F3AR E

So so many games. I'm sorry I've left you. I'm back. All is well.

Fear 3! The little game that.... well tried.
Let's do some backstory, yeah? Fear the first was a game that came out on the PC, in a dying age of PC shooters. It did alright, got some recognition for some sassy elements. You could sorta slow time, the storyline was dark, but it all seemed very run of the mill. Scary sure, but not super terrifying. You were a super solider, you were fighting evil. Sound familiar? Of course it does, you're probably playing one of those games right now. Then they ported it over to the consoles, and it got the same resounding "meh" from everyone. A decent shooter, but that's about it. Know how they call some movies "Sunday Afternoon"or "Rainy Afternoon" movies? They have those for games, they're called average. Duke Nukem Forever, Shadows of the Damned, Perfect Dark, games that don't require much of you expect to be a responsive meat-popsicle. Easy to play and not much depth, but sometimes that just hits the spot.

The Fear series scratches that same itch. Nothing big, just a decent 8 hour single player. You hear me Fear??? A DECENT SINGLE PLAYER.

You see, someone once said that Fear 2 had a really awesome multiplay, and Fear took them serious. So they added and hyped their multiplay into Fear 3. Brilliantly they added a solid co-op system, but you have to play basically like you're online and wanting to be captain of the leaderboard. Look Fear, it's nothing against you, but like I'm always griping, unless you're Battlefield or COD just leave multiplay alone. It's not that they are the best multi shooters ever, it's that they know what they are doing, have the server support, and don't try to make both a good single and multi shooter.

So Fear went on super sale and ended up being $40. So did a lot of games, but that makes Fear more of a realistic pick. I happened to get a pre-owned copy so I managed to go home with it for about $25 not a bad price for an average game.

So wassamatta with it you ask? Well nothing really. It's a straightforward shooter, there are some Bulletstorm-esque challenges to accomplish, some fancy bullet-time elements and a ""scary"" storyline. It's scary like Paranormal Activity was. If you were terrified of it, you'll be terrified of Fear. If you though Paranormal Activity was lame...well.... hope you enjoy shooters.

An average shooter. You'll finish up in 8 hours or so. You can play through as two different people if you'd like, so that'll get you 16 hours-ish. Any glaring problems? Eh. Nothing unmanageable except.... well.... the bullettime mode is set to the Y/Triangle button. Which is normally used for weapon switching. Can you re-map it? Nope. So instead of switching weapons I often used bullettime. No big deal, the thing recharges over time anyway. If I play another shooter, I just need to remember that the only game that used the shoulder button to switch weapons was Fear. Shoulder buttons for most shooters are the grenades. That could be lulzy I suppose.


Moral of the story? Don't expect much from Fear 3. The achievements are mostly online multiplay or require you to play through multiple times. (Kill 2500 things a certain way? ummm.)

Perfect for GameFly, decent for a rental, buy if it's used or you already have the other 3. (FEAR, FEAR Files, and FEAR 2). It's just an average shooter with no problems or benefits. Give it a whirl if you're looking for a summer week event?