F.E.A.R. Video Game Review - Atmosphere

Once you begin playing it, you become immersed in the atmosphere of the story and your immediate environment in the game.  Everything seems designed to contribute to the massive sense of foreboding you feel as you play it. 

It's like you're constantly waiting, expecting something to happen, so when it does it shocks you.  The game is full of little jumpy moments; as I mentioned already, doors slam in your face as you walk up to them, things fall over in the corridors ahead of you, lights fizzle and flicker as you walk in the room.  Another recurring effect is that faces covered in blood will suddenly appear on screen, similar in some ways to the film Natural Born Killers, in which scenes of a blood-soaked lunatic are spliced into the film.

The girl also plays a large part in the game play; she'll walk around a corner in front of you as you to walk round a corner, giving you a brief glance of her back.  Or she'll drop into a ventilation shaft that you're crouched in and start crawling menacingly towards you.  She even attacks sub characters throughout the missions that you're escorting to safe points.

You get a fair choice of weaponry throughout the game, with many of the guns in the game based on real-life guns.  You get a total of nine different guns to play with and up to three types of explosives.  Some of the hardier weapons will only be used rarely, even towards the end of the game, with ammunition for things like the Armacham Type -7 Particle blaster, the Andra MOD-3 Rocket Launcher or the Obregon MP-50 Repeating Cannon extremely scarce.  Generally, you'll find yourself using either the RPL Sub Machine gun or the Rakow G2A2 Assault Rifle the most as this is generally what the enemy are packing, and once you've disposed of them, you can stock up on your supply of ammunition.

Next: Guns and Kills >>
 

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