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F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate

Visuals and Tech Analysis

F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate runs on the Lithtech Jupier EX engine, which is the eighth (or so) incarnation of Monolith's veteran engine. Its features are fairly modern on paper, if not cutting edge: volumetric lighting, soft shadows and Havok physics among others. The advanced DirectX 9 shaders are used to good effect in various post-processing effects, most prominently the horror sequences. F.E.A.R. and its sequels also have DirectX 8 shaders to ensure compatibility with older graphics cards.

Perseus Mandate has some neat lighting effects: swinging point lights cast moving shadows, and nearby explosions cause lights to blink and flash for a while. Dynamic lighting plays a major role in level design, even though the developers drop the ball every now and then with flatly lit, lame scenes. Unfortunately, what's being lit isn't nearly as impressive as the lighting techniques.

The overall look and feel of Perseus Mandate is very dated, with uniform textures covering much of the screen, no variation between individual enemies of the same type, and unconvincing particle effects like fire and smoke. You can damage the environment quite substantially, but only some surfaces are vulnerable to your bullets and the damage lasts only for a few seconds. You can knock loose objects like bottles, computers, dead bodies or even doors around thanks to the Havok physics, but most of the surroundings are monolithic (pardon the pun) and indestructible.

It's dark, moody and gloomy, but at least shadow borders are soft

Automatic "reflex time" makes sure you don't miss the best scripting and effects

YouGamers recommendations

While F.E.A.R.'s system requirements in 2005 were imposing, in 2007 Perseus Mandate runs very well on a mid-end computer. There are some new effects that up the system requirements slightly from the original, but high requirements aren't a barrier for entry. Running the game on the publisher's minimum spec system is complete fantasy, however, as you'd have to run at a tiny resolution and disable all effects including dynamic lighting and shadows, effectively ruining the F.E.A.R. experience; even their recommended specifications fall short of the true mark.

Low graphics settings with DX8 shaders. Not quite playable with the publisher's minimum system

Medium graphics settings: volumetric lighting and shadows give the game that F.E.A.R. look

The game lacks support for the popular 1280 x 1024 resolution, so our YouGamers minimum system is configured to run the game well (average frame rate above 40) at 1280 x 960 resolution using High settings. Fixing one glaring flaw in F.E.A.R., Perseus Mandate supports widescreen resolutions without .ini file hacking, although the game warns that it's not optimized for them (a curious claim, as even the game's field of view changes to accommodate a widescreen display). Our YouGamers recommended system runs the game at 1920 x 1200 at Maximum detail, with incredible ease.

High graphics settings, playable with the YouGamers minimum system. Improved texturing and litter objects make the game's spartan surroundings look a bit nicer

Maximum graphics settings, playable with the YouGamers recommended system. Soft shadows improve image quality significantly

Page 1: IntroductionPage 2: Gameplay and PlotPage 3: Horror theme and MultiplayerPage 4: Visuals and Tech AnalysisPage 5: Conclusion and Final Scores

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