Sierra ports its award winning FPS shooter from PC and Xbox 360 to the PS3. F.E.A.R. wasted no time dropping gamers into the mix of action and showing why F.E.A.R. was one of the creepiest games to hit the FPS genre. It has been a long time since someone truly new how to use a little girl to scare the hell out of grown gamers, but what would you expect from a company that brought gamers Phantasmagoria.

Gameplay

F.E.A.R.’s fast paced action and down right eerie feeling will have gamers attached to their monitor. Gamers take on the role as pointman for an elite special forces unit called F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon). Their goal is to find and eliminate Paxton Fettel, a man apparently driven insane with the memories of a freaky little girl, who controls cloned super soldiers via his mind.

The game starts out with a typical introductory movie showing Paxton taking over a military compound with his super soldiers at his side. This is where gamers first get the feeling there will be more to this game than just run and shoot as they will be introduced to a spooky as hell little girl as well. Once the movie finishes, gamers will move out and learn the basic features with only a few simple fight sequences to get gamers used to the controls and learn there is more to this game than FPS.

Though the game started a bit slow, after the first few sections the game gets moving with tons of action, bullets, and frights. Yes, that is right, this writer jumped more than a couple times as Sierra used typical B-rated horror and lighting effects to get gamers engulfed in their suspenseful FPS. As gamers run, hide, and shoot their way through the game they will have several weapons and a few grenades at their disposal. Gamers will also have a Max Payne-type feel with bullet time action. This allows gamers to slow down everything around them while they move and shoot through overwhelming odds.

Many PC gamers complain that the controls on FPS for consoles are difficult to use. Sierra does a very good job overcoming this. The controls are smooth and fairly easy to learn. With features like ducking and looking around corners, gamers will be able to scope in on their many targets. The best part of FEAR is the AI of the enemy. Unlike many FPS games these super-soldiers almost seemed to think, react, and learn on their own. Many battles found the AI moving around trying to outflank, pursue, and actually seem to want to kill.