F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon

There are some games that, when released, it amazes people!  They're pivotal moments in videogame history! The physics technology, addicting gameplay, memorable characters, and well-penned, original and involving story leaves players breathless and clamoring for more!

For the people who'd like one of those games, here are our reviews for Star Wars:
The Force Unleashed and Fable 2.  I'm sure you can snag them for a deal on eBay if you tried.

Needless to say, I really couldn't wait to be done with this game.  For an "action-packed shooter", I was bored!  In its defense, This game got the physics engine right with enemies ragdolling and blood that mists when you shred through an enemy with a weapon , but it's lacking in absolutely every other area.

     It's as if the developers set a great foundation, and then built the rest with as much copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting and copying and pasting from as many different pop-cultural and videogame hits as they could.

In F.E.A.R., you play as...

Ethan Thomas
Leon S. Kennedy
Max Payne
Gordon Freeman
Nameless UAC Space Marine on Mars

    ...An unnamed, verbally-impaired, Special-Ops soldier with bullet-time SUPERPOWERS, and the only guy who can "get the job done", as constant paranormal activity liquefies the rest of your squad at the beginning of every single level, only to be told to 'do the whole mission yourself' by your bastard commanding officer whose only reasonable excuse for saying anything so ludicrous would be that he was "into the whiskey again"!

Your mission as the "Point-man" (A.K.A.: the ONLY man) of the team, is to track down and stop a gentleman by the name of "Paxton Fettel", a "Psychic-psychopath" who's classified as a 'Paranormal Threat to the United States of America", ONLY because he happens hold an entire army of clone soldiers under his telepathic control.

     Anyway,  you go in, your team gets slaughtered, and you have to take on drove-after-drove of Imperial Forces "Replica Army" on your own, while chasing after Paxton Fettel AND enduring violent visions of a vicious little girl named Alma.

This is Alma.

.

     Another little creepy ghost girl that's been in every single horror movie for the last ten years.  She'll stand behind you, chase after you, fill the room with blood for you, and make things pop-out at you during times that seem random and fun until you figure out their magical videogame formula. Which, is as follows:

That's it!  Once you've figured that out, turn the game off!  It'll either be "Shooting soldiers" or "ghost visions". back and forth, over and over, until the end-credits.

     There are a lot of things that contribute to the monotony of this game, but one of the biggest is that the texture and format of almost every level looks exactly the same!  It must be the lighting or a lack of colour, but everything seems bland. Every level felt the same as the first.

I could go on and on about this game, but all I'd do is complain. This review has to come to an end:

ALL IN ALL:

• Everything about the story seems to be an element borrowed from
  something else.
• The characters are forgettable, irritating, and you never, ever actually
  care about any of them.
• The story is also forgettable, and you also never
  actually care about it.
• The levels all look and feel exactly the same.
• Your commanding officer is a bastard.