After the climatic ending of Fear 2, players were left out with lots of explanations. Alma’s child is supposed to be born and its upto the player who will choose the fate of what happens afterwards. That’s what the trailer explained us. You were supposed to kill off Anarcham forces while taking sides of the FEAR squad and stop Alma or join Alma to be reunited altogether. Without spoiling the story let me go ahead. Since I have played the 360 version, I will explain that one only. At first you will recognize the familiar Main Menu system which is practically the same as Halo 3, where there is a second player that can join in co-op. In fact if anyone played Halo 3, they will understand it is a complete copy. Even the campaign starts with countdown.

Since I have played as the Point Man in the campaign but not Fettel yet, I will still explain the campaign itself. The campaign is divided into intervals, and when the player finishes the campaign, the player can unlock the option to play as Fettel in single player. In the co-op mode, the one player has to choose the Point Man, while the other player has to go for Fettel. It is a plus point due to the fact the players can play in different fashion, not to mention do combined tactics like using Fettel psychic powers to levitate someone while the finishing by shooting using Point Man shooting skills. At first players will notice the graphics is not upto the standard. This is not an excuse considering the fact it is an AAA game. The graphics in cut scenes are little bit improved but not extraordinary. Overall the campaign is hugely disappointed, in fact it would say shame to the developers (I really miss Monolith who made the first FEAR). This is by the far the shortest campaign I have played, even shorter than Modern Warfare 2. Even FEAR 2 was 3 times longer than this. If you are fast enough you will be able to finish the whole game within 5-6 hours. The whole FEAR series is known for its scare factor, but I am sorry to say the scare factor in this game is nonexistent. I cant simply understand how that generative scare system work if the game is not scary at all. Even the atmosphere is not scary. It seems that the developers thought since the Point Man and Fettel are strong, they won’t be scared of anything, so let us make yet another generic FPS. There are occasional surprises but that would not do any effect. Instead the players will get irritated by the constant screaming from Alma (because she is pregnant) while bringing chaos to the surroundings. The developers didn’t put much emphasis on the sound department.

I am also surprised to see there are hardly any monsters. The enemy variation is extremely limited. In each campaign, you are given some number of challenges (like killing a number of enemies using pistol, kill some number of enemies without dying, kill a number of enemies using melee attack, use combined CO-OP powers and so on.  This challenges do not show up, rather it gets unlocked. So players are unaware what challenges lies. This does not matter since challenges are same for each interval so player can start doing those challenges right away. I would say these challenges became a saving grace for the campaign since it allows players to use variations in their gameplay and shift their tactics instead of just rushing towards the end. In fact it gets better. As players finish the challenge points are accumulated and players are leveled. This allows the characters to be stronger psychically and even allow players to collect more ammunition. Since the trailers said the fate will be decided how the Point Man deals with it, yes there are multiple endings. These endings are different for Point Man and Fettel. These challenge points that players receive will determine how the ending will proceed based on final rankings. So in this case, it increased the replaybility of this shameful short campaign. Aside from that I don’t have anything else to say about the campaign.

Like Modern Warfare 2, it is assumed that focus is put on the multiplayer. Like I said in my blog about FEAR 3, there are four game modes: F***ing Run, Contractions, Soul survivor and soul king. F***ing run features 4 players running around the enemies while escaping Alma’s “Wall of Death.” “Contractions” is somewhat like Gears of Wars Hordes mode of COD World at War Nazi Zombies mode, where you stock up ammos and kill waves of enemies. Soul Survivor features 4 players pinned down against each other, where one of them is a Spectre who has to possess enemies to kill the other three players and turn them to Spectres. Soul Survivors features all players as Spectres who have to possess enemies to kill each other and collect dropped souls. The multiplayer features are quite interesting it will give some enjoyment and allow players to make up with frustrations gained after playing the campaign. Since there are better multiplayer games (COD and Halo duh!!!), the fun factor in the multiplayer will be short lived. However players will still stick to finishing all the challenges at least once gain all the achievements in the process in all the campaign, co-op and multiplayer. As I said it before challenges became a saving grace for the whole game.

Summarizing the whole game, it was very disappointing for me. I still can’t believe I paid $60 for this (because I don’t play multiplayer that much). Games like this make me feel there is no place for innovative shooters. I am missing Monolith right now, since they are such a great developer when it comes to FPS games. Day 1 Studios (the makers of this game) ruined it. The game is only good for rent, however if you are a multiplayer freak and want to buy this game, I would still advice to let the price of this game go down.

Rating: 6/10

Syed Rubayyat Akbar, NoobFeed