I know I am 3 years late on doing this but I finally finished the F.E.A.R. series and would love to give my opinion on the 3rd installment. What can I say about F.E.A.R. that has already been said? Well its one hell of a unique game series, very interesting story and gameplay mechanics. Its one of the only games that does a good job balancing action and horror. I fell in love with the first two games the first one being my favorite, but I never got a chance to play the third game until recently.
F.E.A.R. 3 takes place directly after the 2nd game and you reprise the role of point man again (main character of fear 1). I’m very happy you play as point man again in the 3rd game, he is just too badass. There is also a 2nd protagonist you play as for co-op mode but to avoid spoilers I won’t talk much about him. Gameplay has changed since the first two games; they removed the badass cover system that you could perform in F.E.A.R. 2 like for example you could run up to a table and flip it over and use it as cover. They removed this feature in F.E.A.R. 3 which was a bummer, but added a different cover system which all you do is hide behind an object and quickly swap between different obstacles which is pretty cool. You no longer have to use medkits, you can now regenerate health which takes away some difficulty. Gameplay is more fast paced unlike others, there is little to no silent, walking segments like we’ve seen in the first two games. Each part of every level is full of fast pace action and it gets very repetitive.
The mystery of the story is no longer there. Everything about the campaign seemed too predictable, and not much of a mystery or being left in the dark like the first F.e.a.r. game did. Each interval got more annoying then the last, it felt like the game was forcing you to play co-op because if you didn’t then you are going to have a frustrating time with the intervals. They felt more like endurance test than levels. The co-op in the game isn’t too bad, it’s quite fun actually and even has some competitive aspect to it which is very unique. Both players can effect the outcome of the game by competing against each other in getting the highest score, by the end of the game both players scores will be calculated and the game will choose the best player and go with their ending.
F.E.A.R. is one of my favorite action/horror games and I hope they will continue the series in the future. With F.E.A.R. Online coming out soon on Steam I felt it was time for me to finish the main series and give my opinion on the final game. F.E.A.R. 3 is no where close to being as good as the first two F.e.a.r. games. It focuses way too much on action and it is too face pace, if anyone wants to try the F.E.A.R. games then please start with the first one. It has an amazing atmosphere, fun gameplay, and good story. My personal rating of F.E.A.R. 3 will have to be a 6/10 its a fun game but as for a true F.E.A.R. game compared the others, it didn’t meet the expectations.