Wednesday 19-Jan-2005 11:07 AM Slo-mo bullet time and melee attacks erupt in F.E.A.R. online We've just sped back from a Vivendi press event in Paris (though sped is probably not the appropriate word - you know who you are Eurostar) where we managed to nab a world-first blast on the multiplayer component of F.E.A.R., Monolith's intriguing first-person shooter which is set to debut this summer.
With Half-Life 2 raising the bar significantly, any subsequently-released FPS certainly has a new benchmark to live up to, but there's every sign that F.E.A.R. will be a genuine contender, especially in it's horror shocker single-player component.
Not that we're able to tell you anything particularly new about that since only the admittedly impressive initial E3 intro level was available to play - and we've spoken to more talkative statues than the Monolith reps whose lips were closed tighter than the proverbial gnat's chuff on any single-player details sneaking out.
However if by some chance, you've never heard of F.E.A.R., the acronym stands for First Encounter Assault Recon, the boys who go in where even Delta Force fear to tread. You're a member of this squad, who has a limited bullet-time like ability to slow down time (don't ask why, Monolith aren't telling) while you waste baddies. There's a girl with sinister supernatural powers and... er, that's about all we know. Well actually you can catch up with the rest here
What was revealed yesterday in all it's glory though, was F.E.A.R.'s multiplayer component and while this ticks pretty much every standard FPS box, it also adds some intriguing touches which give F.E.A.R. a unique feel and flavour.
The major talking point is the implementation of slow-motion style bullet-time in an FPS. How does this work you ask, without totally unbalancing the game and giving one side or player an unfair advantage? Well it's a collectable power-up that sort of looks like a needle gun, and once this is acquired, a power bar on the lower left of your HUD starts to charge up. Once it's fully charged you can activate slo-mo time which extends to all of your team-mates in Team Deathmatch, then hunt out your opponents and dispatch them while they flounder around in a slightly slowed down real time.
It is pretty devastating but only works for a very limited time allowing you to mow down enemies with impunity. However to balance things up, you can always see who's holding the power up or where it is through a HUD indicator and it only gives you the most temporary temporal advantage. It does seem to work rather nicely in practice though, as you can see and evade the bullet shock waves of your opponents and it should ensure some intriguing time manipulation shenanigans to supplement F.E.A.R.'s single-player game.
What else did we see that we liked? Well F.E.A.R. also adds in melee attacks to the mix, with the ability to leap through the air and launch devastating flying Matrix-style kicks to pound your opponents into the dust. There's also a sliding kick that can knock your enemies clean off their feet and since you don't even have to drop your weapons to deliver them, it adds a nice prestige kill option for serious players.
Apparently Monolith reckons the kills that give you the most kudos are to hit slow-mo time and then rove the level unarmed and deliver death by unarmed combat. Hm, nice and it certainly does feel good when you manage to pull it off, we also rather liked the nail gun, which can literally pin your enemies to the wall and leave them hanging there.
Should things go according to plan we'll have a full hands-on preview of F.E.A.R. in the very near future, as well as an interview with Monolith producer Kevin Stephens and possibly some fresh screens this very afternoon, depending on our temporal connection with Vivendi.
However if you'd like to see why we think F.E.A.R. could be one of the better FPS's to emerge this year from HL2's all consuming shadow, why not check out the F.E.A.R. movie, where you'll have a chance to see the bloody carnage fuelled single-player component all for yourself.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
