Introduction

Walking into trouble

Game uses shadows extensively

Besides Battlefield 2, the other shooter gamers are looking forward to playing later this year is Monolith’s F.E.A.R., short for First Encounter Assault Recon. In the game, you’ll play the role of an elite unit of super-secret soldiers that specializes in dealing with the paranormal. You’re tasked to resolve a hostage rescue gone mysteriously bad. Monolith sets it up best:

An unidentified paramilitary force infiltrates a multi-billion dollar aerospace compound, taking hostages but issuing no demands. The government responds by sending in special forces, but loses contact as an eerie signal interrupts radio communications. When the interference subsides moments later, the team has been obliterated.

As part of a classified strike team created to deal with threats no one else can handle, your mission is simple: Eliminate the intruders at any cost. Determine the origin of the signal. And contain the crisis before it spirals out of control.

BAM!	Ready to light someone up

Like DOOM 3, and as the game’s name implies, F.E.A.R. attempts to combine the immersive elements of a first-person shooter with the horror elements of a good scary movie. F.E.A.R. accomplishes this with a strong emphasis on the paranormal, as well as a pasty white, hunched little girl (eerily similar to the one found in the movie, The Ring) who seems to be quite adept at dismembering people without laying a finger on them. Monolith uses pacing to intensify the game’s creepiness, one moment you may be bored into a lull, walking through an apparently “safe” part of a level, followed by a terrifying supernatural event or an intense firefight. Hopefully Monolith’s pacing will be more reminiscent of Valve’s in Half-Life 2 rather than the “surprise! attack!” Jakub felt in DOOM 3.

Predator-style character

Predator shooting bolts of electricity

Now he fades away

The visuals

For F.E.A.R, the Jupiter engine used for No One Lives Forever 2 and TRON 2.0 has been replaced with an entirely new rendering engine, supporting 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders, and normal and specular maps. Monolith has also licensed the popular Havok physics engine for F.E.A.R., providing such features as ragdoll physics, although Monolith’s implementation doesn’t appear to go quite as far as Valve did with Half-Life 2, where a large firefight could send props in the room flying everywhere.

F.E.A.R uses an abundant amount of particle effects to model effects like sparks, one full-auto burst from your assault rifle into one of the game’s many metal grates will send them flying everywhere.

Entering a room

You can see the particle effects here

But you can really see it here!

Arguably the most notable feature found in F.E.A.R.’s engine however is its per-pixel lighting model, just like DOOM 3. Monolith uses lighting and shadows in the game’s levels to help intensify the game’s horror mood.