F.E.A.R [2005] REVIEW - Hands Down One of the Best First-Person Shooters

What is this?

An honest review about an awesome game. 

What about it?

You may have heard of it; From a friend; From the internet, nonetheless, you still hesitated to play it, maybe because the name inspires something else, maybe because it scares you; and it should, because there is some horror to it, but let us leave aside the horror bit for a moment and see what we are left with: a brilliant first-person shooter, one that deserves it's place among the best: Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Deus Ex, Bioshock, DOOM, Call of Duty.

Everyone is saying it's scary, some feel that it is too scary which is one of the reasons I hesitated to play it, since I'm not a big fan of anything horror-related, the other reason being that I thought it's such an old game (2005) it can't possibly be so much fun.. man, wish I could punch myself in the face for being so eager to judge without actually giving it a go. If you are like me you probably do the same thing, so please, enjoy this review.

So why should I play it?

There are lot's of reasons why you should play it, however let's stick to 3 reasons that I think will convince you:

1. Adrenaline-inducing action

Think about the intense shootout scene at the beginning of John Woo's Hardboiled, you know, the one at the tea house ; Now take this scene and imagine that this is what the lead designer at Monolith had in mind as to how  the combat should feel in F.E.A.R. 

The result speaks for itself, at any given point when combating enemies, you will feel like the star of a nonstop action movie, well not all the time, sometimes you will feel like a tactical one man army. 

What I'm saying is that the action won't let you down. There are plenty of weapons to choose from, but you can only carry 3 of them at any given time, picking up a 4th one will drop the one you are currently holding; However you do not need an entire arsenal of weapons to face your enemies, just your brains and reflexes.

2. Slow-mo / Reflex Time

Speaking about reflexes, our protagonist is a man gifted with supernatural reflexes, it makes sense he should put those reflexes to use by killing baddies. You too can use his reflexes by activating what is called "reflex time", an interesting gameplay mechanic that slows down everyone in the game besides ourselves, which means we can use this to get out of a pinch.  It also makes it possible to make some pretty cool moves like bicycle-kicking baddies in the face. Yes we have bicycle-kicks and slo-mo. What more do you want?

I feel this was a necessary thing to implement since the game is truly challenging as it is, it would probably have been downright impossible without it. Don't worry about abusing it, you can only use for a limited time before it recharges again.

3. Next-Level AI

Singleplayer feels more like multiplayer in the sense that it feels like you are fighting a whole team of battle-hardened soldiers playing F.E.A.R against you. 

They don't rush into your fire or stay in the same spot until you come to take them out of their misery, they just don't act like you expect them to. Sometimes they will flank you, sometimes they will throw well placed grenades (no spamming though) that you must pay attention to since there are no huge on-screen indicators telling you dodge them, sometimes they will make cover by kicking large objects down.

To succeed in beating F.E.A.R's baddies you must succeed in predicting their moves. Think before the computer thinks, and act accordingly.

You said something about horror..

Those were my 3 main reasons I think you should play F.E.A.R; of course if horror is your thing, you won't be disappointed, it's a different type of horror (heavily inspired from Japanese Horror); one that tries to get under your skin by other means than by cheap scary-monsters-in-your-face.

The story has a bit of ambiguity to it, which I think is cool since it makes the player think about it for a while, even after playing the game. That being said you might feel emotionally drained after playing this game for a long session.

In conclusion

F.E.A.R is a brilliant video game, one that will raise your expectations when it comes to first-person shooters and their gameplay. It does have some quirks like the fact that it has an eerie sense of loneliness, the game world feels like it's only you and the soldiers you kill (many games suffer from this); there is also a weird story-related quirk which seems a bit unrealistic: every time you have a team, they always seem to die or can't follow you anymore leaving you to deal with the enemies alone. That isn't possible in real-life, in fact one-man armies are just a tale of video games, but I think we can chalk this one to the fact that you have supernatural reflexes.

There it is, my honest review of F.E.A.R, I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't play this masterpiece by now, I hope it will make you pick it up and experience it.