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F.E.A.R.

EMAIL PRINT xbox360

6.6 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 44 critic reviews
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Based on 50 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Vivendi Games / Sierra Entertainment

Developer: Monolith Productions

Genre(s): Action, First-Person Shooter

Players: 16

ESRB Rating: M (Mature)

Release Date: October 31, 2006

Summary

F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault and Recon), is an intense first person close-quarters combat experience with rich atmosphere and an engaging storyline. The story begins as an unidentified paramilitary force infiltrates a multi-billion dollar aerospace compound. The government responds by sending in Special Forces, but loses contact as an eerie signal interrupts radio communications. When the interference subsides moments later, the team has been literally torn apart. As part of a classified strike team created to deal with threats no one else can handle, your mission is simple: Eliminate the intruders at any cost. Determine the origin of the signal. And contain this crisis before it spirals out of control. [Vivendi]

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Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

AceGamez

F.E.A.R. really is a shooter with everything - exceptional enemy AI, amazingly detailed graphics with truly entertaining rag doll physics and proper reactions when you land a hit on an enemy, a fantastic range of weapons and an online mode that's tremendously addictive.

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100

GameShark

This is not your father’s shooter, full of brain dead opposition that makes each level a carbon copy of the previous one. F.E.A.R. is a game that will keep you on your toes, keep you guessing, and keep you interested until the final credits roll. That’s worth a lot these days.

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Cheat Code Central

F.E.A.R. on Xbox 360 gets high marks for atmosphere, graphics, and enemy A.I., but a stern finger-waving for a lack of a structured internet lobby or buddy system. FPS fans looking for quick frights, superior enemy A.I. and tons of weaponry should look no further.

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Kombo

A cocktail of equal parts exhilaration and terror, F.E.A.R. excels in every facet of game design. The definition of a must-play title.

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IGN

F.E.A.R. has made it from the PC to 360 with everything that made it an outstanding experience along with a few new additions including the fantastic Instant Action mode, making it hard to lodge any huge complaints against the game.

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Gaming Age

Overall, if you like FPS titles, you like your games pretty, and you like to be scared, then F.E.A.R. is right up your alley. Proceed with caution; you will wet yourself on this ride.

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Worth Playing

In parallel with a near-perfect shooter experience, F.E.A.R. develops a hue of eeriness through subtle storytelling and powerful emotional immersion within its environments.

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Gamers' Temple

F.E.A.R. delivers action that lives up to its name.

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GameZone

A creepy and atmospheric FPS with great survival horror elements as well as all out action.

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GameSpy

If you're interested in taking on a captivating yet downright terrifying single player experience, F.E.A.R. comes highly recommended.

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Yahoo! Games

Bear in mind, if you're addicted to racking up your gamerscore, you might find F.E.A.R. a touch frustrating...F.E.A.R. makes you work for its accolades. But even so, this is an excellent port of a great game.

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Eurogamer

F.E.A.R. is the 360's first shooter to score a [90] on Eurogamer for the simple reason that it's such a consistently exciting game that gets the core of the experience so absolutely spot-on that most of the niggles are swiftly swept aside. Slow-mo gunplay and cunning AI don't sound like next generation ideas, but somehow Monolith combines the two so expertly that it feels more alive and more exciting than could ever seem possible.

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Play.tm

If you like you shooting with a dollop of tangible fear, F.E.A.R. is for you.

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Pelit (Finland)

Just as frighteningly good on 360 as it was on PC. The combat works extremely well and so does the atmospheric storyline. The repetitive levels are still there, though. [Dec 2006]

GameTrailers

The only real shortcoming of F.E.A.R. is how repetitive it eventually becomes.

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TeamXbox

If you're looking for an intense shooter that will occasionally scare the living crap out of you, F.E.A.R. is exactly what the doctor ordered. Thanks to some excellent visuals and sound design, this is one game that will have you peeking around corners and stopping in your tracks every time your flashlight's battery dies.

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GameSpot

This straightforward translation of last year's hit PC game skillfully blends kinetic action with creepy atmosphere to create one of the most intense shooters on the Xbox 360.

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Digital Entertainment News

Anyone looking for a more traditional FPS experience online will find this to be an ideal choice.

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Play Magazine

But the engaging paranormal angle to the story and the violent imagery rising from it breathe a creepy chill into F.E.A.R.'s soul that never lets the game lost its powerful grip. [Dec. 2006, p.64]

ZTGameDomain

It has everything a shooter fan could want as well as a genuinely creepy single-player that simply must be experienced. If you are in the market for a great shooter or just an overall fun experience you can't go wrong with F.E.A.R.

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Game Informer

As cool as the horror bits are, they are somewhat counterbalanced by the story, which adds nothing to the experience. Because these horror elements worked so well, I wished all the more that a compelling story were there to complement them.

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Official Xbox Magazine

F.E.A.R.'s downsides mean it's thrilling at first and much less absorbing later on, but its magnificent combat sequences still make it irresistible for serious FPS fans. [Dec. 2006, p.62]

Console Gameworld

If you're looking for a new twist on an old genre, give F.E.A.R. a shot. You'll piss your pants with delight. Not for the faint of heart.

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Gamers Europe

Probably the closest thing you'll get on the 360 to "Halo 3" until, well, "Halo 3" itself. If only it wasn’t quite so FPS-by-numbers, it’d be a classic in it’s own right.

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Jolt Online Gaming UK

F.E.A.R. is a game that you’re going to like a lot or you’re not going to like at all, depending on your tolerance for genuinely challenging gun battles, genuinely unsettling creepiness and genuine-looking bland industrial environments.

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Planet Xbox 360

FEAR is roller coaster of thrills and action. It is a great game and easily worth a look for anyone in the market for an enthralling experience.

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Gaming Target

In terms of playability F.E.A.R. really couldn’t be much better, there’s really not a lot more to be said about it. If you played the PC version there’s not much new here. If not, however, sit down, turn the lights out and scare yourself silly.

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Games Master UK

A technically superb conversion of a superlative shooter, if a bit creaky. [Christmas 2006, p.96]

X360 Magazine UK

An adrenaline-soaked blend of terror and action. If it wasn't for the fact that there's little between the PC and 360 versions, F.E.A.R. would no doubt have scored higher. [Issue 13, p.94]

Gamestyle

A great FPS. The incredibly sharp AI provides a real challenge making this a game you'll come back to - if you haven't played the PC original. If you have, there probably isn't enough new content here to make this a worthy purchase.

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MS Xbox World

I would perhaps describe FEAR as "Condemned" on steroids perhaps.

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games(TM)

Monolith underplays ever card in its hand and leaves us with a game of slow-creeping dread and rare maturity. A year is a long time in videogaming, but age has left F.E.A.R.'s impact undiminished. [Christmas 2006, p.114]

Official Xbox Magazine UK

F.E.A.R. is a good-looking FPS with great sound and amazing gunfights, but it lacks variety – sharing Condemned’s bent for basements, air vents, abandoned factories, offices and so on, and the identikit enemies don’t help.

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VideoGamer

The action in F.E.A.R. is relentless from start to finish, and the AI of enemy soldiers is about the best you'll find in video games at the moment. Bar an ending that will leave you wanting a lot more, there's little not to enjoy.

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PALGN

A great first-person shooter, and thrilling almost every step of the way.

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GameDaily

The level of destruction and the special effects are outstanding, and while the single player campaign is a bit short, the console exclusive Instant Action Mode is a great way to continuously relive battles against the intelligent AI.

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GamePro

As a highly competent, technically polished, but otherwise straightforward first-person shooter, F.E.A.R. is a safe bet for the Xbox 360 action fiend. It may not replace "Halo 2" in your FPS collection, but it sure as hell beats playing "Perfect Dark Zero" for the fourteenth time.

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Games Radar (in-house)

The core shooting action is so strong that these complaints fall by the wayside. F.E.A.R. is a game about shooting things, and once you get your hands on its triggers, you'll find that you won't want to let go.

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G4 TV

The story doesn’t make much sense, and there are many truisms at work here, but the gameplay and presentation are phenomenal, and both the single and multiplayer aspects of the game are impressive.

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Xbox World Australia

The well-paced horror elements coupled with some of the most satisfying and stylish gunfights in a FPS make this game well worth your time, especially if you managed to miss it when it was initially released on the PC.

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Game Revolution

That new price tag on an old game gives us the willies, but we love the gunplay, the new mode, and the creepiness.

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Total Video Games

The sad reality is that just over a year on, F.E.A.R. is desperately showing its age. Hard-edged shadows, bland textures, and some gloopy-looking water effects make the First Encounter Assault Recon experience look quite tired, especially in light of the Goliath that is "Gears of War."

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Boomtown

Many of the set-pieces are utterly predictable (the mini-battlemech you meet coming up on a lift platform thing, for example, or the snipers in the distant windows on a rooftop), and the AI seems distinctly switched off for these moments.

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360 Gamer Magazine UK

An interesting and technically excellent FPS, F.E.A.R.’s refusal to play to its real strengths is something of a shame. Regardless, decent single-player modes and online play make it a shrewd investment for anyone that likes hurting people.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 50 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mark W. gave it a4:
Yawn zzzzzzzz....... Incredibly boring.

Lionel E. gave it an8:
A mildly derivative but well-made shooter with nice atmospheric elements. A few aspects, like the slow-motion capability and fair enemy AI make it worth playing despite it being a bit outdated by the platform's recent standards.

Rick D. gave it a0:
Thiss game is horrible. Absolutely the worst gameplay and graphical design I've ever seen. Every weapon looks the same and the environments look exactly the same as the last one. This game is terrible and I don't recommend it to anyone.

Jay R. gave it a1:
This game has the worst graphics ive seen on the x box 360, the weapon design looks like it was made for playstation 1 or nintendo 64, thers games on the x box and ps2 that look much better then this so called nex gen fps horrible game.

Jonathan gave it a1:
Would have been 0, but the slow-mo was a cute little novelty. Otherwise, the level design/graphics were HORRIBLE! I mean, this very much looked like Half Life 1 to me, which was great... BACK THEN. Sure, it had some super lighting, but otherwise... CRAP! Gameplay... can you say repition? B-O-R-I-N-G! Plus, I'm tired of games that can't create a decent atmosphere with the game alone, so they add stupid little stunts to try to make it scary... they way over did it... they should see BioShock for an example of how to do that right. I bought this game thinking I would like it... then I tried hard to like it... and couldn't. There is no way this deserves anything close to an 85. May be the most over-rated game I've ever played.

Marshall S. gave it a3:
Fun shooter for a couple of hours then the sheer drudgery of yet-another-derivative-uninspired-run-of-the-mill FPS sets in. Boring weapons, repetitive and linear level design, massively irregular difficulty spikes and a plotline that somebody wrote on the back of a cigarette pack whilst on the bus to work the day before the game shipped do NOT make a good game.

RichardS gave it a4:
Okay, it's not as massively over-rated as the all-time most over-rated crocks: Gears of War and Halo2. Fear is probably division 2 over-rated rubbish. There is probably one cool thing about this game: it comes close to replicating the fight scenes in The Matrix with plaster flying everywhere and dust filling the air. And that's it. There are a few creepy chills, though they tend to all come at once. And I don't care for horror games anyway. The enemy AI is clever, but the rest of the game is so average and boring it doesn't matter. The fights are repetitive, the weapons all very similar and as usual there are a couple of weapons you want and many that are rubbish. Why is no one since Halo has learnt that half a dozen varied weapons each of which is cool in its own right is the way to go? The levels are on tracks - totally linear and stunningly repetitive - it's like replaying the same level again and again. The storyline is horrid - I gave up listening to the phone messages and PC messages - I just didn't care about the story or my character at all - just like Gears of W*** - a fatal flaw. By turns dull and duller, this is yet another massively over-rated FPS.

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F.E.A.R.

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