The tough ai of the first F.E.A.R. makes a comeback mixed in with the ambience of F.E.A.R. 2 shooter horror thrills.

User Rating: 7.5 | F.E.A.R. 3 PC
By Hellbishop | Review Date:
Its great to see the smart and brutal ai from the first F.E.A.R. making a return tougher as ever. Enemies are very strategic in their acttacks and bum rushing never really works against them as they'll gun you down in a hail of bullets. Neither does staying in one spot camper style where enemies will flank and surround the player instead of just staying in front of them. They will toss grenades to flush one out of corners and into the open street where you'll be made into mince meat.

Sound effects and voice acting are excellent with soldier taunts instigating the player to do something dumb like go after a killing shot when they should stay in cover. Weapons fire is very nice and sounds great on my JBL Control One bookshelf speakers or Audio Technica Ath AD700 headphones. Robot walkers sound eerily realistic with their whirring gyrating movement effects as if this is the way they actually sound in real life. Environmental sounds are magically immersive making one feel they are in the individual settings. Great to hear all the fluent spanish speaking voices saying things i could easily imagine them saying in real world situations. Fettel's voice is very creepy and sinister reminding me a bit of Monolith's other dark anti-hero Caleb from their 1990s BLOOD horror gore shooter.

Graphics are sweet to behold with the gorey aspects standing out more due to how the grimey rundown environments were done compared to the shiny polished futuristic clean sterile like palaces of the first two games. Its kind of like a mix of old and new graphic styles complimenting each other in their strengths. Weapons look lethal with a killing beauty. Love the shotgun with its unique but commonsense design.

Level maps are huge in detail though small in scale in some areas packing alot of lifelike architecture with plenty of places to run around in full of strategic options which add immensely to replay value. The world feels very lived in even when there are nothing but dead bodies all around one.

Animations are excellent and its alot of fun seeing enemies take damage and reacte to it as in the first F.E.A.R. Using flash grenades is great for blinding enemies and blasting them away.

Coming across collectables is also alot of fun and funny many times.

Supernatural aspects arent overdone and have that just right vibe of believability to them. Kind of like a TWILIGHT ZONE episode where all seems normal but somewhere someone is a square block in a circular world.

F.E.A.R. 3 full of tension and packed with action worth the price of admission into a nightmare dimension flowering into the phantasmagoric monstrous.

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