First things first. If you were fortunate enough to have played F.E.A.R., Monolith's much-lauded first-person shooter on the PC when it came out in 2005, then you needn't bother with this review. The Xbox360 version, for better or worse, is an almost pixel-perfect port of its PC predecessor, with a few frills thrown in. For the uninitiated, F.E.A.R. refers to 'First Encounter Assault Recon'.

Okay, that made possibly even less sense than its acronym did, but props are due just for trying. The point is, F.E.A.R. is a team of elite soldiers trained to deal with things that go bump in the night - especially if those things amassed an army, and bumped well into the day. And as the elite among the elite, your character in the game known affectionately as 'F.E.A.R. Operative', landed the task of investigating this latest paranormal incident.

It all started when a guy named Paxton Fettel went a little crazy. Normally, you'd send for straight-jackets and psychiatrists, except Fettel just happens to be a high ranking military commander, oh, and he also has telepathic control over an army of cloned soldiers. Yes. Cloned Soldiers. Enter Mr. Operative - your objective is to locate Fettel and stick that proverbial wrench in whatever he may be up to. To complicate things further, a creepy little girl named Alma, who most likely escaped from the set of a Japanese horror film, is somehow tied to this mess.

The sci-fi/supernatural horror plot begins with a lot of potential, but then proceeds to squander it away through an entire lack of progression. Your primary mean of understand the game's story is by listening to voice messages and communiqués left around the various environments, but unfortunately these aren't very interesting at all.

As you move through one office building/warehouse/office building with attached warehouse after another on the hunt for Fettel, you end up just feeling that if these people would have answered their goddamn phones, this entire disaster could have been easily avoided. Added to this is the fact that the protagonist is entirely devoid of personality. We have all played games in which the hero never speaks a word, but F.E.A.R. takes it to a whole new level by purposefully avoiding any characterisation of this 'unnamed operative' you control. Even though it is eventually tied into the story, it's nevertheless a cheap story-telling trick that hurts the game overall.

As unsatisfying as the story ends up being, the horror aspect of the game absolutely works. Similar to Monolith's other Xbox360 entry, Condemned, F.E.A.R. doesn't try to inundate you with cheap scares, instead opting for a less-is-more approach where it bides its time to scare you, usually just when you've let your guard down. This ends up adding to the creepy atmosphere, making playing through the game in a darkened room a very nerve-wracking exercise - and the definitive way to enjoy it!

With the aforementioned lack of story progression, you may be wondering exactly what you might be doing for the 10-12 hours that the single player mode lasts for. Well, to fill the void, the developers have thrown in some of the most intense firefights outside of being Triad Member #3 in a John Woo film! A typical enemy encounter sees bullets and sparks flying everywhere, ripping out entire chunks of walls and other fixtures, add that to the fact that I can use the term 'watch the dust settle' quite literally instead of it being a figure of speech is fantastic!

The gun battles in F.E.A.R. may be spectacular to watch, participating in one is every bit as satisfying as it looks thanks to some neat enemy artificial intelligence, a fitting aresenal of weapons you can get your hands on, and even a 'bullet-time' effect that slows the action down around you.

The fact that the enemy A.I. in the game is still unparalleled over a year after F.E.A.R.'s original release date is a remarkable feat. Your adversaries will cunningly circle around the map to flank you, toss a grenade to force you out of a fortified spot, as well as taking cover when being fired upon, going a long way to making each encounter feel dynamic. There are still ways of exploiting the enemy A.I. routines, especially if you are a patient gamer, but with multiple difficulty settings available, the game never fails to be a challenge, even for veteran players of the genre.

Over the course of the game, you will pick up an impressive array of weapons. While they mostly compose of your stock-standard pistols, rifles and shotguns, they all pack a visceral punch when fired, and have been perfectly calibrated to feel just right. Some of the more creative weaponry in your cache include a penetrator rifle that shoots metal stakes at high velocity, allowing you to take down armored foes as well as stapling them to the wall in funny positions, and a particle weapon that can reduce an enemy to a set of charred skeletons in a single shot. As if that wasn't enough, you can kick anyone who dares come within range, and even do a run up before flying into the air and taking down that unsuspecting clone with a kick to the head.

Couple all this with a slow-motion ability, called Reflex mode, that can be unleashed once you fill up a meter by killing stuff, and you have some beautifully orchestrated mayhem! Unfortunately, it is also during the battles that you will realise this game was originally built for the PC, as the controls on the Xbox360 can feel a little too complex at times, resulting in accidental grenade tosses and other misfires, when you can least afford to slip up. This is only a minor annoyance, and doesn't at all detract from how satisfying the combat is.

While the enemy A.I. and many aspects of the game held up over time, unfortunately, the visuals of F.E.A.R. fared a lot less well, especially when compared to other Xbox360 titles. Character models aren't terribly detailed, and exhibit that odd plasticky sheen that can be seen a lot in action games made in the last few years. The environments, composed mostly of claustrophobic corridors, are suitably creepy for the first hour or so, but becomes boring and monotonous long before the game is over. Textures range from okay to noticeably blurry. The one visual touch that has stood the test of time is the impact of weapons on the environments. While not destructible as such, bullets take chunks out of most surfaces (even if it's just represented by a texture) and each gunfight leaves behind a satisfying cloud of dust in the air as previously mentioned.

The game's score is predominantly composed of a mix of static, voices, and other 'found sounds' in an attempt to heighten the eerie atmosphere, and it works fine, but doesn't help alleviate the frustration of the monotonous story and the level design. At key moments a techno beat might kick in, but these are few and far between. Otherwise, the game sounds very, very good, with the weapon sounds especially outstanding, and what dialogue there is are competently voiced by the voice talents.

On top of the single player mode, The Xbox360 version of F.E.A.R. packs in two notable extras that further extends the replay value of the game. There is an online multiplayer mode that caters for all your standard multiplayer needs, with death match, team death match, capture the flag games to be played with up to 16 people. It all feels very old school, especially when compared to some of the current shooters on the market. What's interesting about it though, is that the 'Reflex mode' has made its way to the multiplayer game, allowing one person in the game to slow everything down, until that person is killed and the ability is passed on to his/her successor, making for some very fun online shoot-outs. Whether F.E.A.R. online has enough staying power remains to be seen, however, especially with its release being so close to Gears of War, the game that just about every shooter fan is playing online right now.

The second extra included in the package is the surprisingly enjoyable 'Instant Action' mode, which is a single player competitive mode with a handful of scenarios, each juxtaposing different locations and enemies from the single player game into a cohesive whole. And your goal is to complete each map within a given time limit. You are then scored on a variety of criteria, from completion time, accuracy, ammo used, health, and so on, and the score is uploaded to the Xbox Live Leader board.

The action in 'Instant Action' is fast, frantic, and really, really fun. This is really a distillation of all the most intense moments F.E.A.R. single player has to offer, and is a compelling reason to keep playing the game long after you complete the main game.