F.E.A.R. reviews

Absolute tedious rubbish -as for being scary..yawn…wake me up when it's over. Truly dreadful weapons and seriously tiresome same old same old – the rooms are all the same the gunfights are all the same, and will someone please turn on some lights!

This game truely raises the standards of FPS to an entirely new level. The graphics are amazing and the AI is the single best out of any game – ever! It's as though you are playing human players and not the computer – they will outflank you, trick you and anything else to kill you as quickly and ruthlessly as possible. This is also a very entertaining game on many levels. It offers an engrossing story and some genuinely scary moments – not monsters poping out of the closet kind of scary, but really creapy kind of scary. This is a game that everyone should play once, especially with the lights off at night. I'm looking forward to the sequel due out later this year. Buy this game if you want to play an all around good game.

Amazing AI, average gameplay.

A solid shooter sadly spoiled somewhat by really high system requirements. I have a pretty good machine and have run many of the latest shooters without a problem, and I don't see what's so special about Fear's graphics that they are so demanding.

It's not really mission based. You're ‘mission’ is to hunt the bad guy but all you do is fight your way to the end of the level. Later on you have to activate computers now and then but that's about it in terms of missions.

The area the game shines is the enemy AI. It's amazing. They use cover. They jump over obstacles. They maneuver and flank you. They can see your flash light beam. If you run at them they say things like “He's charging!” I wounded one and watched him limp away, dragging his leg. I saw some leaning around corners to fire at me, and one even crouched behind a desk and reached over the top with his gun to fire.

I also liked how, if you're quiet you can sneak up and get the drop on them, unlike say D3 and Q4 where the enemies pop out of nowhere when you hit a certain spot on the map.

There isn't much variety with the enemies though, and you get bored fighting the basic grunts all the time, excellent though they are.

I just wish it would have run better on my system, and that there was a way to turn off the extremely annoying ambient background music. Other than that, pretty good.

Excellent. Too short if anything to criticise.

Not quite the same level of physics as HL2 but the horror movie parts make up for it.

Slow-mo mode (like the Matrix) is essential for some of the enemies. Nice selection of weapons from dual pistols to rocket guns and the Laser gun fries the enemy into nice crispy skeletons.

The end level especially should be played late at night with the lights of, guaranteed to require a change of undies.

It does require some fairly recent hardware but runs surprisingly well on older systems. 1Gb ram and nothing less than a Ti4200 though for medium settings. and you will lose some of the textures.

Totally brilliant. Buy it NOW if you haven't already.