maneuvering in combat. There are occasional, often very thrilling, segments where you run into a squad of bad guys in the middle of a warren of offices or tunnels and end up in a tense game of hide-and-seek with assault rifles, but most areas have a very straightforward path through them. It's a shame, because the ability to have more freedom of movement would have partially negated the problem of the weak weaponry by making fights more dynamic. Levels are also very repetitious. You spend the whole ten hours of the game fighting in four places--a sewage treatment plant, an office building, an abandoned slum and an underground lab. You end up staying in each environment just a little too long, and you don't really ever do anything except walk from fight to fight.

All told, FEAR is still better than your average FPS. The graphics are extraordinary, the action CAN be extremely thrilling in some situations, and it does go in new directions in terms of its presentation of a horror-themed FPS. Unfortunately, the horror-story aspect doesn't really pan out too well, in my opinion. There was genuine creepiness in some parts and a few decent scares, but for the most part the horror elements fall somewhat flat. It's just not as extraordinary a game as I was expecting, and certainly not at the level of the best games out today. It's worth playing, but it's just good, rather than great. Overall about a 75-80 out of 100.

One or two good points, but a loser overall

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: June 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

In fairness, "F.E.A.R." excels in several areas. First, the combat style is innovative and fresh, even though it wears thin after a while. The slow-motion option is a nice touch, but the programmers should have let you use it only in certain situations. As it stands in the game, it's far too easy to slip into slow-mo and eradicate enemies without much problem. The game would have been ten times more difficult if this ability had been limited. As it was, even while playing on "hard" level, I died only once or twice and beat the game in a relatively short period of time. Secondly, as noted by other reviewers, the sound and lightning effects are superb. The shadows are especially good and can lead to some scary moments. Third, it's nice how the programmers included a function that lets you "test drive" the graphics frame rate prior to actually playing the game. This lets you determine which bells and whistles slow down your system and which do not.

Unfortunately, the good aspects noted above cannot outweigh the bad. First off, the violence and language are taken to a ridiculous extreme. Thankfully, you can reduce the gore (somewhat) in the game menu, and there is a patch that removes most (though not all) of the foul language, but that's not sufficient to salvage the effort. The game would have been just as good -- even better -- without all of the needless violence and potty mouths. Other games, especially those in the adventure genre, create legitimately scary atmospheres without resorting to cheap horror movie tricks (remember, the best selling PC game of all time is a non-violent point-and-click adventure game that is truly unique). The key to creating a sense of scariness is to leave most everything to the imagination of the gamer. "F.E.A.R." does this well in some instances, but in others it jumps overboard and drowns.

In terms of story and level design, the initial missions are quite good, but the novelty quickly wears off into boredom. One of the good things about "Half Life 2" is the level variety. There is constantly something to engage your mind, not just your trigger finger. In "F.E.A.R," the levels are basically the same and the pattern grows tiresome. The story is pieced together in a fragmented way. I had to search online to figure out what exactly happened in the end. The system requirements are also way off the charts. I have a fairly decent computer (2.8GHz Pentium 4, 1.5GB PC3200 RAM, GeForce 6800GT graphics), and I could not run the game on high resolution without getting significant lag. Even with the graphics turned down, I could only get an average of 35 frames per second, which is not the best. Perhaps it's due to poor programming, since "Half Life 2" provides equal graphics without eating your computer's hardware.

While there are some fun aspects, overall the game gets a losing score due to needlessly excessive violence and language, a terribly plotted story, and boredom-inducing levels.

OVER-HYPED!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: January 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The game is a system hog. My rig consists of : athlon64 3800+ CPU, 2 gig corsair value select ram, BFG nvidia 6800 ultra 256meg video card, antec 550 watt power supply, WD 36 gig 10,000 rpm hard drive all bundled in a Thermaltake Tsunami tower.....and I still can't play the game with all settings maxed!! Doing so causes the framerates to consistently fall below 26 frames. So I am forced to play it just on med settings...kind of depressing when you think of the system I own which is not even a year old yet!

Anyways, I found the game to get repetitive very fast and the graphics were in my opinion not as impressive as half life 2, doom 3 or even far cry for that matter. The game was somewhat linear with regards to level design and lacked imagination. Sound was superb mind you! The magazines overhyped this game to the the point of overkill. After reading some reviews in the mags one would think that this game was the next best thing since sliced bread....I beg to differ! The environments were not very interactive and the graphics engine for the game seems to be poorly optimized as one can play half-life 2 maxed out with super high frame rates while this game can barely be played at medium settings with framerates hovering around 50-60. All in all, this game is dramatically over hyped that will not keep ones interest long, especially if one is into a more free roaming type game such as far-cry or half-life 2. Btw, did I mention that this game is also very short? In less than 8-9 hours the game was finished....is that worth 50-60 bucks?

Immersive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Quite a game. Interestin Plot fuels the Action. Great game design with many interesting effects and gameplay phenomena. I'm not sorry i bought this game.

Feels like an intense movie, plays like molasses

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: January 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First thing is you better have the correct chipset to play this game. I found it ridiculous that my GEForce that I got in this computer that came with it could easily handle FarCry, Solider of Fortune II and Call Of Duty. I actully first came across with this with Medal of honor: Pacific Assult.

So I couldn't afford a 300 dollar new GEForce or Radeon so I got a lower cost Radeon 8000 series and even still barley ran this game. Not the chip's problem I'm guessing but I'd suggest not to play this game unless you have a meg of ram. 512 sucks it from my hard drive. With a 2.0 ghz speed processor that will be sufficiant.

So because of that there is certian points in the game where it will "stall". This got frustrating. I also disliked the RIDICULOUS loading times in between levels. There are some flaws in the programming with this. I tried it in a computer with a AMD Athlon processor and ran a little better then the Pentium 4 but he also had 2 meg of ram. There was still some delay times, but his graphics card was a little slower then mine.

Graphics are great but so are other first shooter games. Why does this game require such a hardcore computer to run it? Because of the overall 3D interface is better then anything I'be played. Also, the attention to detail such as hitting objects in multiple directions, the reflexes and the sound in the game is incredible. The action in it is very realistic. In order to experince the best feel of the game and if your computer can handle it try the graphics and sound on highest detail. It feels like your in a crazy action movie combined with a horror story. The story which I won't give away is very complex. I still don't get alot of it.

The movies in between are the highlight of the game. They are unbelieveable. The thing that shocked me the most was the cussing. I've never heard the F word so much. Some of it was humerous. Most of this game scared the hell out of me so it wasn't all funny. I suggest this game.

The Best for Now

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: March 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Speaking of the hardware needed to play F.E.A.R. I have two systems and they run the game perfect. Each system is AMD 64 3000+ 754 socket, 512mb, ATI 9600XT and AMD 64 3200+ 939 socket, 1gb and EVGA 6800GS. You do not need a supercomputer to run the game, but it will help. The game will auto detect your systems abilities to run the game. My son who loves to palys PC games will not play this game, because it is so scary. It's dark, spooky and the music is great. When I play at night I am always looking over my shoulder. It's that good. Buy it paly it, but keep the lights on.

Not bad, not good enough

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

F.E.A.R - affectionately known as "F****n Eats All Resources" is a poorly designed game. I'm not saying it's not fun, and I'm not saying it's not worth buying - I bought it, enjoyed it and don't regret the purchase - but be warned.

The graphics - as mentioned by many others - require much more and much higher quality hardware than they should for the quality of display offered. With a decent hundred to two hundred dollar video card and a good processor and memory - you'll still be limited in what you can display. Expect to be dissappointed in this area, as simple as that. I ran Half Life 2 in maximum graphics and max res and all the fun features with no slow down on my machine and it looked wonderful, I put in Fear and had to drop my graphics setting time and time again - completely eliminating some of the features to avoid slow down. I don't think my computer magically developed a lobotomy between the installations - I just think HL2 was programmed better.

The gameplay - controls are decent (what you expect from a fps) I set the Slow-Mo bullet time to a toggle with my mouse button personally but other than that I think I used default settings and didn't have a problem.

The enemies do have an adaptive AI - this I really appreciated, you load and enter a room a second time and the enemies won't be in the same place or (usually) do the same thing they did last time. And they're not stupid enemies either, they have decent accuracy, if you're hiding they'll try to flush you out with reasonably well thrown grenades, they flank and take alternate routes to surround you, call on back up (a little) and can be infinitely patient if rushing you would be suicidal and they currently have a good vantage point - all in all I really like *their* programming. They're not a lot of variation in the enemies (mostly a standard soldier, a beefed up armor soldier and couple others which I won't mention so I don't ruin the (happy) surprises =)) If you play with out the slow mo feature you'll find the game very challenging and something you really have to *think* about to get through. And probably load a lot too =)

Of course the "Bullet time" feature makes it all rather pointless, as as soon as you hit it basically locks everyone in extreme slow mo - the equivilent of having them all stand still so you can shoot them down one-two-three and be done with it. (Much of the game is you versus small groups of 2 to 3 baddies - though the larger groups when they happen are excellent fun as they tend to run you out of slow mo time and still have smart enemies around waiting to kill you - it at least requires some thinking =)) Also - to make sure you absolutely are ready and prepared for each group - they like to make incredibly loud radio calls to each other as you're approaching, they must be really insecure and have the worst radios ever because they have to Yell into them regurally to talk about how they're doing.

Right.

The story is ... mildly interesting, they try to add a freak out factor (hey, it is called "Fear" after all) but I found it really uneffective. The general atmostphere just wasn't very dark or threatening, I mean you're in a well lit office building shooting and fighting off bad guys and you're on top of your game taking em all on when A mad little girl ghost shows up and stares at you real mean like... but doesn't *do* anything... ooga booga... oh and now there's blood on the wall... oh no! it's right next to the twenty gallons of blood I put there with a machine guy and the last bad guy 10 seconds ago... here little girl, can you say Grenade?

If the visions could actually hurt / kill you / threaten you I think they would have been better, more interactive and maybe scarier. As it was, everytime they came up I knew I was safe cause they never mixed real danger with the spooky stuff - I actually *relaxed* when they were trying to scare me.

Though - to be honest, at 3am, in the dark, creeping through the buildings quietly, afraid machine gun death was awaiting me around every corner - the sudden shouting loud squawking of a radio conversation starting up between enemie soldiers sometimes did freak me out =) At least more than the ghosties ever did =)

And, I might be wrong about this, but I could have sworn the enemy troops you're fighting are part of this "telepathically controlled" fighting force... so why they need radios in the first place is debatable. And dont get me started on your hero of the superior reflexes being unable to dodge a very slow swung 2x4 at the beginning of the game - even if you're in slow mo mode.

But that's just nit-picking.

Anyway - if you're looking for a smarter than average AI which you can challenge yourself fighting against or go gonzo with bullet time against (up to you - both are fun in my opinion =)) and aren't worried about the story, graphics or plot too much - which, hey - it's a first person shooter so that doesn't sound too bad - then it's a decent investment. If you're not in need of what basically amounts to a few new environments to play counter strike in - then I'd pass on this one.

Oh - if you are looking for a decent story, occasional freak out, and a semi decent plot - I'd recommend the Vampire: Bloodlines game which came out a while back - if you play both you'll recognize that FEAR stole a lot of it's spooky stuff from the bloodlines haunted house level, but I think bloodlines pulled it off better cause you're honestly not sure if you're gonna die or not in that one (and with good reason) when it all happens. Course it's not a FPS so ... whatever works for you =)

Good AI. Nice looking game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As always make sure you have a fairly recent vid card to run this game at decent quality, and by decent, at least a 6800GT card and up. Preferably up.

Great game but lags even on a moderate pc.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

FEAR is without a doubt the best FPS game of this year. Much better than Quake 4 or Swat 4, the problem is it can lag a lot. My pc specs are 3.0 ghz sony vaio 512 mb and a X800 XL radeon video card and I still get a lot lag, especially when i first start the game or when a lot of things are happening on screen. I was getting lag even on a 800 by 600 setting which is ridiculous for the kinda of pc i have. For me to run the game really smooth I had to lower my settings to 600 which is like a crap setting to play a visually stunning game like this. So basically your pc needs a little kick to play this game HELL my pc has a little kick and I still got a lot of lag. I might have to get 1 gb of ram to play this. So if you have 512 ram or lower and dont have a graphics card nearly as good as a X800 or a 6600 nvidia I would not recommended getting this game because to fully enjoy what this game has to offer you may need a high end GAMERS PC... and i thought my pc was a high end system boy was I wrong.

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