F.E.A.R. 3 is a first person shooter that tries to scare the living daylights out of you. It accomplishes this with ease. You start off as Point Man, a new addition to the F.E.A.R. team, and you come to learn that you are much more than that. You are the son of Alma, a small little girl who likes to always be in the corner of your eye, or jump out of places, or creep you out. However, in this addition to the series, Alma has an evolved role. That is because your goal throughout the game is to find and save her. Paxton Fettel is the villain in the game, and you learn pieces of your history with him through flashbacks at the end of each interval (the game is split into 8 intervals). He leads an army of super soldiers who are here to stop you from finding her. There is more evil than just Fettel, however, there are people who have seemingly turned into zombies, and attack anything they see. This includes Fettel’s soldiers, and you. With crowbars and bombs strapped to their chest that you can hear from a distance, they are a seemingly frightful foe. Now that you’ve taken F.E.A.R. 3 101, we can begin.

Storyline: 9/10

As you can see from above, the story gets very complicated, especially when I haven’t played a F.E.A.R. game in over a year. However, I found they explained the story much better than in previous games in the series. There are parts of the story they leave out, which keeps you playing throughout. I found myself frequently questioning who was who and if someone was a friend or foe. The story does move along quite quickly, and is very intriguing.

Gameplay: 5/10

The gameplay was good in F.E.A.R. 3, however, I found it lacking in many areas. The biggest problem was the controls. They have added new controls to the standard first person shooter, but throw out conventional wisdom when it comes to controls. I found myself continuously going into slow-motion because they have it mapped to ‘Ctrl’ and crouch to ‘C.’ While I could have switched them around it was too late after they had taught me all of the controls. Their advertised advanced cover system was nothing more than ducking behind boxes or walls, and had awful controls. I found myself giving up on this system simply for the fact that the controls acted unexpectedly. I would press crouch and sometimes it would get up, sometimes it wouldn’t. I would try ‘Space,’ woops, that jumps between two pieces of cover, but often, even that didn’t work.

I will add this in this section, as there is nowhere else for this, but the scares. They gave up the traditional scares in F.E.A.R 3 for more of a psychological horror. Nothing really jumps out at you, or tries to make you scream. The most scared I was in the game was when I felt trapped in a prison, in the dark, with the lights out, and a slight moan in the background. Otherwise, it doesn’t deliver in the scare department.

The only reason I give it a 5, and not a 2 is because of the online, and co-op modes of the game. As well, you are able to replay missions as Fettel, if you remember, the antagonist in the game, which gives an interesting experience. As well, I liked how objects could blow up, be destroyed, and such. Fences, pillars, even people, can blow up, be crushed, and get blown away. It tries to feel very interactive in that sense. There are a lot of dynamics. For example, an enemy could be killed, fall backwards, and fall off a roof, or a platform. This all culminates to a lowly 5/10 for me. Moving on, as I’ve already said too much here.

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics in F.E.A.R 3 are pretty spot on. While many continue to hate on it, it’s actually something I really enjoyed. It wasn’t the best I’ve seen but the level of detail and the things that they did were pretty amazing. From things appearing out of no where with grace, drawings in blood on the walls, and very specific details that added to the whole experience. The textures were really high quality, and without tinkering with any settings, I was lag free for the whole game.

Audio: 10/10

The sound in F.E.A.R. 3 was unbelievable. The tension in the game was almost created by the sound effects and music alone. Everything was very well recorded, and there was real depth in the sound. Shooting, bullets, footsteps, the AI talking to each other. It was all perfect.

Playability/Difficulty: 7/10

I was playing on the easiest of difficulties, and I thought that throughout the game, the difficulty was actually perfect. While playing, I thought the game was really hard. But then I realized after playing over half of the game, I hadn’t been killed once. Did I get close? Sure, but it was difficult enough to keep me really excited. You would think I would give it higher than a  7, but I can’t. I play games to play games, and at one point in Interval 5, I got stuck, bad. I played it over and over and that annoyed me. I only play games on the easiest difficulty so I don’t get stuck. This game was a challenge to play, but I still enjoyed most of the game as they pretty well got the difficulty as good as they could get it.

Overall Rating: 7.8/10

F.E.A.R. 3 was a highly enjoyable game to play, and I would recommend it wholeheartedly. I do, however, have some beef with this game when it comes to the controls and the lack of scares, which is why my rating is so low. If you enjoy playing first person shooters, and love a scare or two, play through the whole series, you will thank me later.