AestheticGamer1F.E.A.R. 3 is the third installment in the fairly popular FPS-Horror hybrid, popularized when it started 6 years ago with it’s combination of FPS elements and atmospheric Japanese horror design. The series now has been handed to Day 1 Studios (the folks who had previously done the console ports for F.E.A.R. 1 & 2) and they aim to modernize and change up the formula for the third installment. Unfortunately, the series also loses a lot of it’s heart and soul in the process.
And I don’t mean that in some figuratively artsy way. You’ll be quick to notice where this game draws it’s inspirations from, which is every other modern shooter on the market today. Part of the appeal of F.E.A.R. has been it’s differences from modern First-Person Shooters, a more confined and atmospheric experience where survival is important with limited health drops, brutal and punishing combat, and a sense of isolation created by atmosphere. All of that is gone in F.E.A.R. 3. While the game can be plenty difficult on some of the harder settings, you’ll be able to blast your way through enemies, possess them or juggle them in the air, an almost complete lack of atmosphere, more open-spaces for combat, regenerating health, and the ability to save your downed partners on death.
F.E.A.R. 3 is not a scary game. While fear is subjective, this is definitely the least scary of the three games. Not only is there a severe lack of scares in the game, the ones they do have present fall short a good majority of the time. Most of them are focused on series icon Alma, an undead super-powered girl who is stirring shit up in a city simply because of her contractions during her pregnancy. To base the scares off of Alma in this title makes little sense, as at this point in the series we already know Alma’s objectives and she clearly cares for the titles two lead characters and wouldn’t want to hurt or kill them. How you’re supposed to be afraid of someone just standing there who’s constantly referred to as your, “mother,” and obviously has no intent to kill you is beyond us. To make up for this lack, the developers have designed a new antagonist for the game named, “The Creep.” The Creep will appear in every stage of the game, for the first half just running and crawling past you in hallways ahead or leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Half-way through the game however he’ll actually begin to attack you. These sections are tense at first, but ultimately become more annoying than scary. You can’t kill The Creep, you can’t run during sections with The Creep, and he’ll teleport himself around to come up and hit you or grab you from behind. Once you understand what’s going on, these sections become far less scary and way more annoying as The Creep can quickly down you and there’s no way to take care of him except to shoot and pray he stops.
Even without the scares, there’s just a whole lot missing of any horror aspect in the game. While there’s a handful of deliciously creepy things mid-way through the game, you’ll quickly come to realize that the developers rely on a small handful of creepy things and don’t change it through the course of the game. Liked the disturbing section in Interval (stage) 3? Well be prepared to experience it again and again in later chapters, as the developers seem intent to squeeze every last drop out of any mildly creepy thing in the game. Not helping anything is the severe lack of monsters you’ll be fighting in the game. Hell, the game has a severe lack of enemy variety anyway even in the soldier department. Besides The Creep, the only other monster you’ll be fighting is a rip-off of Zuul from Ghostbusters. And that’s it. There also is a collection of crazy humans that are supposed to be scary, but really once you realize they are fundamentally similar to the Boomer and Spitter from Left 4 Dead (and the other is just a guy running at you with a crowbar into a gun fight), it’s hard to take them seriously.
What you will spend a lot of your time doing is fighting enemy soldiers. Wave and waves of enemy soldiers. While this isn’t to different from the original F.E.A.R., it’s all the more noticeable because of the lack of atmosphere and scares in-between fights. There also are new challenging forms of soldiers in enhanced electric soldiers that remind of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, and giant mechs. The mechas are a formidable opponent, to the point they are frustrating. In one especially annoying difficulty spike in the game, you’re trapped in a very small neighborhood with countless enemy soldiers coming from every which direction and a giant mech that blasts rockets in every which way comes bursting in. The AI is well programmed though, and the arenas you fight enemies in are varied and often designed in a fun-way.
Level design in F.E.A.R. 3 is enjoyable, with much to explore and many hidden weapon and ammo caches and a few hidden scares or goodies. The arenas you fight enemies in often are well designed with variety to keep battles fresh even with the lack of enemy variety. While the combat borrows heavily from other big FPS titles, it doesn’t do it poorly and the combat in the game is fluid and precise. The ability to approach combat from two different gameplay styles, that of Pointman’s (the main protagonist of F.E.A.R. 1) or Fettel (the main antagonist of F.E.A.R. 1) allows for different approaches to each fight as well. Pointman is much more of a stapled affair, being able to pick up weapons, grenades, and other items and shoot and blast his way through the game. Fettel is a more strategic character, as while he is unable to pick up physical objects like guns and grenades, being an undead psychic, he spends his time possessing enemies and using his psychic powers in combat. His moves are cool, and one has to strategize the best to use bodies as how long he can stay in them is timed. Collecting the souls of dead solders extends the time, but sometimes it’s best to just make a body explode and wait for your psychic powers to “recharge” so you’ll be able to possess another body at the start of the next combat scenario. The game also throws some nice variety at you to keep things fresh, including sections where you pilot giant mechas (which is a lot of fun), or have to survive as opposed as fight through a section.
As you get kills and achieve “Points,” which are given to you for completing certain tasks in a stage such as kill so many enemies without taking damage or psychic linking bodies (tasks are categorized under four categories, Aggression, Tactics, Aptitude, & Psychic), you gain ranks, and in turn, gain new moves and abilities. These include the ability to slide around, able to cast “bullet time” longer (which makes the game go in slow motion, allowing you to shoot more accurately and dodge better), or gain new psychic abilities, and add a reason for you to come back to the game. These ranks and abilities are associated with a character profile, so completing things in single player, co-op, or in multilayer modes all enhance the same rank linked to a profile.
The story mode is very short, shorter than F.E.A.R. 1 & 2 both. Lasting Eight Intervals, the last stage and ending come very abruptly and while an interesting change of pace, feels very out-of-place and sudden for the end of the game. And the story is a whole other thing itself.
The story of F.E.A.R. 3 is extremely convoluted and at points just plain stupid. Ignore the fact that you’re playing as some inexplicably mute clone who never changes the expression on his face and lacks any form of emotion, and his cannibal psychic ghost brother who’s just a general dick and spends half the game talking about family only to completely shit on everything he’s said the whole entire game in the ending (both of the endings, as the ending changes based on which brother is doing better in the game in co-op or which you play through in Single Player). You two are on a quest to go find your psychically powerful undead pregnant mother who inexplicably likes to spend half her time as a little girl and the other half naked. The development of the characters makes no sense and generally both brothers come off as complete douches, only Pointman being a little less of a douche than his brother. And without spoiling it, two of the events that happen in the game are going to seriously piss off long-time F.E.A.R. fans. There are huge plot holes in the game as our brothers go from location to location, sometimes with no explanation in the slightest (there’s an interval in the game where you end off drowning and being attacked directly by a monster underwater, only for the next level to open up with no explanation how you got out of that predicament and in means that can only be explained by magic, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be even though you were miles away being attacked by the military on all sides just moments ago), as well as an unbelievable “rivalship” between brothers that starts forming half-way through the story. A game trying to convince me a friend I’m playing with online isn’t my friend just doesn’t work, and what happens in this “character development” is not reflective in the stages at all. To it’s credit though, the one character who does speak continually in the game (Fettel) does have some well-written dialogue, and once I turned my brain off and took the story in a non-serious manner, it was hilarious.
For all of it’s faults though, the game does manage to be fun quite a lot of the time, especially in it’s multiplayer mode. In multiplayer, you and three people online can hop together to tackle four different modes with (currently) three maps each; Soul King, Soul Survivor, Contractions, and F**king Run. Each of these modes are fun in their own right, though Contractions and F**king Run are the definite stars of the show here. In Soul King you all play as ghosts as you fight to collect the most souls by possessing bodies to kill the others, and whoever has the most souls by the end wins. Soul Survivors is a twist off this, making one person a ghost and the other three humans, and the ghost most possess and corrupt the other three players to win. These both are fun but their novelty wears off fairly quickly, though the competitiveness in these two modes definitely have appeal. In Contractions, it’s a twist off of the Call of Duty Zombies mode, involving players having to survive after waves of enemies. There’s a few interesting twists here however, including a “fog” that wanes during waves that allows you to collect items and set up your “base” to prepare for the next wave, as well as Alma who will occasionally come out onto the playing field and looking at her will cause one of several “status effects” that can make life more difficult. It’s quite fun and has enough twist on it to stop it from feeling like a rip-off. F**cking Run is also a treat with friends, as you all have to run from a giant wall of death chasing you and survive oncoming traps and enemies while going from checkpoint to checkpoint. If a single person dies, it’s game over. All of these multiplayer modes are the real meat of the game, and a joy to play.
However, that may or may not speak well for the game depending who you’re talking to. While co-op is fun, the campaign fails to live up to it’s predecessors and becomes just like every other shooter out there with a few twists, but losing almost all scary elements or what made F.E.A.R. what it was in the first place. This game should only be picked up if you’re looking for a fun multiplayer game, and even then with the short lived campaign (lasting about 5-7 hours) and only having three maps per multiplayer mode currently, it’s hard to recommend this one at full price. If you want an enjoyable FPS co-op experience with a few elements that might be considered horror, then see if you can get this sometimes when it’s $30 or cheaper. You might want to wait to buy it at that price new though, as you need an online pass that comes new with the game to play half of the multiplayer modes (though you can optionally buy it separately online). It’s fun, but also extremely disappointing.
(6.5 / 10)
Above Average
(6.5 / 10)
