F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon | XBoX

F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon

POSTED BY admin on Apr 4, 2008 under Video Game

Binding: Video Game
ASIN: B000HKGIOA
Manufacturer: Sierra
Release Date: 2006-10-31
Average Customer Review: (From 52 total reviews)
List Price: $29.99
Amazon Price: $28.35 (27 new 18 used available)
You save: $1.64 (5.47%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours (Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping)

 

Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon web site at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.

 

 

Features

Accessories

Editorial Reviews

Product Description:
In F.E.A.R. you aren’t a soldier — you are a weapon. A paramilitary force infiltrates a multi billion dollar aerospace compound taking hostages, but issuing nodemands. The government responds by sending in its best special operations teams, only to have them obliterated. Live footage of the massacre is cut short by an unexpected wave of destruction that leaves military leaders stunned and in disbelief. With no other option, they send in the ultimate warrior: You.

Customer Reviews

NIce story… by David Matthews
I like the story. Unfolds well. The grafx for this shooter is a bit.. blocky.

It lives up to it’s name… by Chris Van Deelen
So, what do you get when you cross an army of clones, a telepathic madman with a habit of eating people, and a twisted little girl?

One twisted first person shooter that can at points scare the living hell out of you, that’s what.

F.E.A.R. or first encounter assault recon is a first person shooter for the Xbox 360 that I recently finished playing.

It was a damn good game, with the right mixture of creepy music, bad lighting, and genuine scares that made the sphincter of a grown man loosen while playing it in a near pitch black basement while his wife and kid were out.

You play the part of a recon soldier, who just happens to have only recently joined F.E.A.R.

You’re first assignment is to hunt down and kill a man named Paxton Fettel, who just happens to be telepathically linked to an army of clones, who are under his complete and utter control.

Without him to guide them, they would be nothing more than inanimate bags of meat, blood and bone.

Somehow, there is this very creepy young girl that appears throughout the game, and she and this Fettle character are linked, but you don’t know how, or for that matter why.

Throughout the game you will encounter these strange flashback sequences, in which you will invariably see corridors filled with flame and blood, the creepy girl coming towards you, and you can hear the voices of other people talking, especially this hunted man, Fettel.

The game play harkens back to the older games such as Doom and Half-life, where you had to pick up weapons and ammunition to use, as well as health and armour packs to restore what you lost due to encounters with Fettel’s minions.

After playing so many first person shooters for the Xbox 360, in which you just had to hide from enemy gunfire to regenerate your health, this, I found, made me all that much more careful.

The graphics were very well done for a game that is now three years old, and the enemy AI was more than adequate. The enemy soldiers would do their best to flank you, get you into cross fires if possible, and would run from you if you happened to get the drop on them.

Combat was also very bloody and at times quite gore filled. If you happened to use the combat shotgun, for example, at close range, you would quite literally blow the enemy soldiers in half, or blow off their limbs.

Not for the squeamish!

Also, further on in the game you could find an energy weapon that, if you took the time to make a head shot, or if the target wasn’t heavily armoured, would instantly kill the enemy target, blowing off their flesh and reducing them to nothing more than a blackened skeleton.

The best part of the combat? You got to pull off a Neo, right out of the Matrix. You could essentially slow down time, allowing you to carefully aim at your target (remember, head shots people!) and if you were skilled enough, you could quite easily wipe out an entire squad of the enemy soldiers without even getting shot at!

The bullet time was one of my favourite aspects of the game, and I used it constantly. Sure, it took time to recharge, but if you were in a particularly large battle, and there were plenty of places to hide, you could allow it to recharge sufficiently to give you that extra edge to make short work of Fettel’s boys.

There wasn’t a huge variety of enemies, mainly the clones, some stealthy versions who liked to get up close and personal (those scared the crap out of me the first time I encountered them). There were also larger, more heavily armed soldiers who took tactics to take out (or several grenades, if you had them handy).

Finally, there were three different types of robotic units you had to fight. Floater drones, which were quite easy to dispatch if you had the shotgun. Then you had the turrets that were just plain hard to take out, and finally these missile launching monstrosities that looked like they came right out of Robocop.

You could only carry up to three weapons at any time, so it was always a good idea to keep a variety with you. The assault rifle went through tons of ammo (you’d be shocked at how fast you could rip through three hundred rounds!) was my favourite to use through most of the game, but I also loved the energy gun (which had a nice sniper scope feature, so it really helped with the one shot, one kill while in bullet time).

There was also the ever present pistols (you could use two at a time, plenty of ammo), machine pistols (the most common weapon I found), sub machine guns, the aforementioned assault rifle, shotgun and energy weapon.

Also, for really making short work of some of the tougher enemy targets, you could get a missile launcher and this assault cannon that dealt exceptionally heavy damage.

To round things out, you also had three types of grenades. The standard throw and forget, proximity, and remotely detonated. I have to admit that it was quite fun dropping the proximity grenades and waiting patiently for the enemy to blunder into them.

And, finally in regards to combat, always check your environment. There were barrels that could be shot to ruin the enemies day (just be careful you don’t hide behind one yourself!), fire extinguishers, and power junction boxes.

The level design was also very straight forward, with little interaction with the environment. With the exception of opening doors, occasionally you might have to blast through a grate, or turn on power controls, or hit switches in order to get past certain areas.

But, the most fun was when you were allowed to use the automated turrets to get the drop on the enemy. Eventually they’d end up destroying the turrets, but you could mow down tons of soldiers if you were careful and fast.

Now, as I stated earlier, the music, combined with the lighting, made it for a very intense experience. The fact that you are almost always alone in the game, with the rare exception that you get to interact with a handful of people, just heightens the fact that you are very much alone against hundreds of heavily armed troops, and one extremely creepy little girl.

Two final things. First, the game is longer than most of the Xbox 360 games I’ve played since I got my system for Christmas of 07. It took me about eight hours to beat the game, and that was on the standard level of difficulty.

That I like. I hate these games that take about six hours or less to complete. I don’t feel that I get my money’s worth.

And, the final cut scene was very well done, leaving it wide open to the sequels that have been produced for it.

Although I have to say that the end was better done in Call of Duty 4. I won’t give away any more detail than that though.

It’s one of many first person shooters that are available for play out there, but what really sets it apart is the supernatural mixture (with the creepy girl that seems to have come right out of the Ring), and the bullet time!

Not perfect, but damn fun none the less.

4 out of 5

Christmas in January by Francis H. Stetson
Amazon made it so easy.UPS shipped. It was worth waiting for because of the free shipping. I would do it again tomorrow.Scary

Look elsewhere by M. Nikic
First Encounter Assault Recon, or FEAR… The worst acronym in a gaming title yet, and a game that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be first person shooter or survival horror and ultimately failed at being both of them.

The story is unoriginal and poorly executed, the level design and enemires are monotonous, the controls are terribly awkward, and there just isn’t that much action. This game also contains the most anti-climactic ending in game history.

As far as the horror aspect of this game goes, a few things jump out at you every now and then which is pretty cheap but still fun for horror fans like myself. There are also some flashback/telepathic state type parts which involve some weird reality shifts and lots of blood and creepiness and so forth and are reminiscent of those paranormal moments in The Suffering in how they are executed and quite similar to The Ring in terms of their horror content. While these parts are pretty awesome, they probably make up about 3 minutes of the total gameplay which isn’t really enough to warrant this game as a horror must-have.

If you’re into first-person shooters in a big way and think the sound of a small injection of horror would be right up your proverbial alley, this game might be for you. However anyone looking for a serious survival horror game on XBOX 360 (no, Dead Rising doesn’t count) should be patient a little longer, and anyone looking for a decent FPS should definately look elsewhere.

Similar Products


 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share This

Related Posts

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

Copyright XBoX | Powered by WordPress | Using the GreenTech Theme

Close
E-mail It