For my birthday this year, my friend Corbett gave me a copy of the new Sierra game F.E.A.R. First-Person Shooters are typically my favorite type of game, but this title is definitely one of the best I’ve played to date. The game is incredibly immersive. There are also some amazing special effects and lighting techniques that really help to complete the experience. (including a slo-mo ala Max Payne effect) The trade-off for these visuals is that you’ll need a fairly high-end graphics card and a fast system. My overclocked Athlon XP and GeForce 6600/256 card could barely keep up at 800×600. Not satisfied with the low-res version, with the assistance of CoolBits2.0, I overclocked my GeForce 6600 from 300/500Mhz (GPU/RAM) to 400/600Mhz. That brought performance up to a level at which I could play the game at 1024×768. At this level the graphics in the game really shine. The AI in this game is also the best I’ve seen to date. While elements of the game are scripted, the enemies you face almost seem to have a mind of their own. You can’t just run in guns blazing. If you’ve got the hardware, this game is a must-have.

After spending $50 of hard-earned cash for a look at Id & Raven software’s latest release, I can say that for the most part, I’m pretty impressed. The graphics are nothing short of amazing. Quake 4 is based on Doom 3, and it shows. To a degree, that’s a problem as it’s pretty obvious that a large majority of the textures & models in Quake 4 were recycled from Doom 3. Though to Raven’s credit, they at least took the time to distress them a bit. One definite improvement was the rendering of the characters in the game. I was particularly surprised by the realistic look of the marines heads. The gameplay is pretty good too, though I would’ve expected it to be a little harder. I started on the next hardest level (Lieutenant) and for the most part went unscathed for the 1st hour. It’s still loads of fun though. If I had to rate it now I’d give it 4 of 5 stars, definitely a must-have for FPS fans.