Solid Shooting save this not-so-scary corridor gore fest.
Though the story does follows Pointman from the first in the series, this time around you're not so compelled to see it through to the end. Gone are the mysteries that permeated the journey, left is a tag-a-long story that doesn't make use of its past so well, that still allows for some interesting locales and varied corridors to shoot through, leaving you very little for the FEAR fan, but a lot if you like to cover the walls in gushes of blood.
This is a cover, corridor shooter with lots and lots of blood. Did I mention that you can explode people? The slowdown mechanic, a FEAR staple, returns, and remains as fun as ever. The game is broken down into levels or stages, and uses a checkpoint system, which makes progression easy and only makes the game more reminiscent of a shooting gallery. After you complete a stage, you unlock the option to play as Pattel with his ghoulish powers, which is an interesting reason to replay. The sections that involve you blasting baddies in a mech robot body are also pretty awesome. There isn't much better praise to say, other than the fact that the game is very enjoyable as a shooter, which is surprising considering the genre fatigue that set in a long ago.
Another reason the game sets itself apart is the interesting level design, artistically presented with the flourish of atmosphere and lots of random cinematic, but never taking control away, moments that don't revolve around buildings exploding. These attempts to scare probably didn't work the way it was intended, but it wasn't all for nothing. Mix it in with the solid and satisfying shooting, and FEAR 3 holds its own against its more well-known counterparts.
Here it is, its arrival didn't scare any of its competitors and its trailers probably left you with a "meh", but don't just overlook the fantastic atmospheric shooter that is FEAR 3. Did I mention you can explode people?