F.E.A.R. is a very fun and exciting, albeit repetitive shooter that effectively scares the crap out of you.
First Encounter Assault and Recon tells the story of a military unit assigned to take out paranormal targets (not surprisingly, the unit is called F.E.A.R.). You play as a nameless and faceless new recruit to this unit who has some very strange abilities such as incredible reflexes. The game begins with a mad psychic who takes control of an army telepathically and takes over a multimillion dollar corporation's headquarters. Your team is assigned to take this psycho out.
However, this is quite difficult because he has control of an army. Not to mention the fact that there is a mysterious girl running around the facility who seems to be able to completely annihilate people without so much as raising a finger.
As you progress through the facility, you start to learn about what exactly has happened here and why this little girl is causing so much trouble. You also learn how you came to acquire these strange powers. The single player storyline is really good and is pretty much the only thing that kept me attached to this game after a while.
The gameplay itself is not as impressive as the story. It should be noted that for a while the gameplay is great because of the unique features and great graphics. One of the unique features stems from the characters heightened reflexes. You can activate the reflexes and essentially slow down time for a short period of...er...time. Because of the astounding graphics and audio, the result is a experience reminiscent of Matrix bullet-time.
Another great thing about the gameplay is partially due to the impressive graphics. Firefights can sometimes lead to pure chaos. Everything about the game is so exaggerated that at times it really feels like an action movie. When you shoot a wall, there aren't just a few sparks; chunks of the wall will fly out and clouds of smoke will fly into the air...and there are plenty of sparks. In some areas of the game, you can get so much debris flying that it's almost hard to see. This really increases the intensity of the combat and makes bullet-time look really cool.
F.E.A.R. also has very impressive A.I. Enemies in this game can do things that I have never seen done in a game before. They will communicate with one another, take cover, and even try to surpress and flank you. The enemies are so smart that you really feel like you've accomplished something everytime a firefight ends.
Then, of course, there are the scares. F.E.A.R. is very frightening. The little girl, named Alma, is sort of psychic and will flash disturbing images through your mind. Your character will also experience frequent shocking hallucinations. In addition, you're very isolated throughout much of the game and you often feel very tense. Mix all of this together and you get a very nerve-racking game that will actually scare you.
Unfortunately, only one of these gameplay elements stays fresh and that's the scares. F.E.A.R. is a very linear game that takes place mostly in bland industrial areas that all look pretty much the same. The lack of interesting environments is pretty disappointing given the graphical capabilities of this game. Even worse is the fact that you're going to be fighting mostly the same enemies over and over again throughout the enite game and although they're smart, it gets fairly easy and repetitive.
Most disappointing is the fact that the bullet-time gets old. At first it is remarkable and tons of fun, but it eventually becomes just another tool that you use to take down enemies and little else. This sucks since bullet-time was one of the most hyped things about this game.
Despite all of this, F.E.A.R. has a fantastic storyline and scares that don't get old. The final sequence starts with a terrifying image and evolves into the most intense and difficult segment of the entire game (which makes sense since it's the end). The final cinematic is sure to drop some jaws.
F.E.A.R. is a good first-person shooter. Unfortunately, it's not much more than that. It has tons of great aspects to it, but they all lose their appeal until you feel like your only still playing just to find out who you and Alma are. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I wish F.E.A.R. could've found a way to keep the great things about it fresh, so that the second to last level could be just as interesting as the first.