F.E.A.R. Platinum

FEAR 1 is excellent. Tense atmosphere, some jumpscares, great gunplay, nice physics, great AI, great sound. The expansions are boring filler, though.

If I had to describe this game. It would be like John Woo's Hard Boiled + Max Payne + Matrix and some Asian horror film had a baby 😂. The atmosphere, the gunfights, the graphics, that intense music, the immersion. I mean what can I say more! One of the best SP experiences I had!

One of my old favourites. Just like Quake 2 RTX, it shows how lighting is what really makes or breaks the atmosphere of a game. The story is alright but it never really grabbed me like the shooty bits did. The AI aren't Deep Blue but they are great fun to fight. The difficulty on the highest two settings feels just right. If you get into the flow during combat, you feel unstoppable but if you make a boo-boo then you are quickly directed to the afterlife. The graphics aren't anything spectacular but the particle effects, lighting, sound design and AI keep it youthful.

After having only played Fear 3, or F3AR, as my first experience with the series, i pegged Fear as just another one of those cookie cutter fps franchises that coasts by on the genres broad and uncritical audience. However Fear is an absolute darling of an fps. Smooth gameplay and reactive AI that could easily match or surpass the quality of many recent action games; combined with graphics that, while showing its age, is still pleasant to look at. Certainly worth paying full price for, and if you're lucky enough to catch it on a sale, its a steal. Even if its not the kind of game you'd typically be interested in, it's a nice addition to your library. A special thanks to youtuber SsethTzeentach for renewing my interest in Fear.

I'd been interested in the FEAR series, particularly the first game, for years, but with a backlog the size of Mt. Everest, I've only just gotten around to it. And I'm very glad I did. Monolith's J-horror by way of John Woo is both one of the most claustrophobic and simultaneously liberating games I've played in recent memory. When I started playing this game, I took it slow. You can lean to peak around corners and almost every encounter gives you the element of surprise, letting you plan out your attack. The game is enjoyable this way -- it's enjoyable most any way -- but it wasn't until I let my hair down and began to experiment that the true malleability of FEAR's mechanics became clear. Instead of just lobbing a grenade, giving enemies a second or two to realize and get out of the way, why not toss it toward them, slam the shift key to go into slow-mo, and detonate it mid-air with a well-placed bullet. Enemies on the floor below you? Hop over the railing, slam the shift key, and pop each in the head on the way down. Enemy about to toss a grenade your way? Slam the shift key and shoot it out of his hand to detonate it, taking out a whole squad. All of these opportunities happened over my roughly 5.5 hr playthrough and I always felt like an absolute God weaving my way through beautifully choreographed action scenes. None of these moments of improvisation are totally player-authored, the devs clearly intend for you to shoot grenades out of the air, hop over railings, etc. They telegraph each scenario with pathing, enemy barks, and subtle hints. But it's never so obvious that it feels like your hand is being held. Overall, 100% worth a look. It's relatively short, but well-paced. A 4.5/5