After drying my tears from the train wreck that had become of my beloved F.E.A.R I decided to go back to where it all began. F.E.A.R Files is the name of the game that has both f the F.E.A.R 1 expansion packs for Xbox but they came with my PC copy on Steam. The expansions are Extraction Point, which takes place immediately after the explosion in Point Man's shoes. And Perseus Mandate which takes place at the start of F.E.A.R 2 from a F.E.A.R agent named Sergeant’s point of view. The games are generously long for expansion packs, with each one lasting around 4 hours (each one longer than F.3.A.R to put it into perspective). The stories to each expansion builds on the back story of what was established in F.E.A.R as F.E.A.R 2 had not been released yet. This makes them great bridges to fill in the gaps between the events of the first game and the second.
Extraction Point starts where F.E.A.R ends, with Alma destroying whatever city it was. You wake up in the rubble and messaged by Betters, the bloke on comm's from the first game. You are told to make your way through the ruins of the city and to the Extraction Point on top of a roof somewhere. I have forgotten most of the details because the story was a bit flimsy and weak, it essentially just shows you how Point Man ended up from being at the bottom of half a ton of bricks to being in a prison cell being rescued by Paxton Fettel in F.3.A.R.
The visuals have not changed (apart from not being able to display the riht resolution for my fucking screen) and neither has the gameplay however they have added a couple of new enemies, most of which are forces of Alma that are fuckers to kill because they go invisible. The sound is a great as ever and as previously stated its a half descent length. Extraction Point is nothing special, it takes all the good points and all the bad points from F.E.A.R then tacks on a bridging agent between F.E.A.R and F.3.A.R.
Perseus Mandate however is another matter. You play as a person I am going to call Sergeant as that is the only thing you are called in the entire game. You are part of a second F.E.A.R unit sent in to retrieve any surviving members of the original F.E.A.R team containing Point Man and to investigate the goings on with Armacham and Project Origin. You end up digging some stuff up about something called Perseus Mandate and then going back to the place where the clones are made in the first game and then I cant remember. The story starts strong and then it just sort of fell asleep. However this may be stating that it is bad, which it is far from. Perseus Mandate was by far the most enjoyable F.E.A.R game in the entire series. It presumes that you have completed both F.E.A.R and Extraction Point, this means that within 20 seconds of starting the game I was in a 7 man firefight with no health kits and 1 SMG with a couple of hundred bullets. Perseus Mandate was definetley not hard, in fact it was the only one I didn’t die in but it never stops the action. Every area you move to there is a fight, and not just 3 or 4 men. It will include, heavy armour units, mechs and turrets. There was one bit where I was charging through the city streets with about 10 clones up in front of me, 1 heavy armour guy and 2 mechs round the corner. It was absolutely mental.
Perseus Mandate also throws in new weapons such as the grenade launcher, pulse cannon and some new assault rifle that really packs a punch. The new assault rifle is the stand out weapon and the one you will get to use the most as 90% of the enemies are using it. It contains a couple of new soldier enemies to do with some mercenary force that are probably the same ones from F.E.A.R 2 but they are just re-skinnings of current soldiers with buffed health. Plus Alma has one new minion that lurks in the floor and drags you down. These fuckers are irritating, they barely hurt you but they are unavoidable and waste time, not to mention being weak as fuck.
The graphics are the same and the soundtrack is the same so nothing to say there but then again, its an expansion so I would expect it to be the same. Oh and the resolution fitted my screen this time, no black bars for me!
F.E.A.R's expansions are overall, great. Extraction Point is more of the same and Perseus has a lazy story but more than makes the package worthwhile with all its new additions and some truly series defining firefights. You can pick these up very cheaply on Xbox360 and they are free with F.E.A.R on Steam so its an easy recommendation to make to any fan of the F.E.A.R series.
F.E.A.R Files – 7/10
+More F.E.A.R
-Don't Have The Same Feel To Them
