It can smell your fear, can you control it

I had heard a lot about this game, and it seemed to have earned a good reputation before it was even released. This was mostly because of the stellar graphics, but I could see more promise than that. So I decided to get it as soon as I could.

OVERVIEW:
The title of the game says it all. The basis for the whole game is fear. Your health is monitered by your fear meter. Instead of your fear meter only going down when you get shot, there are many things that might make you character more frightened. The game is a third person shooter that mixes puzzle elements with more hardcore action than say Tomb Raider. It doesn't have all the jumping that made Tomb Raider so annoying for me.

GRAPHICS:
The graphics are this game's major strong point. The graphics look like something right out of a comic book, except for moving backgrounds. The backgrounds are full-motion-videos, all the time. Sometimes it is more noticable than others, but you can even notice the cars on the road moving. The characters are fully 3d, and totally beautiful. The faces are about the most realistic I have seen in a game for a while. There are cut scenes everywhere, which really make the game's story more vivid.

SOUND:
Well, the music is something that doesn't really stand out, and I don't think it was ment to. The music is essentially just mood enhancing music. It is good, but not something that you will go tell your friends about. The thing that stands out the most is the voice acting. They do a very good job in most places, and I love Deke's Aussie accent. The sound doesn't match up perfectly with the mouth movement, but I heard somewhere that they did that for a reason (no one knows why). The sound effects are done pretty well too, but again, nothing to brag about.

CONTROL:
Oh dear. This is a spot where I think the game falls a little behind. The controls are good, but slow. My biggest problem is cycling through your inventory. You use the square and circle buttons, then press triangle to use or equip that item. It takes a long time, and in the heat of battle, you might already be dead before you can find the weapon you need. Also, there is a button you can hold to roll around. It is really hard to use, one because you have to holds L2 or whatever it is, then press left and right to roll. I would have been better to have made L2 roll left, and R2 roll right. Also, you can't shoot while you are holding the roll button. This is a really big problem because it takes more time to roll, let the buttons go, shoot, and roll again. Besides these things, the control is pretty nice.

ORIGINALITY:
Here is a spot where the game really stands out. Everything from the graphics to the shooting style is very original. I've already talked about the graphics enough, so I will talk about the targeting system. With a gun, you point at an enemy and a little green crosshair appears at the top of the screen. This means you are locked on to the enemy. You can also target two enemies at once if you have two guns. If you sneak up behind an enemy, you can use your quiet weapon to do a stealth kill. You will see a red crosshair telling you that the enemy doesn't know you are there, and you are in range.

FUN METER:
Well, this game is fun, but wow it is hard. I have not wanted to chuck my PS across the room since the days of SNES and early Playstation. I could never get through this game without a strategy guide, and I can still barely get through it. The enemies are hard, unless you have a very big gun, and the bosses are almost unmerciful. On the Kauza Fun-o-Meter, it gets a 8 out of 10. It is just too hard!

LASTING TIME:
Well, there are a bundle of different endings, but besides that, there is not too much here. You might come back to it one and a while, but there is not multiplayer to keep you interested.

Added note:
This game is very adult oriented. It has nudity, bad language, and lots and lots of violence. Not for kids. It is like a Japanese adult cartoon.