F.E.A.R. is a well-made game that, while rough around the edges, none-the-less delivers a stellar experience.
In F.E.A.R., you play as a character simply known as the "Point Man", the newly appointed leader of the F.E.A.R. team. You are assigned a mission to find and kill a telepath named Paxton Fettel, who has taken over the Armacham Technology Corporation and killed all of its occupants with a battalion of cloned super soldiers. As you progress throughout the game, you start to learn more and more of Fettel's motives behind his actions, and the dark and disturbing history of ATC's past. While the story is not bad by any means, it feels a little bland; many plot points could have been developed further than they were. The story serves its purpose quite well, allowing the player to have an idea of why many of the odd events he or she witnesses are happening, but not giving enough away to make it feel boring or predictable.
F.E.A.R.'s graphics are best described as average. Characters and objects throughout the game look enough like they should, but nothing seems especially polished or spectacular. ATC Security Forces, in particular, look poor, with odd looking faces and a generally weird texture that pops out a lot more than it should. Environments look bland and boring, but have varied enough layouts to make the gameplay more fun. Character expressions look good, but again, lack some detail. However, it should be noted that fire, specifically, is very well done, with very realistic movement and detail. The graphics of F.E.A.R., while definitely needing work, look good enough to not hinder the gameplay, and do a good enough job of making the player want to continue playing.
The sound in F.E.A.R. is spectacular. Voice acting is done very well and assists in fleshing out the unique and enjoyable personalities of each character. Guns sound very realistic, and do a good job at making you feel like you're using real guns to fight the enemies, as opposed to toys. Footsteps are clear, but not too loud to get on your nerves. The voices and screams of the enemies are likely my favorite thing about the games sound; you can clearly tell from the lines they shout in battle how emotionally stable each enemy is, and how well or poorly the battle is going. When you kill an enemy, they often give a loud, terrified scream, showing the fear that a person in an actual situation such as theirs would feel themselves. The music and ambient sound effects in F.E.A.R. are also of high quality, assisting in creating specific atmospheres needed at different points in the game. Depending on the situation, the atmosphere can have the feel of a difficult, close quarters shootout, or a disturbing, hair-raising nightmare. Monolith did an excellent job with the sound of this game, and it stands out as a high point of the game.
The gameplay of F.E.A.R. switches between two distinct styles; a loud, fast-paced, shootout style, and a slow, disturbing, unpredictable scary style. The bulk of the game is the former style, being a cover-based shooter that plays extremely well. Enemies have incredibly well-designed AI's, making them smart enough to use cover to their advantage, move and strafe around as to avoid your gunfire, and use techniques such as throwing grenades to flush the player out of cover. The enemies use a large amount of teamwork, depending on each other to keep you within their line of site and kill you. They react realistically when shot, moving differently according to which area you shot them in. It's also extremely fun to eliminate the enemies; unloading half a clip of ammo into an enemy to finally make them drop to the ground feels incredibly satisfying, especially after having to eliminate their allies and coax them out of cover using a grenade. Explosions are loud and cover a large area, damaging anyone in its vicinity, and offer the same satisfaction when used to defeat an enemy. You'll find yourself constantly fending off swarms and swarms of enemies, all varied enough to keep you interested. The variety consists of enemies using different tactics depending on what they're armed with; enemies armed with machine guns are more likely to stay at a distance and shoot from cover, while shotgun-wielding enemies are likely to go behind the cover the player is using in order to pump rounds into the Point Man at close range, and the player will have to approach these types of enemies differently in order to dispatch them. There are also even more unique types of enemies, including stronger, more bullet-resistant enemies that attack using a gun that shoots spikes, enemies that can turn invisible in order to get up close to the player and attack them, and floating robot-like enemies that attack with laser-based weapons. The gun-focused gameplay in F.E.A.R., while not entirely groundbreaking or original, is incredibly well done, and is varied and interesting enough to ensure the player has a lot of fun playing.
The later style, the unpredictable, scary type, is seen less often and lasts less time, but also succeeds in what it sets out to do. The game does not outright throw scary monsters at the player, but instead takes a more psychological approach to its horror. While it would not be expected from a combat heavy first-person shooter developed by an American company, F.E.A.R.'s horror is heavily inspired by Japanese horror, showing its dark and disturbing antagonist through a more subtle approach. The reasoning behind this is to leave a large amount of the terror up to the player's imagination, letting him or her decide for his or herself what that sound was, who that figure was, or why these things are happening. While the horror is not likely to terrify horror game veterans, it will definitely deliver shocks and nail-biting tension to newer players, and will still leave more seasoned players with a slight feeling of unease about just who that little girl is and what she wants. While the shortness of each separate scary part is likely to disappoint many players, the game more than makes up for it near the end. All the tension and disturbing events that unfold during earlier segments in the game come to a shocking convergence in the end, putting the player in an absolutely terrifying and unpredictable situation that most would not be prepared for. While the horror sometimes feels as though it is only second to the shooter-heavy gameplay, it is nonetheless very well-done, and succeeds in giving the player that feeling of dread that should always accompany a horror game.
F.E.A.R. is a well-designed, enjoyable horror shooter. While the graphics could have been improved in several ways, it's more than made up for by the fantastic sound, interesting story, fast-paced gameplay, and well-done horror. The game is a decent length, not too long nor too short, and is easy to pick up and play. Anyone who enjoys first-person shooters or horror games should do themselves a favor and pick this game up, for while it is rough around the edges and has a moderately slow start, the atmosphere and gameplay will suck in hours of life from anyone willing to give them.