Reviews// F.E.A.R. (Xbox 360)

Employing a tactic of hiding away

Posted 10 Nov 2006 13:52 by
Companies:
Games: F.E.A.R.
As you’d come to expect with this sort of game, your arsenal of weaponry will steadily increase as you progress. You’ll
begin with a pistol and sub-machine gun. The former is pretty much useless for the majority of the game. Its okay when dual-wielded, but you’ll quickly find you have little use for it. The latter is very useful as ammo is abundant and, although of low power, the rate of fire is impressive.

In fact, it’s probably our favourite weapon, if only for it sounding uncannily similar to those used by the marines in Aliens. The assault rifle offers a longer range, and is more powerful, but has heavy recoil, making incessant fire awkward.

The Penetrator pays homage to Quake’s nail gun; it fires small stakes, and is very accurate, but its slow rate of fire only makes it effective in bullet-time, where you can make each shot count. One very cool by-product of this weapon is leaving enemies pinned to the environment by whichever part of their anatomy you hit.

The effects can be both gruesome and hilarious. There are other, more powerful and less ‘traditional’ weapons later in the game, which we’ll let you discover on your own.

However, special mention must go to the shotgun. This beast absolutely decimates enemies at short distance, and is an excellent tool to if you’re curious about the human anatomy. After you’ve shot off countless limbs and heads, and experienced dividing clones at the waist, you’ll certainly agree with the legitimacy of the 18 Certificate.

Enemy AI is also noteworthy. Employing a tactic of hiding away and mowing the bad guys down as they come into sight won’t work. Likewise, running in with guns blazing can also prove foolhardy.

If the enemy feel they’re under the cosh, they’ll fall back, regroup and attempt to flank you. However, if they feel they’re gaining the upper hand, they’ll try and root you out from your cover, often with the crafty use of a grenade. They also navigate the environment impressively; jumping out of windows to avoid a well-placed grenade, or skilfully leaping over the railings of walkways to trap you.

The key is to be decisive and ready to react according to how the fire-fights pan out. One thing for is for sure, battles are rarely anything other than challenging and exhilarating.

Perhaps the only gripe to be levelled at F.E.A.R. is the lack of variety in the environments. All the action takes place in an urban/industrial setting, and after seeing the umpteenth gloomy alley, steaming pipe or office desk, the sense of repetition unfortunately sets in.

Perhaps this is a harsh assessment. After all, you are a Special Forces operative assigned to a specific urban/industrial based mission. Obviously there’s no journey of self-discovery. You’re not the subject of a worldwide manhunt. Besides, a tropical island hardly lends itself to heightening that sense of real F.E.A.R. and paranoia.

SPOnG Score: A-

While F.E.A.R. is a year old PC game, it’s aged very well indeed. The combat is satisfying and the developer’s use of horror to add to the tension works incredibly well. Once you’ve completed the substantial single player Campaign mode, the Live! enabled classic Multiplayer modes - although no Halo 2 or Unreal Tournament - are a great deal of fun, and add considerable life to a very accomplished shooter.
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Companies:
Games: F.E.A.R.

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Comments

king skins 13 Nov 2006 15:46
1/14
I've been playing this over the weekend and I really like it! The scary moments have only managed to make to jump once, but maybe I need to play it with the lights out?

Best moment so far. I was attaching a group of clone soldiers in a small open plan office and I'd taken out about 4 of them already and was just covering to reload when I heared the following:

Clone1: Move in!
Clone2: Not f**king way!

:) Genius

Only grip so far is how far some of the check points are spaced out, but thats about it.
kid_77 13 Nov 2006 16:13
2/14
How far in are you?

Yeah the soldiers come out with some classics, I also like how they notice your torch if you're daft enough to leave it on. "FLASHLIGHT!"
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king skins 13 Nov 2006 17:24
3/14
Not sure, Interval 5 or 6? I rescued the hostage that was tied up with explosives and then missed the extraction... then you end up clearing the roof top and accidentally blowing up a pipe which sends you to the bottom of the building. You then need to find your way back up to the roof.

I bumped into the engineer f**ker again and got the lifts working and he f**king left me, the c**t. Then I found him again and he turned on the buildings security, so I'm now getting shot at by automated turrets in the ceilings.

I thought that was a good time to go to bed as it was 12:15am. But its really really good, haven't tried the multiplayer yet.

Oh the other gripe I have is that enemies that haven't seen you can be taken down with 1-2 shots while ones that have seen you take 3+ shots...? What does their awareness of you have to do with how many shots they can take?
RiseFromYourGrave 13 Nov 2006 23:26
4/14
king skins wrote:

Oh the other gripe I have is that enemies that haven't seen you can be taken down with 1-2 shots while ones that have seen you take 3+ shots...? What does their awareness of you have to do with how many shots they can take?


its featured in halo too, its just a mechanic to reward stealthy behaviour. and the encouragement is welcome, some bits of that game are made so, so much easier with some thoughtful maneuvering to get the jump on (sometimes entire units of) investigating replicas. but i must admit i notice things like that all the time in games when maybe i should be getting on with having fun . i actively dont like being able to perform a k.o. on someone by LK'ing them in the foot on fighting games and that makes me an idiot

f.e.a.r. is a bloody brilliant game, a steaming witch's brew of sci-fi, horror and action films played out in a beautifully rendered but ultimately bleak world full of hyper-realistic gunfights, and painted from head to toe in foreboding atmosphere. 9/10 :D

fear ftw!

king skins 14 Nov 2006 12:33
5/14
RiseFromYourGrave wrote:
f.e.a.r. is a bloody brilliant game, a steaming witch's brew of sci-fi, horror and action films played out in a beautifully rendered but ultimately bleak world full of hyper-realistic gunfights, and painted from head to toe in foreboding atmosphere. 9/10 :D

fear ftw!


:) I really like it when you have been in the middle of an intense and extended gun fight and all the dust has been shot off the walls and your struggling to see where the last couple of replicas are located and you have to wait for the dust to settle.

Just had my worst moment in FEAR... :(


My 360 died on me!! F**k!! Again!! I only just this one as a replacement in September for my launch day console that died just before Dead Rising came out. Then last night my 360 dies just before Gears of War and while I was really enjoying FEAR :(

Gutted
kid_77 14 Nov 2006 13:09
6/14
How has it died? Have you got a Red Ring of Light?

*fnar*
*titter*
*yif yif*

Seriously though, that's a right c*nt. What's M$'s turnaround for replacing consoles?

Hurry them up. Was looking forward to prawning your arse online.
king skins 14 Nov 2006 13:54
7/14
kid_77 wrote:
How has it died? Have you got a Red Ring of Light?

*fnar*
*titter*
*yif yif*

Seriously though, that's a right c*nt. What's M$'s turnaround for replacing consoles?

Hurry them up. Was looking forward to prawning your arse online.


Well its a replacement (that I got in mid September) and its always been a bit dodgy. It wouldn't turn on sometimes and you had to turn it on and off a few times to get it going... Also sometimes I'd get one red light and an error code E74... which is an error within the AV out chip.

But its always worked OK once it booted up, but last night I was playing FEAR after coming back from work and the game just froze. So I turned it off and then back on and I got the 3 red flashing lights of doom. Which is an internal hardware failure. So I went onto the xbox support site and went through the unplugging cables turning it on and taking out the HDD but they didn't work.

I does come back alive every now and then, but then it will just freeze after 1-5mins and then red lights when you restart it.

I did try to get them to just send me another one as they had sent me a dodgy replacement in the first place but I think they now have a Indian call center and I didn't get to far... :( I had feeling this would happen just before GoW.

Turn around time is normally 7-10days. Last time it was 7days, so it'll be next week, Wednesday/Thursday :(

I live with a friend and he has a 360 so I could just steal his in the mean time... but he has also ordered GoW... could be interesting... Can you play GoW Online with two people on the same console?
LUPOS 14 Nov 2006 14:22
8/14
king skins wrote:
I live with a friend and he has a 360 so I could just steal his in the mean time... but he has also ordered GoW... could be interesting... Can you play GoW Online with two people on the same console?


AI, @player split for multiplayer and 2 player split for co-op. After havign tried it both ways i really love the co-op, though woudl be best to have to seperate tvs. I did enjoy having my brother in arms right in the room with me, many i high five was exchanged after soem of the more intense matches (oh you pesky second berserker!).

Anywho, long as there is a console in range, you should have a blast with the game till you get urs back. Just be sure to put ur gamer tag and stuff on a memory cardy before shippign off the dead one as you cant bring a guest online liek you coudl in halo :(

___________
king skins 14 Nov 2006 14:45
9/14
LUPOS wrote:
king skins wrote:
I live with a friend and he has a 360 so I could just steal his in the mean time... but he has also ordered GoW... could be interesting... Can you play GoW Online with two people on the same console?


AI, @player split for multiplayer and 2 player split for co-op. After havign tried it both ways i really love the co-op, though woudl be best to have to seperate tvs. I did enjoy having my brother in arms right in the room with me, many i high five was exchanged after soem of the more intense matches (oh you pesky second berserker!).

Anywho, long as there is a console in range, you should have a blast with the game till you get urs back. Just be sure to put ur gamer tag and stuff on a memory cardy before shippign off the dead one as you cant bring a guest online liek you coudl in halo :(


So we could play online as long as I have my own gamer tag on a memory card? So we could get some games going with My mate, you and Kidd_77?

I'll pick one up on the way home.
RiseFromYourGrave 14 Nov 2006 15:29
10/14
yeah the smoke/dust/debris from stray bullets, grenades etcetera and the way all that can affect the battle is very cool. i distinctly remember quickly diving out from cover in one particular gunfight to throw a grenade into a unit of replicas (to their dismay,which they vocalised) and then just as quickly diving back behind my partition. quite confident i had killed them all, i began my wait for the smoke to clear so i could investigate my proficiency properly, only to hear "are you alright?" being said to one replica by another. needless to say they all ultimately tasted the lead of whatever machinegun i had equipped, all in the unfairness of reflex time. awesome.

sorry to hear about the 360 man, its a pretty s**tty time for it to go tits up :(
LUPOS 14 Nov 2006 19:02
11/14
king skins wrote:
So we could play online as long as I have my own gamer tag on a memory card? So we could get some games going with My mate, you and Kidd_77?

I'll pick one up on the way home.


Indeed, just copy your ass to a mem card and stick it in ur mates box! (sounds terrible) I swear it'll be easier to catch me on with gears than with fight night :/
_______
king skins 17 Nov 2006 17:24
12/14
are you up for a game tonight or over the weekend? I'm not that good at GoW but I'm learning only had a couple of games and I was drunk for a most of them!!

I have managed to steal my mates 360 and we are currently playing it co-op on my TV, it bigger than his ;) So i should be online tonight sharing a screen... :(

gamertag is my forum name.
LUPOS 17 Nov 2006 19:26
13/14
TONIGHT!

i will be on mine and my flat mate just got his tv fixed so he'll be on his so there aught be 4 of us. Plus i have a few other friend about who will be on so we should be able to get 8 peopel together easily.
____
RiseFromYourGrave 17 Nov 2006 20:48
14/14
man i wish i could afford to join in :(
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