Last year, Vivendi’s F.E.A.R. hit PC with a sledgehammer, being a critical and commercial success and bringing survival horror ambience to the first-person shooter genre like no other game before it. Now the game is making it’s first console appearance, as F.E.A.R. is now available for the Xbox 360. F.E.A.R. does a fantastic job of packing the whole experience from the PC original while feels uniquely geared to console gamers. While there are a few control issues here and there, F.E.A.R. is a great shooter that will now be able to scare the crap out of console gamers as well as PC gamers.

F.E.A.R.’s storyline puts you in the shoes of a solider in the First Encounter Assault Recon team (hence, the F.E.A.R.) as you are sent in to investigate a creepy cannibal named Paxton Fettel and his crew of soldiers. However, things quickly grow complicated as your mission progresses, and soon you attract the attention of Alma, a frightening young girl with horrible powers…

F.E.A.R. is a creepy game through and through. The atmosphere is extremely well done, complete with dark corridors, and frightening images popping up for split seconds. People will appear in front of you only to disappear around the corner, you’ll carry on conversations with teammates only to find that they weren’t present at all. You’ll hear voices, see boxes fly off of shelves; all kinds of things to make you question your sanity. The sound effects and graphics add a lot to this, making this one of the most ambient games out there on any system.

As far as the shooting action in F.E.A.R. goes, there’s a lot to love here. The firefights are pretty intense, and the game has some very impressive AI to boot. Enemies will utilize cover very intuitively, going so far as kicking over tables for added cover. You’ll never be able to sit there and “fish” enemies from around a corner; you’ll have to figure out a way to go in and take them down.

Luckily, you’ll have a few elements on your side to keep from getting slaughtered. You have a Slo-Mo button that you can push that puts the game into a bullet-time mode, slowing things down enough that you can get the upper hand on the enemy units. Also, F.E.A.R. has a pretty cool roster of weaponry to assist you. Combat Shotguns, Assault Rifles and high-tech weaponry like futuristic railguns (and who could forget the Perforator, a gun that shoots out metal spikes, impaling your enemies to walls) round out the selection. Also, there are new machine pistols, which work like an SMG but allow you to dual-wield them, making for twice the automatic gunfire.

Also among the new additions for the Xbox 360 version of F.E.A.R. is the new Instant Action mode. Instant Action works basically as an endurance round, putting you in the middle of a group of enemies, having you kill the most you can without getting killed yourself. You must take advantage of the weapons you’re given and the environment you’re placed in order to rack up a high score, which are then placed on Leaderboards to compared to other gamers via Xbox Live.

If there is one sore spot in F.E.A.R. on the Xbox 360 it’s that the controls are a little rough. Sweep kicks are a little more difficult to pull off this time around, given the control pad layout. Also, the melee combat controls are generally a pain, since the holster weapon option is mapped to the same button, the result being that if you hold onto your melee button too long, you’ll put your gun away and possibly get creamed.

Graphically, F.E.A.R. looks great on the Xbox 360, bringing in most of the visual bells and whistles present in the PC version. Also, the framerate moves pretty smoothly, with only a few bouts of slowdown in hairy situations. The only real issue with the game’s look is the repetitive backgrounds (although, it does kind of add to the game’s desolate atmosphere).

The sound is also just as great at was on the PC. The game’s eerie music is sparse (which tends to work for the ambience), and the sound cues are both foreboding and frightening. The distorted voice effects when the enemies are talking to each other are just as creepy.

F.E.A.R. is a great port of an excellent game. If you missed it on the PC last year (i.e. didn’t have a machine up to snuff to run it), now’s your chance to play to best PC shooter that 2005 had to offer. 

Gameplay: 9.0
F.E.A.R. takes all the ambience of last year’s PC hit and brings it to the Xbox 360. There are a few control issues (the melee combat/holster weapon button is a particular pain), but once you get used to these, the game is a blast.

Graphics: 9.0
The Xbox 360 version does a great job of capturing most of the impressive graphical enhancements from the PC game, and the framerate stays fairly solid throughout with slowdown only occurring at certain points of high intensity.

Sound: 9.0
F.E.A.R.’s sound effects are great and do an incredible job of roping you into the game’s creepy atmosphere.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 8.5
A solid port of last year’s hit, F.E.A.R. brings all of the dark and brooding atmosphere to consoles, as well as all of the technical elements and solid gameplay.

Multiplayer: 9.0
F.E.A.R.’s online elements are just as good as they were on the PC and then some. The multiplayer modes are lag-free, and the new instant action element (complete with updating leaderboards) is pretty slick.

Overall: 9.0
F.E.A.R. is a creepy and atmospheric FPS with great survival horror elements as well as all out action. If you missed out on this game when it hit PCs last year, do not let it slip away this time.