Just a Little Strange.

There are times that I'm really glad my life is normal. While I'm playing Fear Effect is one of those times. This game is one of the most absorbing experiences I have played. The combination of time tested adventure game puzzles and an A+ story line make this game almost a must play for Playstation.

This game gets my vote for the strangest game of the year, if not ever. Fear Effect is about three mercenaries who are offered a lot of cash to find the missing daughter of prominent leader in Hong Kong. The main characters are Hana, lady with a shady past, Glas, a real man's man and Deke, crazy Australian guy. At any rate the story starts like a normal thriller but then it gets weird, very weird. Not scary, just weird. I can't talk too much about how great the story is without giving it away so you'll just have to play the game.

The game play is made up of shooting people and solving puzzles. You will play as all three characters, switching at different points in the story. Fortunately the puzzles are not too far-fetched (can you say Resident Evil?) There are some tough ones but for the most part the solutions are pretty evident. You get a nice variety of weapons, there are thugs that are pretty easy to kill and then you have you bosses, ranging from easy to pretty sporty. You save at points when your cell phone rings (don't ask me) and I would highly recommend you take advantage, because they always come at very opportune moments.

The control is the same style as the Resident Evil games so it may take a while to get used to. You are able to do handy things like rolling (useful for evading enemy fire) and a quick 180 turn (man I hate games that don't let you do that.) Also, there is no pausing to get out your weapon, you'd better be quick on the draw or you're toast. It's not to tough to find out what items to use because you get a little prompt telling if the item is useful.

The graphics are in-credible, to be honest they are almost as good as Dreamcast. All of the backgrounds are full motion video. That means that each background is an actual movie. All of the people truly look like they came right out of an Anime. You will have to see it to believe it. There are a couple downsides, first being that because each scene is a video the game takes up four discs. The second is that you can see when the video loops and starts over again. Both pretty minor gripes.

The sound effects are great; each gun sounds like it should. The voice acting is some of the best I've heard. This is good because the game is heavily dependent on the plot.

Fear Effect is shorter than you might think considering it has four discs. But it is deceivingly short. According to the game clock it will only take you 30 minutes to an hour per disc, but you will be dying a lot. Many of he puzzles involve getting it right or dying, not to mention getting killed by the baddies. You really will spend more time with the game that it says. There are also two different endings although you won't have to play through the whole game twice to see them.

There are only a couple major problems with this game. First, it's not for everyone, parents don't let your kids talk you into getting this one. Not only is it weird it's violent and a little racy. Second, the loading times, could they be any longer? I guess for graphics this good you've got to wait a while, but after dying and sitting through the loading time for the eighteenth time it gets a little old.

This is a game that really intrigued me. I kept at it for long hours both because of the great story and challenging game play. If you are looking for a good adventure for the last days of the Playstation this is it. Did I mention I'm glad my life is normal?

Grade: A