Hello and welcome to ToriJ Reviews. It's been a while since my last video game review but I'm back now and doing what I love. Today I'll be looking at the XBOX 360 port of F.E.A.R. A first-person-shooter/psychological horror developed by Monolith Productions and Day 1 Studios for the PC and consoles respectively, and published by Vivendi Universal. It's somewhat of a favorite among my fellow gamers so I thought it'd be the perfect way to get back into the swing of writing reviews weekly.

You star as the Point Man, a new recruit into a secret special ops group designed to tackle paranormal threats to national security hence the name, “First Encounter Assault Recon.” You were recruited for your amazing reflexes despite objection from one of your teammates on account of your rookie status. You're immediately pulled into action when a group of clone super soldiers stage an uprising led by their new leader Tom Hiddleston Paxton Fettel. The objective is simple, find him and take him out. Of course you know nothing is ever that simple. The games does a good job of revealing as little details as possible at the beginning so the player is able to witness the story unfold at the same time as the character. Because of this I won't be going into much detail of the overall plot, but you see the doll-like child on the cover above? You're going to hate her.

As always let go over the controls: you can jump with the A button, perform actions like opening doors and climbing ladders with the X button, perform some melee moves with the B button and restore your health with the Y button if you have a med pack on you. The RT and RB buttons are for firing your weapons and switching between them. LT is for throwing grenades and LB activates a slow mode feature for your guy special reflexes to kick in making you feel like you're playing Enter the Matrix. LS puts your character into a crouch while RS allows you to increase your aim. The D-Pad allows you to switch grenades, lean a little to the left and right to see around corners and turn on your flashlight. Additionally you can hold down the B and X buttons for more options and you can review your objective at any time with the select button.

When it comes straight down to it the horror is what really sets this game apart from other first-person-shooters. Both the music and the scenery help to create an atmosphere that's both bone-chilling and terrifying. It takes every horror cliche that just doesn't work on its own and manages to make a going of it. Causing players to feel emotionally drained as those game hours goes by a lot slower than you would normally feel on other titles. You'd think that the fact you're practically a super soldier in your own right would take away from some aspects of the game's horror, but no. When the game wants you to feel helpless you feel helpless, and even when you know what's coming (like I did during my second play through) the game still finds a way to be scary.

So if you're a fan of horror, especially psychological horror, then I definitely recommend giving this game a try if you haven't already. If you're the type of person who is scared by his own shadow... I'd recommend playing Mario Kart instead.

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