F.E.A.R. Platinum

Don't be fooled by the title or some trailers: F.E.A.R. is a pure FPS game. Besides its smooth and enjoyable gameplay, a lot of (well-made) scripting add some elements directly inspired from classical horror movies (you know, the little girl with superpowers) and a few physical mindfucks (those you could also find in Antichamber). The story is not exceptional, but the ambiance easily palliates that. The two extensions are follow-ups to the main story, and add some time to the already quite long game experience. At this price, I can only recommend it if you like FPSs and are not against some jumpscares from time to time.

I disagree with those who say this game hasn't aged well. It's true that environmental graphics (walls, floors, etc.) were bland even in 2005, the effects however still hold up. During intense firefights, bullets and explosives interact with basically everything, litering the area with debris and leaving clouds of dust in the air that make it difficult to see the enemy. And unlike in 2005, even medium range PCs will run this game completely smoothly nowadays. Effects are especially impressive during Slow-Mo, which you will be using a lot, since in real time the enemies will just shred you. The A.I. is still one of the best as far as shooters go. The Replica will work togeher as a squad, seek cover, flank you, retreat if you take some of them out, or try to rush you / flush you out with grenades if they have the numbers. The combat mostly takes places in tight spaces. Fortunately this game is one of the few shooters with a great shotgun! Overall weapons feel very satisfying and powerful. The player character is actually fairly fragile though. Slow-Mo gives you the ability to evade enemy fire, but if you are actually hit, you will die quickly. I'd still reccommend to set the difficulty to high though (it can be adjusted at any time). The combat feels kinda like a series of arena shootouts. Enemies will spawn once you cross a certain point, and then it's you with a squad of them in a series of offices, or a courtyard with adjacent multi-story offices with multiple routes to get around. The enemy will use these alternative routes, so watch your back. The main downside of the game really are the repetetive environments. It's mainly offices, industrial areas and abandondend buildings, but the action more than makes up for that.

If I had a favorite video game genre other than good, interesting gameplay baked with good interesting themes it's FPS games and I've played a lot of them. I've returned to F.E.A.R. over the years more than any other game. TF2, Apex Legends, Titanfall 2, DOOM, DOOM Eternal, Bioshock, Stalker games, Doom 1 and 2, Postal 2, Dusk; Left 4 Dead 2 might be the only game that can compete with F.E.A.R. in terms of replayability but F.E.A.R. is a canned single player game that doesn't rely on mods. What makes F.E.A.R. so engagingly replayable? The movement, Shift zooming, great arsenal of weapons; Best shotgun, rail gun, sniper sub machine gun and duel wielded pistols in all of gaming, best enemy AI and level design; Which are informed by each other and constructed around one another, in all of gaming. If you love high skill combat that plays out differently every time you engage and reacts to how you play. This is it right here. Yeah, the story is just kinda hanging out, the NPCs are robotic, the horror is just more of a background thing and the two expansions aren't cannon, but on your tenth playthrough you won't care anymore. Actually, by now, all the story/horror jank has become endearing to me. Truly, F.E.A.R. is one of the very few games I love and an easy top ten for me.

Along with Crysis, F.E.A.R. brought in huge amounts of money to nVidia and ATI as gamers like myself laid down our last dollars for SLI and Crossfire graphic card setups. GOG's current version supports 3840 x 2160 resolution and still looks great and will test an mid-range GPU.

I played FEAR when it was released and I liked it very much, especially for the multi-player which still is one of the best ever conceived. The single-player did not awe me that much, but now that I started playing it again thanks to GOG, I am just stunned. The story is brilliant, and one of the deepest plots ever to be featured in an FPS game (it's not Shakespeare, but hey, you can shoot people!). The gun-play also owns modern day titles completely with satisfying sounds and effects that impress even 10 years after release. Guns are high damage and have some really cool design, add bullet time to that and we have a winner. What is most impressive however, is the level design. The set pieces are classics - travelling up an elevator which stops on random floors and you have to shoot bad guys, the underground garage level, subway shoot-out and of course the sewers - but they are really well though out and do not fail to surprise, especially after the flood of modern-military shooters of today (and FEAR kind of is a modern-military shooter done right). Anyway, long story short, you are doing yourself great disservice by not playing FEAR. This is one of the best FPS games ever made and easily rivals titles like Quake, Doom 3 or even Half Life 2. As for the multi-player, it's not dead yet, but you need an external server browser. You can also check out http://fear-community.org/ a bunch of people trying to keep this game alive - they have their own patched client based on the free FEAR Combat multi-player component. It's not what it used to be in the glory days, but the game is worth the price for the single-player alone.