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Fair game, but not great.

» Pros

AI
Graphics
Sound/Music
Lack of Bugs after the patch
Lots of Gore

» Cons

Level Design is more repetitive than Doom 3.
Same voice sayings over and over again.
Predictability, only slightly freaked out one time.
MP is a yawnfest
Soft Shadows
Released a patch before game was released.

» Review

FEAR is supposedly a horror FPS game that came out recently and I was skeptical of this game when it was released. The reason why I put the lack of scary events in the game is because I see the samething over and over again that is trying to scare me. Such as this soldier or someguy with the FEAR squad is fading into black ashes and I saw the child in the game that was being over used and after a few times seeing her, I was thinking that she would never harm me in the game as it is. That thinking freaked me out only once when I was in a pit of fire with demons coming after me in the game for the first time ever.

The graphic engine for this game is really amazing. The pictures speak for themselves. I do have one problem with softshadows however. They were not properly used in certain angles of a map. I still saw that Doom 3 syndrome where it was black here and a few inches away from me in the game, it was very light. I expected more of a gradual difference in the lighting. The particles of smoke in this game are nothing short of awesome as the smoke particles aren't just few here and there. Monolith paid attention to the little details in this area and they have made sure the particles of smoke is in the high range. The bad side somewhat related to this engine is the level design. I have to be frank with all of you on this. I never knew level design could be more repetitive than Doom 3. I gotta run back and forth in virtually the same level with different lighting going off and a different amount of enemies being here and there. Just to top it off, this seems to virtually last through the whole game except during the beginning and toward the end of the game.

The AI in this game taking to the next notch. I have been surprised a few times the AI would not always go straight at me. They would instead pullback and try to flank me and go behind me through some halls. The problem witht he AI is if I trigger a certain event, I get to hear the boring "He's trying to flank me." or so and so many down voices over and over again.

The sound in this game is pretty good. I like the way how they are somewhat trying to go for the Undying approach in music. Minimal is maximum. The music is one of the underrated parts of the game and the composer for the game did a good job trying to enhance a certain mood or feeling in the game. The weapons sound like they should as well. Nothing out of place here. The matrix slowmo like effect also has a cool sound to it. Don't know why, it just is.

This game is very polished after the patch was downloaded. I wished Monolith would have delayed this game a week or whatever to take care some of the small annoyances or bugs in this game. I have encountered a few bugs before installing the patch. The most annoying bug happened in multiplayer and I am glad to see the bug being squashed. This is a doubled edged sword for the game however. Monolith is much better taking care of bugs than Croteam's Serious Sam 2 even after the patch and I must commend to Monolith to fix a good remaining amount of bugs before the game was released. The few bugs I have encountered are VERY MINOR compared to some other game released a few weeks ago.

Summary:
If you are wondering where to start at for a horror FPS game, trying Undying. That is still the most freaky game to this date. If you are a fan of horror FPS games and want to try something new and don't mind repetitive levels, then try this game by all means.