F3AR

I really enjoyed FEAR. It was probably one of the most tense video games I had played. I never played Fear 2 beyond a demo, but I was familiar with the story. FEAR 3 follows up the originals, with two playable characters. In the solo play through, you are either Point Man or his brother Paxton Fettel, once adversaries now joined through the mutual need to get to the bottom of things. Point Man, who was the protagonist in the first to games, plays just like before, which is to say a typical first person shooter.

Paxton Fettel is a ghost.

The thing I enjoyed most about the first game was the sense of reality, or as much reality that is possible in a game about a little demon/ghost girl. That sense of reality was made frightening by the introduction of supernatural aspects. The game also did a good job of “forcing” you to view these things, throwing these images and events directly into your characters line of sight. Or making it so that the only real way to look is where the event is going to occur. To me, this felt like the game was really out to get me. FEAR 3 strays from that formula. I would be running around, shooting, when suddenly I would here the music that represented the appearance of something creepy. I would start spinning around, looking for it, but the music would end, and I would have seen nothing, or just the tail end of something, which is usually nothing more then a small swirl of blood and ashes.

The sense of reality in the game, or lack there of, continues when you are forced to do such things as...walk through a grocery store, fighting creepy zombie gang bangers, rather then shoot out the glass and leave through the front. I know that this would derail the game, and remove a very tense set piece, but it really screams in my face as a serious lack of common sense. Maybe I am just a wuss, but I was finding myself, many times, simply asking “Why?” When placed in a troubling situation, in most games, the protagonists would find the easiest ways out. Not so in this game.

Of course, I found myself lost sometimes in the story, and not in the best of ways. Perhaps I failed to understand “why” because the story beats were just off to me. I believe Point Man and Fettel were headed to see their “mother” and their new little sibling, but really, who cared after 40 minutes of playing through a level. You get towards the end of a level, and find yourself asking “what am I doing here again”? Perhaps the biggest failing of the game is the fact that you really need two players to make it through the levels to meet the requirements for successfully completing the level. I would rush through a level, fighting and fighting my way through a level, and at the end find out I am over twice as long time wise as recommended for completion.

All of these points aside, I really enjoyed my time with FEAR 3, and felt that it was a game I would some day return to. The game play was strong, the atmosphere was tense (enough) and the story, or what part I paid attention to, was good. The game looked good, and sounded good, and while I missed most of the scary “jump” moments, they still did a good job of creating tension, even if that tension was only made from missing the moments.

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