F.E.A.R. starts off with a simple enough story. As a First Encounter Assault Recon member, you’re sent in to investigate a man named Paxton Fettel who has a taste akin to Hannibal Lector. Since you’ve got reflexes that are "off the charts" you can employ a SlowMo bullet time power to help you get the drop on enemies that will cause you great headaches. This thin premise for having superpowers also provides reason to send you in alone. As is the case in these games, things don’t go smoothly once you’re on your own. You quickly jump into a paranormal quest to learn what exactly led to this strange turn of events and how you can put a stop to it.

While the story is passable, the method of delivery leaves something to be desired. Aside from very brief in-engine cutscenes that happen at the beginning of some of the levels, the story comes to you mainly through searching through the various buildings and offices for blinking lights on phones or laptop computers. Accessing these will fill you in on some of the details, but it is entirely auditory and oftentimes you’ll merely get fluff for your exploratory efforts.

The game isn’t really about the story though. With a cheesy acronym staring you in the face from the get-go, you might expect as much. It really is more of an amalgamation of three methods of game delivery; puzzle, combat and scare sequences. The puzzles are there just to break up the action and allow you to keep your sanity. The scare and combat sections, though, can match up with the best of them.

Take that Sam Fisher...oh wait.

One of the real strengths F.E.A.R. has is that it is genuinely scary, something you won’t often find even in the so-called "survival horror" games. Whether the scare tactic is the classic startling image quickly popping up, grotesque dismembering of unfortunate souls, or lights being played with just to mess with you, you’ll find your fight or flight response at full tilt. We’ve had numerous people in the office who have had to stop playing F.E.A.R. from the horror getting too intense and it has become somewhat of a running gag to sneak up on someone playing and scare them from behind.

The graphics and sound in F.E.A.R also work amazingly well together to draw the player into the world. Turn the lights off, crank up your surround sound and pop the game in on a cold and rainy night and you’ll see just what we mean. The great use and absence of lighting along with constant eerie sounds will keep you wondering what might lie ahead. These intense sensory experiences do a fantastic job of drawing you into the game and making you forget that you’re playing a game with some somewhat questionable premises. It all builds up to F.E.A.R having you so engrossed in the game that when the fright does come, it hits home.

The fantastic AI present in the PC version has made its way over to the console world intact. Enemies come in squads and react to their environment, your actions and each other. They’ll advance when they have numbers, kicking over bookshelves to create their own cover along the way. Kill a couple of them and they’ll pull back and call for backup. Try to hide in a corner while your SlowMo gauge refills and you’ll find a grenade bouncing to your feet. On the other hand, rushing out into the open will cause the entire squad to stand up and start firing away with their automatic weaponry. It all boils down to the enemies feeling real as opposed to simply following scripted actions as we’ve see so often.

Armored Troopers will not go quietly.

This AI provides for some seriously intense battles where you’ll be relying on your SlowMo reflexes in a desperate hope for survival. To fight back, you’re given a nice selection of weapons that each behave differently and enable you to approach battles with the right tools for your playing style. The shotgun is useful throughout the game and to back it up you’ve got weapons that range from the standard pistol, to repeating cannons, to the devastating sniper-like particle cannon. The effects of these weapons are nothing but extreme gore. Enemies shot in the right place will have arms, legs or even their heads blown off. That is, of course, if the impact doesn’t make them explode into a cloud of blood and guts. Nothing beats firing a giant stake into an enemy’s head and watching it impale them on the wall as their body dangles lifelessly below.