Introduction

In 2005 developer Monolith and publisher Vivendi Games released F.E.A.R., a horror themed first person shooter for the PC. Though the game wasn’t free of flaws it still managed to be one of the most memorable shooter titles in the past several years thanks to some very challenging enemy AI, some superb graphics and an overall creepy atmosphere.

With Monolith now working on a sequel to F.E.A.R. (which will reportedly use some of the characters but not the game’s actual title), publisher Vivendi recruited developer Timegate Studios to create a PC expansion pack to the original game called F.E.A.R. Extraction Point. Timegate has previously released RTS games (Kohan, Kohan II and Axis and Allies) so their first venture into the FPS genre is certainly a high profile one. The final result certainly has a lot of the original game’s strengths but also a lot of its weaknesses.

For those of you who never finish the original game, kindly ignore the next paragraph. Ready? OK? For the rest of you, F.E.A.R. Extraction Point picks up right where the first game left off as your unnamed F.E.A.R. agent player character is being flown out via helicopter while escaping a nuclear blast. Unfortunately, the copter crash lands short of its goal and now your character and your two comrades have to walk through the city in order to get to the new extraction point (get it?) and finally head back home. Of course things are never that easy in these games and your character has to deal with not only a lot of the foes from the original F.E.A.R. but a couple of new threats as well.


As we said Extraction Point has many of the things that made the original so good. The clever enemy AI is back in force as the Replicants, the tech-ninja and more are all up in your grill once again as they try to out think, out shoot and out flank you in every turn. The firefights in Extraction Point are just as intense in the original game with lots of smoke, particle effects, explosions and general chaos that’s generated. The creepiness is also back and you will likely jump a couple of times as you are briefly taken out of the game to experience some weird horror themed visions (or are they?) Visually Extraction Point is just as strong as the original with impressive character and weapons models and solid art textures and visual effects. Sound and music effects are also on a par with the original F.E.A.R.