I've heard someone describe this game as "if Matrix and John Woo films had a baby with The Ring and Ju-on". I personally would describe this as supernatural Die Hard on crack, and I cannot stress enough how true these statements are. This is the most badass action movie made videogame ever, in the best way possible. But I won’t lie, this game isn’t scary. It sometimes feels like a cheap TV movie from the late 90s. The scares (if you can even call them that) are so constant and repetitious that it never scared me, in fact, I missed some of them because I sometimes moved past scripts I didn’t even noticed, so if you’re looking for something scary, there’s nothing to be scared of here, just a few unexpected moments but nothing more. The contrast in lightning is extremely exaggerated to create a more creepy atmosphere but fails due to it being an action game first, a horror game later. And the flashlight doesn’t help either, since it loses power with time (lasting between 10 and 20 seconds) and it needs to be deactivated for it to recharge. Something similar to Half-Life 2 but more annoying, since this game is full of shadows and dark places, you can’t see nothing without the flashlight. Which, may I add, obliterates the spectacle of dynamic lights and cool effects. I would look past this if it was somehow scary, but as I already said, it isn’t.

BUT, in exchange you get one of the most refined action spectacles possible. Every gunfight is spectacular in its own way. The sandbox the combat offers, while not the most profound and elaborate one, has enough stuff to keep the combat engaging: grenades, mines, shotguns, laser weapons, explosive barrels, karate kicks, bullet time, you name it. Even the enemy soldiers apply actual combat tactics and strategize to kill the player, taking covers, flanking the player, suppressive fire and throwing grenades while you're on cover among other tricks, and their radio chatter is the cherry on top to make them feel threatening. Every single element comes together in consonance to turn, what would be a boring shootout in any other game, into a unique moment. The level design adds a lot too. Full of nooks and crannies for the player to navigate, flank the enemies and approach the situation in different ways. BUT the game throws a stupid amount of enemies at you, sometimes you can’t predict the encounters and cross a door to find three or so soldiers behind a cover that spot you on the moment, sometimes you’ll cross a hallway with the flashlight on and the enemies will go “I see a flashlight!” without being able to predict this. some other times the game will put you in very clear combat arenas where the fight cannot be approached from any angle. And the use of the bullet time mode that emphasizes direct action make the enemies less of a threat in the end and more like an obstacle to get through. What I’m getting to is: this game births and dies in its combat system, which is sustained only by its spectacle and player expression. This game is one of those who put player agency over scripts that take the control from the player and cutscenes (which are a just a handful), which is something that unfortunately has been showing up and improved upon less and less in shoothers since then, advocating for a more movie-like approach (you know, mash X to do this, press Y to do that, hold the walking button while a glorified cutscene plays out). It might sound stupid, but I don’t see many shooters released after F.E.A.R. with stuff like meleeing wood planks or running away from an incoming vehicle that aren't scripts with little to no room for the player to fail. But unfortunately, these details don’t save the game and it sadly peaks in the Armacham offices and it’s downhill from there onwards, concluding with a really lame last third. And even if the story was somewhat interesting or anything, but no, it’s a mixture of horror and action movies clichés, with a plot twist at the end (I think it was a plot twist?) so uninspired and unnecessary it could have been cut off the game and it wouldn’t have made much difference. Ending off with a cliffhanger to continue the meh story in the sequels. Maybe I'm being too negative, but I like it a lot when it works, which isn't most of the time.