BIOS: Technology Means Business

Developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sierra, F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon) is one of the year's biggest PC releases. An intense first person close-quarters combat experience with rich atmosphere and an engaging paranormal horror storyline, F.E.A.R. is a top shooter. However, parents looking to fill their kids' Christmas stocking should note that F.E.A.R. has been rated 18 by the BBFC. This is due to its high level of violence and graphic horror scenes.

F.E.A.R.'s (Best Current Price: $21.74) storyline is a little confusing. It begins as an unidentified paramilitary force infiltrates a multi-billion dollar aerospace compound, taking hostages but issuing no demands. The US government responds by sending in special forces, but loses contact as an eerie signal interrupts radio communications. When the interference subsides moments later, the team has been obliterated. Live footage of the massacre shows a wave of destruction tearing the soldiers apart before they can even react.

As part of a classified strike team created to deal with threats no one else can handle, your mission is simple: eliminate the intruders at any cost; determine the origin of the signal; and contain this crisis before it spirals out of control. However, there's also a human-eating lunatic thrown in for good measure, as well as a creepy little girl (think 'Ring' and 'The Grudge' movies) who has an unnatural ability to create fire and melt people from a distance.

F.E.A.R. looks and sounds great, but perhaps its strongest feature is the artificial intelligence of the enemy. Squads of tactical teams use co-ordinated attacks and flanking manoeuvres to pin you down and take you out, while high-tech assassins cling to walls and ceilings and ambush you from the shadows. There's even heavy armour units that soldiers advance behind and use for cover. The game's a little slow to get going, but it soon makes up for this. And the 'bullet time' (ability to slow time) is awesome, allowing you to drag the action down to a crawl to get out of tricky situations.

An advanced special effects system showers you in sparks, smoke, and debris, making combat as intense and exhilarating as an action movie, and you can employee high-tech firearms and classified weaponry such as the corkscrew missile launcher, rapid-fire battle cannon, and sub-nuclear blaster that turns enemies to pillars of ash. Later in the game you even experience a catastrophic helicopter crash and ride shotgun in a high-speed car chase, pursued by assassins on motorcycles and enemy attack helicopters.

A high-end PC system will allow you to see the latest in DirectX 9.0 rendering technology, including real-time per pixel lighting, shadow volumes, normal mapping and advanced shaders to create a relatively convincing gaming world. The Havok 2 Game Dynamics system makes unleashing hell on your enemies visceral and satisfying (bodies recoil and collapse accurately and objects react to being shot, pushed, or blown up), but the graphics overall are very demanding. On our test system - a Dell Dimension XPS 600 with two nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX graphics cards with 256MB dedicated memory running in SLI mode - we still had to turn down some details to minimise slow frame rates.

F.E.A.R.'s level design is also disappointing, sporting a somewhat generic look and feel, and it doesn't take long to bore of the same industrial complexes, the same walkways, the same service tunnels, ventilator shafts, crates and ladders. Objects have a rather chunky look to them, and some of the character models look more like plastic dolls than human beings. Meanwhile, the audio is outstanding and creates a compelling atmosphere. Little noises can give your position away and you can hear almost every single noise in a firefight - from glass shattering apart, spent brass cartridges hitting the floor, and the thud of explosions. The voice acting is good too, and we loved the real-time audio of the enemy soldiers discussing the latest happenings, or listening to a news report over the radio describing the escalating situation in the city.

The single-player story should take you just over 10 hours to complete, which isn't great but is on par with most other shooters, but the excellent multiplayer game features all the standard multiplayer modes that you'd expect, including deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag. slow down time. You can even use the slow-down feature, too - one player can control the ability at a time, and you can wrest control if you kill that player. The downside is that you can only use the slow motion ability for limited bursts, and everyone knows your location at all times, so this can be used to hunt you down. On the flip side, you can also use this to set a trap in a team game, because your teammates can set up ambushes to take out players who are out to get you.

Late last month Sierra launched a F.E.A.R. SDK, allowing you to create your own custom content for both single and multiplayer aspects of F.E.A.R. Also available now is the F.E.A.R. stand-alone server software for both Linux and Win32. The company has also announced a deal has been signed to incorporate the Punkbuster Anti Cheat software into F.E.A.R. Other updates planned for 2006 include additional multiplayer maps and game types, along with a 'votekick' option. You should also bear in mind that there's a new update (v1.02) for F.E.A.R. As well as some minor localised bug fixes, this update also contains the brand new 'Asylum' Multiplayer Map. The update also pre-patches the game for the SDK/Mod tools. [8.5 - Editors' Choice]