F.E.A.R. 3

While F.E.A.R. 3 is at its best as a solid(and fun)co-op shooter, it stumbles as an addition to the series. [Sept 2011, p.82]

Although there are some failures in the campaign, including a slight loss of identity (the scary element of the game), F.E.A.R 3 is a solid FPS and has a competent multiplayer that is different from other games in the genre.

Much of F.E.A.R 3 is commendable then, but ultimately a lack of polish and genuine investment in the campaign sees it fall a distance short of full potential.

F.E.A.R. 3 has a few misses here and there, but when it hits the mark it becomes incredibly entertaining. Considering the improvements compared to the second game we're really looking forward to another installment in the series.

Aside from these few relatively minor negatives, F.E.A.R. 3 is a very solid shooter that covers a lot of the right bases -- I just wish the developers had put as much imagination and creativity into the single-player campaign as they did into coming up with new multiplayer modes. And, you know, actually made it a bit more scary.

We hate its impotence, its utter lack of a scare beyond an aversion to getting shot. And with its market-led features and Skinner-box mechanics, we hate that a series that began as a lesson in horror – of the B-movie kind, admittedly – now feels so afraid of the competition.

Maybe if it inspired loss of bladder control in the same way the original did - or, better still, how Monolith's Condemned did - it might have been slightly more memorable. FEAR 3 is sadly lacking in the fear department, and has subsequently lost its defining characteristic.

F.E.A.R. 3 is likely to anger franchise fans because it's not really a satisfying end to the trilogy. It doesn't contain much of what people loved about the first few games. It makes token attempts to be scary, the plot is convoluted and feels like an afterthought, and the gameplay is more arcade than cinema. If you can overlook that, F.E.A.R. 3 is a surprisingly fun co-op arcade shooter.

A mixed package: a competent but bland single-player campaign, plus a considerably better co-op campaign, along with some creatively fantastic multiplayer modes. If you're easily scared by horror movie clichés you might get scared by the attempts at creepiness, but we didn't find it scary at all.

It will barely trouble your memory in six months. [Sept 2011, p.100]

Despite a few rays of fun, F.E.A.R. 3 is a production that offers gloom, minus any impending sense of doom. As an action-based first-person shooter it's solid enough to stand alongside is contemporaries in the faceless, grey-brown ranks of the FPS genre, but it does nothing to stand out from the status quo. [September 2011 p71]

It might be time to put this series to bed. [Issue#208, p.82]

This probably won't be the end of the Fear franchise, but if the developer does decide to keep it with a trilogy, they drove it home on a strong, if belabored, horrifying note.

This time, the campaign mode is mostly based on co-op and action, rather than a horror experience. A quite pleasant surprise is the many four-player online co-op modes, thought the campaign is mostly disappointing and it fails to compete with its two predecessors.

Alma used to give you nightmares with the previous episodes? That won't be the case here. Action is predominant, and serves well for nice gunfights, let's make that clear. But with production values that are below our usual tastes, levels that are too linear and an atmosphere that is more bloody than frightening, there's disappointment to be had. F.3.A.R is but another FPS that has trouble differentiating itself from the crowd.

A disappointment, there's no two ways about it. The scares just aren't there – we live in a post-Amnesia world, so we know it's possible for FPSs to terrify – and the rest of the action is so utterly standard it strays into boring territory more than we hoped it would. A more interesting co-op mode and the competitive, point-based leaderboards covering both single and multiplayer drag it out of average territory, but generally speaking we fear this is a missed opportunity.

Ok, so the multiplayer is quite fun. But the campaign is disappointingly linear and a game with the name "fear" in the title should be scarier than this.