A good atmospheric action/horror FPS that suffers from too much repetition and bland environments.
Great AI. Good graphical effects. Great supernatural horror worked in with gritty and intense combat. Atmospheric sound and interesting story.
The Bad
Bland and repetitive environments. Too many of the same enemies leading to repetitious combat. Multiplayer doesn't go far enough. Could miss out on some story elements if you don't check answering machines and laptops.
When I completed this game I was left with mixed feelings tinged with some disappointment.
On one hand, I feel that I completed an enjoyable game that kept me interested right up to the end. On the other hand, I look back and see a very repetitive game that I had to break up into chunks in order to complete it.
My PC managed to run the game with everything maxed out, although there was some slow down in some area which required some tweaking now and then. For the most part I enjoyed the game in all its graphical glory. The game does have some very nice graphics, mostly in the effects, although I wouldn't rate the lighting or textures as being any better than Half Life 2. Indeed, I still consider HL2 more aesthetically impressive due to the sheer variety of its design.
FEAR has great weapon models, nice enemy models, and really great effects from chunks exploding from walls to the slow-mo and horror effects, and some excellent lighting that really helps to set the mood.
Unfortunately most of the environments are quite bland and stark in their looks, and after a while you feel that you are simply working your way through the same complex for the entire game. While there are some nice settings where the action takes place, for the most part the level design consists of twisting, turning corridors, seemingly for little reason other than to offer you opportunities to lean around corners, which I found myself doing a lot. Although you are supposed to be visiting different buildings, most of them look very similar, with the same desks, phones, shelves, crates, pots of paint and areas under construction filling the rooms. FEAR's levels actually became quite repetitive, and afforded almost the same level of deja vu as the Library levels in Halo. For the most part they are also very linear.
There is some variety to the enemies in the game, but mostly during the second half of the game, so you will spend most of your time fighting a bunch of clone soldiers. The AI is very good, leading to some intense and challenging battles. The combat itself has a few gimmicks like slow-mo, and some nice melee combat moves in first person, which adds some variety and colour to the encounters. But you can only kill the same guys so many ways before it becomes...tiresome, and after a while you start to think 'I'm fighting the same guys in Chapter 5 that I fought in Chapter 1'. Even when you encounter some different human enemies, they exhibit the same tactics. It doesn't take long before you feel you've done it all before, and not just once, but several times.
So when you encounter some of the spooky horror elements of the game, which are very well executed, you welcome them with open arms as a break from the monotony of the combat. But they don't last long enough or happen often enough, and I was just left with the feeling that I wanted more of the horror story, more inventive level design, and a greater variety of opponents.
Something that actually intrigued me was that the scene in the demo footage at E3 where you are passenger in a car that turns over was completely absent from the game.
On the plus side, the game also didn't really have any cut scenes; you experience everything from first person view, like the Half Life games, which really helps with immersion.
When I compare this game to Monolith's past efforts like the NOLF games, it simply falls short of the creative design and gameplay they exhibited in the past. Yes, it's great pinning enemies to a wall with the Penetrator gun, but I was doing the same thing in the first NOLF with the harpoon gun, and back then it was awesome. FEAR just didn't have the same level of variety in the environments, the characters, or even the gameplay. Some of the levels felt like filler, and the health/reflex boosters you find dotted around the levels don't really make a great deal of sense other than being there because the game demands you 'power yourself up' in order to get through some of the encounters.
And yet the horror elements were excellently handled, and I was actually on edge wondering what would happen next. I took my time working through each level, and actually had my weapon raised most of the time to improve the aim, which did contribute to the feeling of a modern-day special forces guy working methodically through the environments checking for hostiles.
The sound was excellent throughout, from weapon sounds to ambient sounds and edgy music.
The multiplayer modes do retain the same intense combat, including the melee and slow-mo effects, but the levels are very tights, and its mostly the same vanilla MP modes we've got used to over the years.
I enjoyed playing FEAR, but frankly it could have been half the length and done the same job.
Gameplay: 8/10 - let down by too much repetition and not enough variety, but the AI is challenging enough to keep you on your toes.
Graphics/Design: 8/10 - the effects were great, but many of the environments/textures were quite bland.
Sound - 10/10 - excellent throughout
Story - 8/10 - a good story, and a homage to Japanese horror movies.
Value - 7/10 - replayability of the SP game is marred by that repetition, and the multiplayer modes don't go far enough.
A good game, but not 'great'.
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics/Design: 9/10
Sound: 10/10
Story: 8/10
Replayability: 7/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 8.2 (rounded down to 8.0)