Haven't seen anything posted on this little beauty yet,, although forgive me if it has ( I did search ).
F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault and Recon) is a new FPS for the pc by Monolith, makers of AvP2 and the No-One Lives Forever Series.
It was recently unveiled at E3, and I've gotta say, I'm excited....as a gamer and a horror fan.
In the game, you play a member of the afforementioned military team. A large building has been captured by an unknown group and all those inside taken hostage. With no hostage demands issued, a Delta force team is sent in to deal with the situation, but all contact with them is lost and a strange signal starts broadcasting from the building.
This is where you come in, infiltrating the building, rescuing the hostages and finding the source of the signal.
So far, so standard.
After gaining entrance to the building however, you start to find the hostages....dead and mutilated.
Paramilitary types are everywhere, but there's also something else, as you keep catching glimpses of strange things in the shadows and the lights are behaving oddly.
You soon find the Delta squad in huge room, every one of them torn to pieces, their blood covering almost every inch of the room (and it's a huge room!). More alarmingly, it appears none of them managed to fire a single shot before dying.
The developers have stated this to be a cross between the Matrix and Ring, and while this might make you sceptical, I think it's going to work.
The matrix element comes from the abiltty to slow time....nothing original these days, but rare in a FPS. You also have a few special moves, such as being able to drop kick enemies.
The new FX engine also allows for a huge array of graphical niceties, such as sparks, smoke from gunfire and Max Payne style destruction of scenery.
As for the Ring element, let's just say there's a young girl walking around who you really wouldn't want to get close to
Monolith obviously know their target audience here and they're pulling no punches. The game contains graphic violence, swearing and a mature theme, all bound to give it an 18 cert here in the UK.
Current release date is sometime in 2005 and with Monoliths track record, this could be a dream come true.
Sorry for the lack of pics, as I'm a complete beginner when it comes to posting those (maybe someone else could add a few?).
It's easy to find on sites such as gamespot, so a search will show you just how stunning this game looks so far.
There's also a 13 minute gameplay trailer available from E3, which is well worth watching and gives a good idea of how the horror elements are implemented.
It's 350Mb and available direct download, but if anyone wants me to hash it for ed2k I'd be more than happy to
