Playing F.E.A.R. not only immerses you in a dark world but makes you feel like you are in a horror thriller action movie.
Story of FEAR takes place in a setting where you investigate a paranormal activity where an individual has taken mind control over super soldiers and it’s your task to find out who and take out any one in your path.
You start off in an industrial setting where you make your way through the complex fighting these super soldiers. The super soldiers have been telepathically controlled by a commander named Paxton Fettel. You and your team called F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) is tasked with investigating Paxton Fettle and his group of elite soldiers that are under his command to investigate and eventually eliminate him and his soldiers.
In between you encounter brief flashes of this mysterious girl in various corridors or in brief slow motion settings. You don’t know who she is or what circumstances she ended up where she is. Later on you do find out the interesting connection between you, the girl and the Paxton Fettle who has mind control over these super soldiers and corporate research that went horribly wrong, which you can surmise by listening to voicemail as you explore the complex and the company building where these super soldiers have been let loose. I will only say this much without ruining the entire story.
What makes F.E.A.R unique compared to other shooters of its time is the intense fire fights and the creepy settings that makes your hair crawl. You are often caught in intense fire fights with these super soldiers and not only are these super soldiers, they are super soldiers that coordinate their attacks. They sneak, will flank you and attack from various angles. It’s shocking that not many games have been able to replicate these type of fire fights in Single Player settings over the past 15 years, which gives credence to how Monolith was ahead of it’s time in it’s implementation of AI in this game.
Graphically, this game is top notch for it’s time. It was one of the first games to implement soft shadows which took a heavy toll on hardware at the time but obviously I ran it on modern graphics cards at 1080P with no issues. Physics in this game is great too. Monolith is still using update version of this engine in it’s newer games over 10 years after these game’s release. The game in other words uses the best PC technology at it's time to bring this game to it’s full potential, something that unfortunately was lacking in it’s sequels due to consolization.
So, if you are wondering what the fuss is about and want to dip your toes in a F.E.A.R game forget the later F.E.A.R titles and start with the very first one.