Tom\’s F.E.A.R. Mini-Review

PROS

• Eh, it’s something new to play.
• NPCs that swear like sailors! w00p!
• Massive bloody chunks and splotches when you shotgun somebody in the chest - juicy!
• Severed heads rolling around on the floor like bloody soccer balls - funny!
• Desperately forlorn cries of “we can’t stop him!” by the bad guys - great for morale!
• Melee button - great for breaking vent shaft covers.
• You can see your booted foot when you look down.

CONS

• Way too easy.
• The storyline makes no sense.
• I can only hold 3 weapons at a time??
• Throwing grenades is awkward… huge delay between pressing the key and the action.
• Can’t hear headset/voicemail over sound effects and enemy voices.
• Ladders… yuck. I mean, seriously awful. A new low in FPS ladder navigation.
• Melee button - useless except for breaking vent shaft covers.
• Smoke effects - looks nice, but it slows down firefights because you have to wait until you can see again.
• Scary music stabs… huge cliche.
• A lot of empty/boring rooms to wander through.

POINTLESS NOVELTIES

• Slow-motion… although it is quite fun to play through the game on “easy” and slow-mo kill everybody.
• Scary ghosts and voices. Ugh.
• Jump kicks… but again, kind of fun to play around with on “easy.”
• Storing up medkits… makes it too easy.

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