Fearful flaws

Timegate even took a stab at solving one of F.E.A.R.’s flaws; repetition of the level design. The first game felt like you were going through the same offices again and again. Extraction Point does make an effort in putting in new levels such as a church setting an a subway station sequence. However, there are still long stretches that are back in F.E.A.R.’s dull industrial level design. It doesn’t help that Extraction Point also suffers from the original’s tendency to throw the same replicant enemies at you time and time again. They may be smart foes to deal with but it starts to wear then when you kill the 500 th replicant in the expansion pack.

There are a few new weapons in the expansion pack, including a new laser machine gun and a chaingun that can give you a big rush when you put it in motion. There are also remote mini-turrets that you throw out like a grenade. They stick to the floor and even walls and can deal some major damage to hordes of enemies. There are a couple of new variants of F.E.A.R.’s original enemies in Extraction Point but the only really new original foe is a spirit like enemy that appears early on in the game.

The biggest weakness in F.E.A.R. Extraction Point is the overall plot; basically there isn’t any. The original game kept you interested in the mystery of who the Alma girl-ghost character was, what the replicants’ leader Paxton Fettle was up to and what your player character’s mysterious origins were. In Extraction Point there is no real overreaching mystery to solve; it’s just a charge to get to the final extraction point. The expansion’s play time is about 5 hours from start to finish and after you complete it you realize that the whole experience was just a coda to the original’s storyline rather than something that truly expands on F.E.A.R.’s first storyline. If you are looking for new multiplayer elements you really won’t find them here. Vivendi has already released the entire multiplayer modes for the original game for free as F.E.A.R. Combat and Extraction Point doesn’t add anything new to the mix.