Fear 3 Review ( Price )

£23 inc VAT
Contact
• fear3.co.uk
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System requirements
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
processor or equivalent;
Windows XP/Vista/7;
2GB hard-disk space;
nVidia GeForce 8800
GTS/ATI Radeon HD
3800 or better;
DirectX 9.0 sound card

Fear 3's first level is a terrible representation of the game. Its rust-covered penitentiary is as lifeless as prison gets. But what follows will hit you with all the force of a freight train. The game puts you in the combat boots of Point Man, who's joined by his recently resurrected sibling, Paxton Fettel. Point Man shot his brother in the face in the original game, and Fettel is now armed with paranormal powers, including the ability to possess enemy soldiers. Point Man is a more traditional - albeit genetically enhanced - soldier, who fights with shotguns and assault rifles. You can play alone, but the campaign is more enjoyable with a friend. If you don't have any, you can team up with a stranger online. Horror The storyline was created by 30 Days of Night's Steve Niles, with John Carpenter on cinematics. It falls a little flat, but what Fear 3 lacks in original storytelling it makes up for in its campaign. For a horror game, Fear 3 is anything but a bunch of dimly lit corridors and sepia-coloured boiler rooms. It's actually rather colourful, with each 'Interval' featuring its own palette and aesthetic. For instance, the bridge mission features warm colours, amplified by the sky's mesmerising blood-red storm clouds. Contrast this with the airport mission's dark blues and cool colours. We couldn't help but take in how pretty it can be. The campaign includes poverty-stricken ghettos, a sprawling metropolis, suburbs, an airport, and even a massive warehouse store to wreak havoc in. The shop  FEAR 3 reunites Point Man with the brother he killed earlier in the series level features a haunted electronics department with flickering TVs, and an outdoor garden section with suicide-bomber cultists amidst the fern plants. A tremendous amount of attention is evident throughout the game. The developer has done a great job making these places feel authentically weathered, lived in, vandalised and, in some cases, outright trashed. One office break room is a good example of the high level of detail in settings. Newspaper ads, assorted debris and a sink torn out of the wall litter the floor; 'going green' notices are pinned to a bulletin board; and a child's crayon drawings are stuck to a fridge. This area also has a morbid masterpiece on its wall that's comprised of spirals, a message written in a strange language, and eerie skeletal faces painted in blood. Mutilation We loved the damage system, which allows you to brutally dismember and mutilate enemies in nasty ways. If you like your games gory, you won't walk away from Fear 3 dissatisfied. Heads can be obliterated into bleeding messes with sniper rounds. Individual limbs blown off to expose bone, causing reactions such as "Somebody get a tourniquet; his leg is gone!" For this player at least, there's something undeniably satisfying about unloading a shotgun on someone at point-blank range and watching them explode into a cloud of glistening meat in slow-motion. There are a few lulls in the campaign, such as the penultimate Interval, which dramatically slows down the action to relay a significant part of the story. It drags on too long. And Fear 3's giant boss fight (you'll know it when you see it) feels out of place and uninspired in the otherwise stellar campaign. The campaign also feels shorter than previous games in the series - we were able to complete it in a day and a half. Fear 3 tries some interesting ideas with its multiplayer mode, with some more successful than others. Instead of offering up old firstperson- shooter (FPS) standards such as team deathmatch or capture the flag, the game features modes such as 'F**king Run', where four players flee from a billowing cloud of black smoke dubbed the 'wall of death'. It's an intense ride that keeps you constantly moving and also ignores the normal multiplayer concept of confinement to a specific area. There's also a mode that's in essence a version of Call of Duty's Zombies, where you and three other players defend a base from progressively deadlier waves of enemies. The twist here is that you have to scavenge for supply crates in between waves and make it back to your base before it's too late. Two other modes, Soul Survivor and Soul King, involve possessing other characters, but they're more fun in theory than in practice. Verdict Fear 3 has its flaws, and some of the game's scares are more loud and obnoxious than genuinely frightening. Overall, though, the game is a fantastic blend of horror and action that's armed to the teeth with extras. In a time where the majority of FPS games concentrate on recreating the real world, Fear 3 provides a welcome change of pace.

Posted in: Game,Review