After I saw all those B-style live action films, and shoddy trailers, I was a bit worried how the game is going to turn out. Then I heard that the developers have passed over the project, and I was certain they gonna screw it up. I was lucky enough to buy it cheap, and since the reviews were fairly good, I gave it a chance. And to be honest, I'm very impressed.
To start with the negatives: the campaign is the weakest point of the game. The cheap scares, the short playtime, and the not-so detailed and unvaried enviroments can't keep the attention all the time. The game certain lack the vibrant colors of the second installment, heavily relying on darker tones. I also found the game lacking from weapons: apart from the basic pistol-machinegun-rocket-shotg un-sniper combo, you can only find a penetrator, and a laser gun, which can be found in the previous installments. I was glad to see back the dual machine pistols though. Many complained about the consolifying of the game: the lack of dedicated servers, the regenerating health and the FOV, and while I agree with these, certain elements like DX11 can't be overlooked.
The gameplay mechanics, such as shooting are satisfying. I've never enjoyed better shooting zombies with dual machinegun before. Stuffs like, playing through the campaign with two characters, the multiple difficulty settings, the challenge system, and the collectable stuffs can extend the value. There are only 8 intervals though, each is around 50 minutes, counting the cutscenes.
The game features some of the best artifical intelligence I've seen since the second installment. The commandos get cover as soon as they see you, retreat if neccesary, and even ambush you. Along with the constant chatter of course, they behave believable, and most of the time you can anticipate their next move based on their conversation. Visually speaking, the game is nothing special. Along with some nice lightning effects, the slo-mo graphics, like the exploding bodies, bullets and stuff certainly deserves a mention. As for the audio, the soundtrack is great, the music is always spot-on, and sounds awesome thanks to the synthetizer. The voice acting is decent, personally I loved Fettel's voice. The ambient sounds, guns are fine too.
Multiplayer is where the soul of the game though. The four game types are very unique, and every of it requires serious cooperation. Not to mention the coop mode, you can play through the campaign with your buddy. One can play as Point Man, who can handle the guns, while the other can take control of Paxton Fettel, who can cast powerful spells, take over bodies, or incapacitate hostiles. Unfortunately the player base is pretty low, and the chances to find an enjoyable match is rare.
Overall, it's a really solid game, sadly overlooked by some. If you are looking for a long and life-lasting experience: keep looking. But the fans of the series, and multiplayer guys should definetly check this one out.
DualShockers Writes "F.E.A.R. 3 (or F.3.A.R. if you’re a marketing executive) isn’t a great singleplayer game. It’s fine, competent even, but Day One Studios had an unenviable task in trying to wrap up Monolith’s F.E.A.R. series. With two timelines and two highly different styles of horror attempted in its wake, F.E.A.R. 3, well, it tries its best."
F.E.A.R. 3 wasn't even really a horror game when it came to the campaign. It was a good action game, but lost just about all of its horror roots along the way.
There have plenty of great horror games, but others haven't been so lucky as to stick around. They deserve to get a new lease on life.
That was probably the first time ever that I saw Castlevania in a list of horror games.
ps: Be warned, you have to click a lot to see every game in the list. I stopped after the 4th time.
What is divergent co-op and how could more games benefit from it?
I liked Fear 3. I felt disappointed by the lack of real fear. I thought that by making the game more a FPS they took away a lot of the scare factor. The shooting was good, but with the FEAR name on it, it needed to be scarrier. I personally give it a 7