Most Haunted
Right then, loading up F.E.A.R. it soon becomes clear that Monolith have focused very much on giving you a well polished and nicely rounded package… even the copyright screen that loads before anything else has a burst of incidental music and sounds effects to give you an idea of what’s coming. Of course, what every gamer in the country will do is load the game and dive on in, which is fine as the game gives you plenty of dialogue and cut scenes to keep you filled in on the storyline, but if you really want to get the most out of F.E.A.R. take the time out and watch the live action prologue before diving into the game.
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Click for larger imageThe game itself starts of by using some cutscenes to tell you you’re a new recruit in the First Encounter Tactical Recon squad set-up by the military to deal with supernatural and paranormal threats. Sadly this doesn’t mean you get to run off and cap Most Haunted’s Yvette Fielding, which is a shame but it does mean that you, as the player, can expect to see more spooky goings on that Yvette has... and with probably more frightening moments than her usual ‘bad feeling’… Oh yeah, there’s no Derek Acorah to annoy the crap out of you either. The game sees setting off after a guy called Paxton Fettle, who is the genetically engineered psychic commander of a battalion of cloned soldiers. He’s gone a bit fruit loop and killed everyone in the research facility and now he and his army are on the loose. The F.E.A.R. team have been sent in as advance scouts to find out what’s going on, track down Fettle and eliminate him, at which point, without a commander, the clone army will shut down.
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Click for larger imageNow, as far as game storylines go, this is fairly original stuff, well presented and nicely ties in with the prologue movie (if you bother to watch it). But what you’re not told and have to discover for yourself is just what the little girl in the red dress has to do with anything and why every time she appears friendly troops end up looking like a side order of spare ribs with extra ketchup. But it’s just not her you’ll have to contend with as quite often you’ll find yourself in some very weird flashback/dream sequences which start to tell the story of your own childhood and then you find out that… well, I’m not going to spoil it for you.
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Click for larger imageWith all this going on you might think F.E.A.R. would become a confusing and meandering game, leaving you running around levels slightly unsure of what it is you’re supposed to be doing. This isn’t the case though as there are plenty of game-engine cutscenes to keep things on track. Each objective makes up a small part of a larger mission and with the rest of your team also keeping in frequent contact through your headset your objectives are always obvious and logical. Unlike Doom 3, F.E.A.R. doesn’t have you running about fixing fuses on each level though most of the time you’ll just be asked to get from one place to another. So sadly this is still ‘run and gun’ gameplay basics, which, given the superior storytelling, is a bit of a let down.
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