F.E.A.R.

The video game renaissance continues unabated. Earlier this week, I finished another shooter with the unlikely acronym expansion of First Encounter Assault Recon, a government organization called in whenever the military anticipates paranormal activity on a combat assignment. In this case, a psychic with control over a thousand clone troops has snapped, started eating people, and taken control of a military contractor’s facility. What’s a guy to do but strap on some guns and start hunting clones? Except, the little girl in the red dress who keeps incinerating the normal backup units is making things… complicated.

I was surprised by how good this game was. The AI thing is really starting to get a lot better, such that part of the strategy for surviving an encounter with an enemy squad is making sure there’re enough items around to heal you afterward, rather than the old restore from save if you get hurt any trick. On top of that, I never imagined playing through a Japanese horror film, but that’s what this was, despite the wholly Americanized plotline that encases it. Several genuinely scary moments in the dark room with those headphones on.

The really cool backgrounds and graphics were ruined for me by Condemned, though. I just finished playing it in huge screen HD glory before F.E.A.R., only to find myself in another game made by the same people, which meant that I’d seen a lot of the background items and some of the background buildings just before, but in almost infinitely better resolution. (It might be time to upgrade my video card, though I won’t. It’s definitely time to upgrade my CPU and maybe motherboard, though I doubt I’ll do that either. This is why consoles hold the market share. Much lower cost to maintain, as long as you were going to get a good TV for your monitor anyway.)

One thought on “F.E.A.R.

  1. Pingback: Shards of Delirium » F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

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