First, let me say, "Jesus Christ, F.E.A.R., what the fuck do you want from my computer? Blood?" as it set its graphics levels down to balls. Balls. This is all flying in the face of the System Requirements Lab telling me I'm more than good to go. I'm not really going to let that affect the final score, so I guess this is just more a warning that F.E.A.R. is a mother fucking resource hog.
So the real first thing that actually affects the score is F.E.A.R.'s originality, in that it has none. First of all, you have to pick and choose your weapons as you go along, like Halo (which I hated). At least this time you can carry three here. This does add a bit of strategy and tactics to the game, but since every single weapon is useful in its own right it just makes it feel like the game is teasing me, forcing me to choose between the weapon that's useful now but will get my head blown off if I try to use it later or the one that's useless now but pretty much required later that I know I won't be able to pick up later when I actually need it. "Nah nah nah nahnah, you can't have it," jeers the game as I make my decision and try to content myself with silently cursing the game like a frustrated schoolboy. Honestly, it's like it's asking me if I want to get beaten up now or beaten up later as if I've really got a choice, the great schoolyard twat.
Then there's a slow-mo feature. Oh hi, Max Payne, Bloodrayne, PoP, and about fifty fucking thousand other games! I really won't say anything much about it other than: Played. The Fuck. Out.
And then there's another thing taken from Halo (which I hated and found boring as all get out), mêlée attacks. Swing your gun at people to get instant kills or pull off a couple of kung-fu moves to do the same. But the problem is that their usefulness can best be described as "fuck all" as there are really only two times you should do these kills; one is against an unarmed stealth enemy and the other is when the enemy is caught unawares, as otherwise they'll swing right fucking back. The latter really underlines another of F.E.A.R.'s problems in its whole "stealth" mechanic. Like other games that try to add in stealth elements when they're not based around them, there's really no indication of how sneaky you're being other than the enemy shouting, "There he is!" The only real way to surprise somebody is either to shoot them from afar (and you'll be wanting to do this every time you can, as enemies take more damage when caught unawares) or to know exactly where they are and slow-mo charge them so they can't react to you until you've bashed their brains in.
I did, however, get to take down two enemies with one swing with the latter tactic in a firefight, so it's not wholly without satisfaction or merit.
F.E.A.R. also has, as I'm sure you know, horror elements to it. Every now and then you'll get glimpses of an evil little girl, Alma, running around, usually just popping out to give a cheap scare, sometimes actively trying to kill you or, more successfully, red shirts. There are also a number of creepy psychic visions that serve to break up the monotony of firefights, but, while they certainly serve their purpose, every time they happen I can't help but ask "was that really necessary?" Maybe I'm just jaded, but none of them really evoked any sense of spookiness or anything in me. Of course, I find The Ring and all those other Asian horror remakes to be immensely boring, and almost every one of these Alma sightings and visions just feel like rejected scenes from said films. Although, there was one vision where I was swimming in a pool of blood only to swim down and land in a hospital corridor. While it was a nice touch, it still failed to evoke the feelings it set out to in me.
But this all doesn't mean it doesn't have its good points. For starters, the enemy AI is wicked smart. While in all other games that sport "clever AI" I can quickly learn their responses and make them do what I want them to (Hey there! Thanks for running into my grenade!), I never ever had a feeling of "knowing" F.E.A.R.'s AI. They make great use out of squad tactics and have shown a number of instances of true brilliance such as sneaking up on me when I'd otherwise have them pinned down. The enemy chatter can be pretty entertaining at times too; sometimes they'll yell at each other and it's always delivered so perfectly I can't help but burst out laughing at times. There's also your Team Coordinator (voiced by Jim Ward, better known to me as Chet Ubetcha) who sounds so much like Dan Aykroyd to me (particularly from his performance in Grosse Point Blank) that every one of his lines turns into fucking gold.
Some of the weapons are really cool too. There's the Penetrator, a giant nail gun that shoots armor-piercing bolts. If an enemy is standing near something, often times they will get nailed to it. While this only happens when they're dead and it would have been fun if, as one of my friends said, they became incapacitated, it's still satisfying to see enemies hanging to a wall by their head, especially if they had been giving you a whole mess of trouble. Then there's the particle cannon, a big lumbering thing used as a sniper rifle. This must be some reversed-engineered Martian technology, as each hit disintegrates normal enemies down to their skeletons. Of course, despite it burning away body armor, it doesn't touch their weapons, but, hey, who am I to question?
Despite all its flaws and unoriginality, with all those latter things I still managed to have fun and enjoy myself. Despite the use of the word earlier, it actually never becomes monotonous; there's always something there to break up the action. Basically, I'd compare it to a carnival corn dog. You know it's going to come to you a big greasy mess and probably not be prepared in the most sanitary of conditions most certainly making you sick, but it's still the carnival and it's still a corn dog so you're going to eat it and enjoy it, damn it!
