I've been mucking around with the F.E.A.R. FPS game for a few months now. F.E.A.R. stands for "First Encounter Assault Recon". It came out back in 2005 with the expansion pack released in 2006, but I always pick these up late. The rating is "M" (17+) and deserves it due to heavy language (lots of f-bombs), decapitations and dismemberment, and a lot of blood and gore. There's also a few good scary parts, and spots where you will jump out of your seat.

Definitely not for kids. Probably not for impressionable teens either.

It performed very well on my GeForce 7950 SLI setup and runs even better on my new GeForce 8800 SLI setup. Even though I have a 1680x1050 display, I run it in 1280x720 mode so that it runs faster and so I can do vidcap with FRAPS in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

The strong points of the game are:

- A very effective team-based AI. The enemy soldiers will scout (recon) ahead with 1-2 members while the rest stay hidden. Once they discover your position, they will attempt to flank, or fall back, or flush you out with grenades, or shoot blindly from cover. If they know where you are holed up, they will try to flank you and keep you pinned down. The only thing I haven't seen them do yet is to lay boobytraps (except in rare, pre-scripted spots).

- The usual selection of weapons and enemies. Ranging from the pistol up to the rocket launcher and simple infantry, heavily armored infantry, armored walking suits, and little flying robots.

- You can carry multiple (up to 10) health kits at the same time. Each health kit restores ~30% health (unsure on the amount), and they are liberally sprinkled through the levels.

- A limited power that lets you slow time. While you can't cover distance any faster during this few seconds, you can spin and aim extremely accurately. I thought it was a gimmick at first. While you could manage to play through without using it, you'll find that it makes it a whole lot easier when you're up against multiple enemies.

The weak points:

- Puzzle areas are sometimes obvious, with no enemies around. I won't say that they're entirely predictable, and none of them are overly fiendish, but they're often simply a matter of running around and clicking on anything that shows the hand icon. You can't undo a solved puzzle (that I've seen yet).

- Some of the subtle level design choices make it apparent whether you are coming up on a combat section or a puzzle / scary section. Some of the scares get old after a while.

- You will learn to hate the interior designers at ARMACHAM headquarters. The section of the game that takes place in an empty office building gets really tedious.

- Linear gameplay. There's not much choice involved in FEAR. You'll go down this hallway, past those enemies, and you'll learn to like it! There are a few sections where corridors branch and meet up again in a few dozen paces, but that is mostly so that the AI can flank around behind you.