F.E.A.R. Files for Xbox 360 Review

"I'm not exactly burning with curiosity about what's on the other side, are you?"

That's a question your teammate, a computer-controlled character, asks partway through "Extraction Point," part one of this stink bomb. And the answer is, and was, no, I'm not. And that's the problem with F.E.A.R. Files, the ill-conceived sequel to F.E.A.R. (see my review), a game I actually liked quite a bit, despite some flaws. It's just not the interesting.

Part of the problem is that the competition turned it up a notch this year. Compared with deep and rich recent game titles like Halo 3, Bioshock, and, especially, the nearly flawless Call of Duty 4 (review coming soon), F.E.A.R. Files just doesn't measure up at all. It's got PC port written all over it, especially the original Half-Life-like graphics of Extraction Point, which is visually outshined by more than a few Xbox Live Arcade titles. It's just not a next-generation title in any sense of the term.

Nothing works in this game. There are a couple of decent scares here and there, and a bunch of fakes ones, including a shameful scene in which the lights turn on and off in the room you're in, all the while your headset-based light refuses to work. Get it? The dark: It's scary! Geesh.

The problem, of course, is that Extraction Point is quite clearly an add-on to the original F.E.A.R., taking place as it does in the direct aftermath of the conclusion of the original game. Your goal, such as it is, is to make it to your paramilitary team's extraction point so you can be removed from the combat area. It's all rather pointless and plodding.

As for Perseus Mandate, which is the second and more recent of the two expansion packs found on the game disk, things are a bit better. This time around, you're part of a second F.E.A.R. team battling the enemy during the events of the first game. In this way, Perseus Mandate parallels the Blue Shift expansion pack for the original Half-Life, and while I find such things interesting in general, this time around the story is just lackluster, but the implementation is more solid than that of Extraction Point.

The point here is that Perseus Mandate actually tosses out some legitimate scares, while actually advancing what we know about the F.E.A.R. back story. It's easily the more compelling of the two games, though neither is particularly stellar and both feature annoyingly repetitive level designs and boring settings. Enough with the office buildings, already.

In addition to the two standalone expansion packs, there are some Instant Action levels, a la the original title, and a multiplayer component. Frankly, anyone found playing this stinker online should have their Xbox Live privileges revoked.

Put simply, Sierra should have just released both of these mini-games to Xbox Live Arcade and charged users $8 a piece for them. Even the most ardent F.E.A.R. fans out there will find little to like here. Not recommended.

--Paul Thurrott
November 20, 2007