This particular part of the year is always depressing for the gaming industry. Over the course of June, July, and August, only a small selection of decent games are released on average, and boredom sets in easily. Still, this means that major releases end up standing out even more, and the F.E.A.R. demo is certainly no exception. Despite a somewhat lackluster multiplayer beta, the singleplayer portion of the game has always looked appealing to me, and now that a conclusive demo is out I’ve finally had the chance to see first-hand what the gameplay experience Is going to be like. Here’s my general impressions after going through the single-level demo of F.E.A.R. put out by Vivendi Universal.

The development team chose to start off the demo with a brief introductory movie, which doesn’t exactly delve into much of the game’s underlying plot, but offers some chilling insight into the inner workings of the world regardless. In a semi-futuristic setting, it seems some kind of super-soldier program has gone terribly wrong, and now a group of "terrorists" (I use the term loosely, given how well-organized and armed they seem to be) led by a crazed flesh-eating psychic commander, as well as some anomalous form of paranormal activity are now at large. As part of the prepared defense, you join up with a squad named "F.E.A.R.", or "First Encounter Assault Recon" to go out and kick some ass. It sounds pretty simplistic, but the game’s engine-rendered intro movie actually puts forth a terrific cinematic feel with some great music and special effects, and really helps pull you right into the game. Then, after a quick briefing, you’re dropped off into the field and are sent in on a mission to try and take the terrorist leader down.

First impressions are everything, and after seeing numerous gameplay movies and some gameplay action first-hand at E3 I was all-too-eager to finally try out the game first-hand – and the first thing I took away is that you will need a beefy system to run this game properly. My XP2500+ / Radeon 9800 Pro /1GB RAM configuration ran the game adequately, but only just, and I couldn’t even think about turning on the "Soft Shadows" option. As a matter of fact, judging by other opinionated postings I’ve seen the game is proving to be quite the resource hog on a variety of systems, so it looks like we’re all approaching that time of year where everyone spends unreasonable amounts of cash on their precious PCs just to ensure they can run the latest games again. I’ll comment more on the graphics in a bit, but just be prepared to scale the detail levels down quite a bit if you can’t get the game running smoothly right away.

In any case, the demo offers a good general impression of the action the full game promises, even if it’s a little brief. The early parts involve sneaking through maintenance tunnels and back doors to try and infiltrate a facility, and the developers take the opportunity to really harp up the "paranormal" part of the game by portraying a lot of spooky action. Windows and doors closing or opening all of a sudden when you go past, strange noises, rats and other animals getting startled and running away, and odd, unexplainable apparitions. There’s also a curious level of static that washes over the player’s HUD at irregular intervals as he receives a notice about a transmission he’s receiving from an "unknown source", almost adding a small "cyberpunk" feel to the game. Some people might consider the approach a little too hackneyed and overdone, but I personally thought the whole scripted, cinematic implementation of the entire experience was really incredible, and one part where you turn to climb down a ladder and see a ghost appear literally out of thin air behind you almost made me jump. If the scenes presented in this demo are any kind of indication, it’s obvious that players waiting for the full game will really be in for a treat.

But F.E.A.R. is still primarily an action title, and the developers have implemented some interesting gameplay choices to try and make the game stand out. Inventory-wise, players only get three weapons they can hold at once, as well as a limited choice of grenades and health kits (which will be their primary source of healing potential). Halo, and more recently Halo 2, have proven that limited inventory management can actually really expand a game’s replayability and tactical intrigue, and it’s refreshing to see additional titles choosing this particular stye. Otherwise, the player character is basically you’re a-typical "super-soldier" grunt who can run, shoot, and die with the best of them, but thanks to "heightened reflexes", the game offers a self-recharging bullet time feature you can implement at any time to assist in the ass-kicking, as well as pull off some really cool moves. The game’s terrific graphical detail really shines when this mode is switched on, and it seems to serve itself quite nicely as a gameplay gimmick; I’m looking forward to seeing how flexible it becomes when the full game comes out.

Probably the most impressive thing about the demo however is the sheer amount of included graphical goodness. During a firefight, stray bullets, grenades, or other weapons can actually take physical chunks out of the walls, ceilings, and floors, adding a new level of gruesomeness to the urban-style combat. The animations are really top-notch (this is especially apparent in the included cutscenes), and I really like the effort the developers went to for ensuring the player is actually a physical "character" in the game world, such as seeing your own hands when you scale up or down a ladder, which really helps bump up the immersion. And of course there is the standard-fare physics implementation, though one curiosity I noticed is that corpses innately reacted to my presence by twitching madly whenever I stumbled over them – often with some over-the-top sound effects which initially scared the hell out of me. A cool concept to have corpses actually react to the player, but it still needs some refinement. And as previously mentioned, players should be prepared to tone their graphics settings back a bit, as while I’m not a hundred percent clear on what exactly is going on under the hood with this game, it’s obvious that it is incredibly demanding.

With a release date set for later this year, it’s great that the developers decided to give us anticipating fans a direct taste of the action F.E.A.R. promises to offer (even if the demo is several hundred megabytes – but hell, in this age of broadband and multi-gigabyte storage medium, who would notice? Perhaps I’ll shut up before I get lynched by the few remaining dial-up users out there…). But with that said, the demo itself was fairly brief (and I even hear it doesn’t constitute a specific "level" per-say, but is instead several levels mashed together for demonstration purposes – don’t quote me on that one), which means there is still much more waiting to be revealed on exactly what kind of plot this game intends to offer, and how well the gameplay will hold up in the long run. Surprises can be a good thing, but as it stands, my stance on F.E.A.R. is still "cautiously skeptical" and I’ll be keeping my scanners keenly tuned on this game until it hits stores.