FEAR

FEAR
Posted:2006-03-11 By Master Chief Number of View:4726
FEAR By :Master Chief Posted:2006-03-11 xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source F.E.A.R. Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games Developer: Monolith Genre: Action / FPS ESRB: Mature System Requirements  Minimum: Pentium IV 1.7 Ghz CPU, 512 MB RAM, WinXP/2000, 3D Graphics Accel.   First-person shooters generally emphasize intense combat action, but they often neglect other play elements, including the sense of atmosphere. Only a few try to foster a real sense of terror, including Doom 3 and Clive Barker\'s Undying. Now Monolith has released through Vivendi Universal Games F.E.A.R., an offering that attempts to bring back the sense of suspense and horror. As you progress, unexpected momentary appearances of ghosts or visions attempt to frighten you. When you scour seemingly empty settings, you could become wary that something could jump out at any moment, especially surprise enemy attacks out of the shadows. Sometimes you may feel so jolted that you literally recoil out of your computer chair. In particular, a bizarre and disorienting little girl is repeatedly disarming. Your inability to keep your flashlight lit for long periods of time can heighten the suspense even further. In this haunted environment, sometimes you may lose your ability to distinguish fantasy form reality. So can F.E.A.R. actually succeed in transplanting to players the dreaded emotion signified by its title?   F.E.A.R. stands for First Encounter Assault Recon, a top secret military unit specializing in the paranormal. You assume the role of the newest member of this group, and you seek to apprehend Paxton Fettel, a victim of the Armacham Technology Corporation\'s classified research experiment who has for inexplicable reasons gone crazy and assembled an army of cloned soldiers to wreak havoc. What originally appears to be a simple capture eventually turns into something a whole lot more complicated. This plot is more than adequate to frame the action, but it is not all that innovative and does not contain a lot of depth and is not all that fleshed out as you proceed through the game, and by the end a lot of key questions remain unanswered.   While the physical settings are detailed and intriguing, they lack variety. The dominant theme is techno-industrial, with an indoor urban flair. In many ways, what you see is reminiscent of the levels in Doom 3 and Area 51. The similarity in physical environments across levels and across rooms can make it easy to get lost, as over time everything begins to look alike; you need to do a lot of looking around, which more than occasionally is rewarded by hidden treasures. This problem is compounded by the similarity in mission objectives as you proceed, with the goal often simply being "find Fettel." There is no inherent reason why there could not have been more diversity among the eleven "intervals" (as they are called here) in the gameplay.   In a parallel fashion, compared to other first-person shooters, there are not many different types of enemies. It is indeed a real treat when you meet something other than the run-of-the-mill clones, which you encounter seemingly endlessly either alone or in small packs; there are no cases where you face swarms of enemies in huge Serious-Sam-like attacks. The few special enemy types require very different combat approaches. One foe has a ton of armor and takes lots of direct hits -- even a grenade will not stop it -- and another is cloaked until it shoots you. A third adversary is huge with a massive lethal arsenal. Later on, you face powerful flying attack drones and even spirit foes. A couple of times a truck tries to run you over. Even though foes\' wily nature poses a real challenge, some greater variety here would have really helped. The weapons you fight with are realistic and powerful but, like the settings and the enemies, not all that varied. You can choose among most of the standard FPS arsenal options, including the pistol, submachine gun, assault rifle, grenade, shotgun, particle weapon, rocket launcher, and mini-cannon. On occasion you get to commandeer a standing turret and mow down your opposition. There are no wimpy pea-shooters here. You may carry only three weapons at a time, so sometimes you have to drop one temporary to pick up another to use for a particular predicament. Reloading delays your blasting only for a short period of time. Ammunition, heath packs, and armor can be found in your surroundings so that you can keep pumping lead into your opponents. Experiencing the combat is astounding. The realism level is well beyond anything I have ever seen in a first-person shooter: when you fire your weapons, pieces of surrounding walls crumble; smoke and dust clouds form; striking metal generates sparks; and enemies engage in acrobatic moves to avoid being hit and fall in realistically contorted positions if you manage to kill them. One of my favorite play sequences occurs when enemies are shooting you from windows in another building, and you try to pick them off as in a shooting gallery. Even close head-to-head melee fighting is really fun and works well, as your drop kick proves quite effective at short range. Because most of the battle settings contain multiple entrances and exits, the strategies for finding refuge or safe places from which to pick off adversaries become much more complicated.   A key feature of the combat in F.E.A.R. is the availability of slow motion. While this "Slo-Mo" capability has been incorporated in many past first person shooters, its implementation here is very solid. You get to see bullets move toward their targets, slicing through the air, and every little twitch of enemy targets as the projectiles strike them. Since this quick-reflex power is only available for a limited time span (this ability regenerates quickly after use), you have to use it quite strategically to reap its maximum value. When you face multiple foes at once, you can use it to pick off a few of your opponents before they have a chance to retaliate. If you examine areas carefully, you can find reflex boosters that accelerate your relative reaction time even more.   There are several puzzles in F.E.A.R., but they are clearly not the focus of attention. In the unusually designed areas, you often have to explore quite a bit to discover how to proceed: you may need to locate strategically placed ladders, for example. In one instance, you have to criss-cross an elevator shaft to find your way. The interactivity increases dramatically in the last sections of the game, where you activate a lot of truly nifty machines, and this is very satisfying. Often there are multiple directions you may go. But the frequent blocked passageways, allowing you to peer into a room you cannot get to directly, can make you hunt hard to find a side path to get to a desired spot. As you proceed, you can learn useful (and sometimes not-so-useful) information that can advance the storyline from nearby computer laptops, voicemail on phones, and radio broadcasts, but they are never as central to unraveling puzzles and making your way forward as the PDA was in Doom 3.   Graphics: From a technical standpoint, F.E.A.R. is one of the best-looking games of any genre I have ever played. The quality of the indoor environments matches that in Doom 3, the previous FPS champion in this regard, and the outdoor scenes do not look shabby in comparison to those in Half-Life 2 (although little of the action occurs outdoors). The settings are consistently dark, noticeably without a lot of vibrant color, and ominous. While what you see is never really beautiful, it is always engrossing. While the depiction of your people and your enemies is not in the top tier, the animation of the characters is simply superb. You see them jump over obstacles, peek around corners, and move objects around in natural ways, and when they are killed their contorted ways of flailing around and falling to the ground are extremely effective.   There is a full complement of special visual effects here, all wonderfully executed. Of special note are dynamic lighting and shadowing effects, smoke, sparks, and particle effects, and the depiction of fire is the best I have ever seen. Explosions rock everything on the screen and have a massive visual impact. The physics of both character and object movement and collisions is right on the mark.   To accomplish this graphics splendor, F.E.A.R. requires a lot of horsepower. Without a high-end video card, you have a choice of running at lower settings or watching the frame rate dip during some of the action scenes. Moreover, this system hog takes up well over four and a half gigabytes of hard disk space.   Interface: F.E.A.R. utilizes the standard mouse-keyboard first-person shooter control system, and it works extremely well. The input system is very responsive. There are a lot of extra commands, however, such as leaning, activating slow-motion, using your flashlight, and fighting in melee mode, so you need to remember a few more keys than usual. The menu system and the play screen indicators are intuitive, but not anything flashy.   It is very handy that you can pick up health packs without activating them immediately (unlike in many first-person shooters); you may collect up to ten and then choose judiciously when to apply them. This makes health management more a product of intelligent decision making than usual.   The save system is very convenient, and though quick saves, checkpoint saves, and regular save slots you rarely have to retrace your steps very far. Loading conveniently does not take very long. Unfortunately, there are just ten save slots, which restricts your ability to return to various points in the game you want to play again.   There are a few minor glitches in the gameplay. A few times the game crashed to the desktop, and once thanks to a flaw an invisible and invincible foe kept shooting me from vents and even the ceiling.   Gameplay: F.E.A.R. provides relentless nonstop tension throughout the play experience. You can never relax or let down your guard. The spooky and weird setting is totally absorbing. Many of the environments provide precious few places where you can feel at all safe or protected.   The downside of the play experience is that the action is somewhat repetitive. With few dramatic differences in the settings, enemies, and weapons you use, a real sense of déjà vu occurs rather quickly. Without a deep, tight, and compelling story, some might loose their desire to continue onwards.   Though extremely serious, there are occasional moments of levity in F.E.A.R. For example, there is a rather chubby fellow named Norton Mapes whom you are trying to aid, and later try to take into custody, and in one case you see through a window of a room his legs wiggling frantically as he attempts to climb into a ventilation shaft (he eventually makes it through).   Nonetheless, F.E.A.R. richly merits its Mature ESRB rating. There is occasional foul language and plenty of blood-and-guts, with at least a possibility of turning off the gore. The carnage is not gratuitous, however, as it aids the offering\'s unnerving tone.   This is not the longest play experience, as most will make it from start to finish in well under 15 hours. The magnificent ending sequence, involving a lot of bizarre moments, makes the whole experience well worth it.   Multiplayer: While the focus is on the single-player experience, F.E.A.R. features a robust multiplayer mode for up to 16 players. All the usual variants are included, including deathmatch, team deathmatch, elimination, team elimination, and capture the flag, within a few relatively spacious environments. It is special that the slow-motion ability continues in multiplayer, albeit as a pickup requiring charging up that only one player at a time can possess. In addition, face-to-face melee tactics can be really a blast against human opponents. The combat is frenzied and can be every bit as much fun as single-player battles, although you may find yourself getting killed a lot more. Lag is minimal except on rare occasions.   Sound FX: The sound effects in F.E.A.R. are generally outstanding. The weapons are powerful and convincing, and the ambient environmental noises -- such as glass breaking or empty gun cartridges dropping -- contribute really well to the dark tone of the gameplay. When someone throws a grenade that lands near you, you are really rocked by the impact. The supernatural sounds are truly jolting. Hardware surround sound, in the form of Creative Labs\' EAX standard, is fully supported.   The vocal effects are fine but not the highlight of this offering. Appropriately, slowing down time slows down sounds as well. You get to hear almost constantly your enemies communicating with each other, but the unchanging voices of the clones can get a bit tiresome. Moreover, the default volume on the audio messages you hear from the computer, phone, and radio is sometimes so soft that it is barely audible (the other vocal effects have normal volume).   Musical Score: The music in F.E.A.R. is kept subtle and in the background. Rarely do you hear a coherent melody, instead hearing a primitive beat or a repetitive few notes to jar your senses. Sometimes during combat the soundtrack becomes more energized and noticeable. Overall, though, you pay much more attention to the sound effects than to the music here.   Intelligence & Difficulty: There are four levels of difficulty in F.E.A.R. -- low, moderate, high, and extreme. This allows for the full range of players, from novices to experts, to find a challenge. One way or another, most people will find that they will not just breeze through the game without experiencing death several times.   The artificial intelligence of the computer-controlled enemies is quite impressive. The cleverness of your foes is well above that in most first-person shooters: adversaries duck and jump out of range, move or blast through objects, flank you, take advantage of cover, use grenades intelligently, and otherwise make formidable combat opponents. They are usually quite accurate shots. One time an enemy under fire climbed up an overhead vent to escape. They react quickly to your flashlight and usually notice you if you make a lot of noise, and they let each other know when they have spotted you. They often coordinate attacks with each other and catch you in a lethal crossfire, pinning you down with seemingly little hope of escape. If you kill a few, they often request backup. They never just run at you with reckless abandon.   However, the enemy AI is not perfect, as your foes will rarely pursue you across long distances and virtually never come toward you even at close range if there is a closed door between you. On occasion, enemy behavior becomes somewhat predictable.   Overall: F.E.A.R. has by far the best tactical combat I have ever experienced, and has super-high production values throughout. The sense of dread never lets up throughout the game. The graphics and sound effects alone are worth the price of admission, the implementation of slow-motion is very entertaining, and the artificial intelligence present is well above what we have come to expect in this genre. However, the lack of variety is the key drawback present throughout the gameplay. Moreover, the story is a bit of a mishmash. Nonetheless, the largely retro style gameplay with modern polish is a winning combination, and I would highly recommend this release to any first-person shooter fan who is open to a solid jolt of fear.     xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source we would be happy to answer for your question . if you have suggestion or comment regarding this review our support would be glad to help just join our forum and ask u will get the best answer to discuss check our forum section :-) RATE THIS REVIEW 1 2 3 4 5    / 5   View Stat

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