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F.E.A.R. caused somewhat of a stir
when it was released for PC last year due to its solid gameplay,
great atmosphere and excellent AI. Being a First-Person Shooter and
given the Xbox360’s track record for PC conversions, it came as no
surprise when it was announced that F.E.A.R. would be coming
to Microsoft’s big
white box. With PC ports being as unpredictable as they are, a
healthy dose of scepticism is necessary; but given the backlash to
Quake 4’s Frame-Rate, Activision would be wise to get this
one right.
Today’s playable demo was a simple series of
rooms, each with several foes to vanquish, but it was apparent that
F.E.A.R. is coming together quite nicely. The visuals were at
least on par with current Xbox360 First-Person titles with no
noticeable bugs, and the groundbreaking A.I. appears to have
survived the transition to the console intact. Unfortunately, as it
stands F.E.A.R. is simply a port of the PC version with the
only change for Xbox360 owners being the inclusion of an Instant
Action Mode likely to be similar to the demonstration played today
and the inclusion of the forthcoming PC Expansion Pack. Instant
Action Mode gives the player a Score on completion which is then
used to ascertain the player’s position on the XboxLIVE!
Global Leaderboard. This should be a nice feature for console
gamers, but nothing of revolutionary proportions.
F.E.A.R.’s
spooky and engrossing Single-Player Mode has garnered a lot of
admirers on PC and seems likely to find many more on the Xbox360,
let’s just hope that the changeover is handled better than that of
its peers. |
