this is my mini review of the game since i've just finished the game. i guess there might be some tiny spoilers in here with weapons and the few pics i have put up, so if you want to be surprised, dont read this. i doubt any of this will spoil it for you though

-Graphics-

my settings were only on the auto detect ones and with that i could see how damn fine the game looks. everything looks high quality and no real low textures except sometimes when the light hits the environment the wrong way you get a little bit of a plasticy feel but thats nothing to serious. the game ran smooth on my system so i expect some to get much better results as i only have a medium-high system. amd 3000 64, 730mb ram (or whatever that number is) geforce 6800 ultra 256mb and k8ns-ultra 939 MoBo. with this the game ran at minimum 40 - 50 fps even when the action is going strong. wonderfully optimised. and the lighting is especialy well done here too. any hanging light can be shot at, which will violently shake it causing shadows to fly all around the room. very splinter cellish. though with all this, the game still loads quite fast which is great. i expected 2 - 3 min load time between levels which wasn't the case. oh and i just HAVE to mention the utter awe at the ending sequence... seriously. just wow. i ownt give away what happens, only trust me when i say its amazing to watch. and lets not forget the wonderfuly executed 1st person scenes where your laying on the ground or in a chopper. i really hope more fps games follow F.E.A.R.'s example and do this as well.

-Sound-

again nothing but high quality here, and i only have it on medium setting. the music blends right in with the gunfights and the sound effects are really well done. it can be a bit freaky though if you knock something off a table or bump into an object it makes a pretty solid noise. the gun effects are well done to boot which is always good.

-Gameplay-

this has to be the most fun fps i've had in a long while. the action sequences are very well balanced with the running around parts. if you expect bad guys at ever turn you wont find it here. very well paced and keeps you wanting more. a shame nothing can really be picked up like half life 2 and thrown around the world but thats nothing a flying roundhouse cant fix. there are many freaky parts to the game too that make you want to play even more to find out what the hell is going on. surprsingly this game is even funny at times. like the newman character (cant remember his name but he really resiembles newman from seinfeld with red hair) you find hiding beside a couch with a small cactas plant on his head. mind you this guy weighs nearly 150 - 200kg so no tiny cactas is going to fool a bunch of clone squads.

-AI-

the AI, well, its as brutal as ever. with only a few hours play the AI has already worked me over a number of times. even a few times they've been able to totaly sneak up on me without any sound or notice which scared me. however there seems to be a 1 - 1.5 sec delay from when they see you, to when they attack you. i guess this makes them more "human" in the way they have to distinguish you from their buddies first. though slow mode with this small delay is more than enough to kill at least 1 of them. speaking of which, you'll quickly find the AI arriving in groups of 2 - 4 at a time. i just killed a squad of 9 guys before writing this so the gun fights get very heated. the AI using objects for cover is again top notch. you can almost forget your fighting computer controled enemies at times they work so well together. they attack cleaverly, they retreat, they use the terrain for cover, attack while running away to regroup (as in them looking behind and shooting as they run off) and my personal fav - them holding their gun above their covering area and spraying your general area. as i found out on all to many occasions, the enemy is alerted by sound, and your flashlight. many times i've been walking around and heard "FLASHLIGHT!" over the com and thought, aw crap they know i'm here. sometimes its actualy scary to fight these guys if they know your coming. even with slow mo, 2 - 4 guys bunkered down attacking will get close at times. to get the most out of the game i recommend playing on hard setting first try.

-Enemies-

after finishing the game, i met roughly 12 diffrent types of enemies. whilst that may not sound all that much, considering they are all clone troops its quite understandable. each group differs in armor, weapons and i think tactics (possibly) as i said before each group of guys is a squad so you'll sometimes find yourself taking as much as 5 - 9 at a time. considering how well these guys communicate and coordinate you'll deffinaly have a rough time if you play on hard or extreme settings.

-Weapons-

unless i missed something, you will come across these weapons

hand to hand - not as crappy as you may think. you have the basic 3 punch combo, the jumping roundhouse, the slide kick and my fav, the jumping 3 - 4 hit (depends sometimes) kick. nothing says OWNED like jumping over a knocked over coke machine, kicking a guy 3 times in the head and sending him cartwheeling over in pain. usualy 1 roundhouse, slide kick or jumping kick will be enough to topple 1 guy. miss, and your in a world of hurt as the squad gang rapes you. im planning on doing a hand to hand run as much as i can cuz i love this mode so much
pistol - standard pistol. you can duel wield these for some power but i ditched them only a few hours. made a come back toward the end of the game though.
mp5 - high rate of fire and low to medium damage. whilst in slow-mo this gun is quite hard to aim due to its rapid fire, but if you can master it it'll give you some nice stopping power. i wanted to begin using this rather than the assault rifle near the end but ammo gets kind scarce (spelling?)
assault rifle (?) - a slower, more powerful mp5 which is much eaiser to control in slow-mo mode. most squads you will fight carry this. quite deadly. this was my personaly rifle of choise.
nail gun (dont know real name) - as in the demo, this gun is a beauty. nothing like nailing clones to the wall. eaisest gun to fire in slow-mo too and deadly accurate. its edge wears off a tad once the clones begin to wear body armor but still good.
styer aug (again dont know real name but looks like one) - the closest thing to a sniper rifle i've found. you can zoom way in and each click of the mouse fires a 3 burst round which does pretty heavy damage if they all connect. good weapon to have as back up. unfortunately this gun nearly never came into use for me due to there being only like 100 - 150 bullets for this in the entire game. not worth the weapon slot powerful as it is. (and it is, was very useful for 1 particular area)
spaz shotgun - ah my fav weapon of all. this gun is extremly strong in point blank with enough force to tear limbs (and heads) off your enemies. deffinate weapon to have. once i got my super shotty i ditched this. never looked back.
multi-rocket launcher - fires 3 rockets 1 after the other quite fast. on the 2 troops i got to fire this on, they were blasted to hell. i ditched for the shotgun, assault rifle and styer combo though. like the styer, i only found rougly 60ish ammo for this the entire time i played. sad really since its a good weapon.
Super Shotgun (called the repeater gun but super shotty is more what it is) - fires 1 huge blast that has a bit of explosive power in it for good measure. quite distructive and fun to use.
rail gun (dont know its real name) - just like the title says, its the F.E.A.R. version of the rail gun only this is better. has a good zoom mode and far as i can tell, this is an instant hit weapon. always fun to use as 1 hit will usualy disentegrate an enemy leaving a skeleton behind. fun!

-Level Design-

the levels were set out quite good and belevably. as you walk through offices, military compounds, slums, high rises, you really get the feeling that your in that building. not just a room with pretty colours. there was a bit of freedom in the way you can get to an objective. sometimes the game gives you a decision of routes to go, but most of the times its pretty set out for you. but this isn't farcry so dont expect a huge, 17km area to run around in per loading zone.

-Story-

this was a rather compelling story here. i really enjoyed it as there have been worse movie storylines in the past few years. *cough*resident evil*cough* i really could see this being turned into a action movie without any of the story being changed. very well done. since i would spoil it for you i wont tell you any of it, you'll just have to play to find out yourself.

all in all this is a very worthy game of your money. over all it lasted me about... 8 - 10 hours of solid, non stop game play. but i play a game to death until i finish it so for slower people i could see it lasting as long as 10 - 15 hours. considering how long the average fps game is today its the required minimum length. i give it a 9/10 and my big rubber stamp of approval.

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/4817/snap0025.jpg
nothing says SURPRISE! like a shotgun blast to the head while in slow mo. cartwheel time

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/313/snap0027.jpg
the result of a point blank shotty blast to the head. nice and bloody

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/223/snap0011.jpg
dangerous looking huh?

http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/8220/snap0002.jpg
me sliding down the rope when entering the compound.

EDIT - updated my review in most parts due to me finishing the game. also added pics

got some good copy protection too :) not good enuff tho.. but props for the effort

Is it available retail now?

Is it available retail now?

Released Tuesday, probably shouldn't be reviewing pirate software.

hows the boxart and the manual DM?

sweet been planning to buy this game, but havent had the time to pre-order it, guess ill have to the store tomorow and pick up a copy.

sounds good, demo was fun :)

multiplayer any good?

actually, i've heard that some places have broken the street date

MP is quite good. :)

i havn't played multiplayer yet, but i can tell from the single player that multi will be very fun to play. i can see a hand to hand only DM mode giving hours of fun

Just picked my Pre-order up from EB. They've been told that they were allowed to break street-date, so what I intended to work on tonight will have to wait until tomorrow night .
Best time evar to quit my job.

bah finishing it in 8 hrs? how gay

yeah but i finished it on normal mode, im playing again on hard and there is such a huge diffrence. i was nearly killed by the first squad of men i came up against. took me down to 22hp. hard will deffinatly extend your play time

picked up my copy today. SP is great fun, can't wait to get online for multi.

loved the demo, retail measures up so far

ok, where sells this and how much? I must have this game!

wonder if they'll make a counter-strike mod for it

here are 2 pics from multi player. god DAMN its fun! i would of gotten more but, you know

this poor guy was the result of a landing on a grenade i threw into the corridor before i ran in (bit dark i know)
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/7493/rooftop1on.jpg

this guy i shot in the ass and he just kinda fell over like he was sulking
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3093/slumpo6qw.jpg

Just had a 2 hour burl on hard before. I gotta say, its not what I expect 'hard' to be. So far I have only died 6 times and some of them have been whilst trying crazy melee runs. If you're expecting COD difficulty at least go extreme.

So far I think I'll return the game. But they have 6/8 hours to sway my decision I guess.

update: f***ING SCARY!

that is all

So, is it better than quake 4?