F.E.A.R. is right around the corner, and it's just in time for Halloween. It's featured in our Scariest Moments in Gaming Special, and on the Xbox 360, it should frighten a whole new segment of the gaming audience. I've been playing the retail boxed version of the game, and am currently blasting my way through the heart-pounding single-player campaign.
The transition to the Xbox 360 has gone well, and on my home display, the game is looking absolutely fantastic. The same atmospheric use of audio and lighting has been brought over, and we're not exaggerating when we say that this game will keep you on the edge of your seat. Console gamers looking for something to whet their appetites before the Gears of War launch will be impressed by the sharp visuals, particularly the excellent physics, while shooter fans will go ga-ga over the game's AI.
The intelligent AI will challenge anyone who chooses the appropriate difficulty level. Enemy soldiers in the game will hear your footsteps, work as a team, and pinpoint your location, making full use of that information. Thinking I could outsmart one squad, I ducked behind a pipe and was preparing to use the game's slow-motion system to duck out and unleash a hail of bullets. Just before popping out from behind cover, I heard, "He's behind the pipe!" over the comm system and just freaked out, staring at the pipe like a sucker as I was soon flanked and flushed out of my cover by an incoming grenade. It's moments like these that really make you appreciate the improvements in AI.
As far as achievements are concerned, players will be able to pad their Gamerscores by completing the game and playing through the single-player campaign a few times with a few self-imposed limitations, like not using health and reflex boosters, limiting use of ammunition (and thus relying heavily on the game's interesting melee combat system), and taking on the more challenging difficulty settings. Killing groups of enemies with explosives and environmental objects will also earn you points. Multiplayer games will also be rewarded, especially if you compete on the ranked leaderboard.
There are lots of multiplayer options built into the game, like deathmatch, capture the flag, and slo-mo variants on several game types, but we haven't been able to get any multiplayer game time thus far. We still don't know whether things will work when the game is in stores tomorrow, and we'll make sure to fully evaluate multiplayer before publishing our review. Stay tuned, as the review will be coming soon.
