F.E.A.R just didn't live up to the hype in my book.
The first impressions were good - All the usual first person shooter stuff, including some slick graphics, satisfying guns, and a not so necessary addition - The time slowing mechanic, which plagues a lot of mainstream games these days, and many developers fail to realize that its getting old. It's much like the quick-time events that every game must have now by law. But whatever, I thought. I'll roll with it. Perhaps the depth of the story and the level design will compensate for it.
I was in for a very unpleasant surprise, since the level design is rubbish. It's worse than rubbish in fact. At least rubbish comes in different shapes and sizes. This game might as well take place in the same ****ing gritty, piss stained office corridor that the game is so riddled with, that it almost made me vomit. The story is also a joke, because it revolves around some kind of super soldier research that is controlled by a psychic girl that is supposed to be scary, and the only sight of any horror elements in this game is only once a few hours between endless corridor shooting sequences, when the game remember it needs to be a horror game, and pops up a few blood stains on the floor or some ghostly sounds. Amazingly enough, it falls completely flat. Perhaps its because I'm not really involved in the game's story, so I couldn't care less about some ghostly vision. But also because the endless shooting sequences and the boring linear office corridors don't create the proper aesthetic and background for a horror scene.
It's like the game is expecting me to care about someone who I don't know, that lives on the moon.
The more I progressed, the more boring the game became. The endless identical enemys, the boring level design, the uninspired story, the lack of a proper setting for a horror game, just became more and more glaring as I progressed. It doesn't help the fact that you will only be using the same weapon the enemys are using at the time, in order not to run out of ammo. So you would break flow as little as possible. Unfortunately, the use of different weapons is what makes shooters interesting, and also serves the purpose of actually feeling like you are achieving something.
Eventually I fell asleep on my keyboard after only a few hours of playing. So in conclusion, I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone except the people that are in dire need of something to help them fall asleep.