F.3.A.R.

Available for: Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Played it on: Xbox 360
Played it for: 10 hours

RATING: 7/10

Summary: Alma is back for the third installment of this thrilling saga, as bio-weapon brothers Point Man and Fettel join forces to stop their mother from destroying the planet. After Point Man killed his brother, Armacham captured him and began his interrogation right away. However, it would seem that Fettel wasn't ready to sit in his grave quietly, and he comes back from the dead as a spirit to help Point Man find Alma, and to give himself ultimate power.

Review: Mildly Disappointing...
I suppose that having a shooter be impressive these days is probably too much to ask out of modern gaming. Leave the impressive, compelling story-lines to Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, and let the shooters handle all the mindless BS. Fear 3 is just so... generic.

I suppose a few things need to be said first. 1. I never played F.E.A.R. or F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, so I was going into this fresh. I had no idea what stories were being concluded, and I know only sparse background on Alma and her sons. 2. The campaign is co-op for 2 people, which is something that many games are too afraid to handle nowadays. 3. I like how they incorporate the slow motion abilities of Point Man and how the Fear engine handles. And 4: Like Yahtzee, I believe that a game should be carried by campaign.

Now that that's out of the way, here's what I thought. The campaign was short. Way too short. My Xbox LIVE friend, gamertag Thiashu, and I beat it in just six hours, and to be honest, it wasn't that great. It feels a little too forced and hokey, and that's the last thing you want people to think of your game as a developer. The eight missions get a little longer with each one, with the last one taking you about 45 minutes to an hour, but it just feels rushed. Perhaps a DLC or two could fix it, but I don't really want to pay more to complete the unfinished game. I think the two words that best describe it are creepy and undercooked. And it doesn't really get a whole lot better.

The multiplayer other co-op modes are called Contractions and Soul King, and they give a rather lack-luster performance. There are only three maps playable for their respective mode, each little different from the others, and it just feels (once again) rather rushed out of the oven before it fully baked. The Contractions mode is a sort of Horde-Mode-Nazi-Zombie crossover, forcing you to defend yourselves (I say this plural because it isn't possible alone) against unending waves of enemies. Some have sticks, some have guns, some have extremely large guns, and some are demons. Between the waves you can pick up ammunition and weapon crates so you don't immediately die, and you can board windows in preparation for whatever may come next. Soul King gives you the powers of ghost possession, as you can switch bodies and kill as many NPC's as you can before the round is up. Whoever kills the most is the Soul King. The largest variable in both modes is the little girl Alma. In Contractions, looking directly at her causes blindness, limb deadness, or even teleportation across the map, and in Soul King, she spawns a super powered demon monkey to kill your current body. Basically, the other co-op modes feel sort of fun, but majorly lacking.

If Fear 3 was as simple as that, I would be going back to GameStop right now to get my money back, but that's not quite all. There are two main reasons it's gonna stay on that shelf. The first is the insane amount of replay value the campaign has. Like the first Halo, it's a game you can play again and again and again, and it will never ever get bad. It's a casual shooter, and it's perfect for just a little jaunt in death-land before going to bed. The second is what you can do when you play the campaign a second time: Fettel. That's right, you can choose to play as the ghost brother, and Fear 3 really shows you what it can do at that point. You can become the perfect weapon as Armacham soldiers fall ceaselessly before you. You can possess people, hit people with psychic bolts, or even just disintegrate them if you feel like it, and all that power is right at your fingertips. It's where Fear can truly shine.

F.3.A.R. was good, but could have been better. It has some redeeming qualities that earned it a 7, but it has a lot of work to do. Perhaps by F.E.A.R. 4 we can finally see how far the engine can be pushed and how far they can take the console with characters like Fettel. Or, the better solution, play some Battlefield 3, and you can easily get enough FPS exploding without wasting your time.