I have to hand it to PC developers. The platform has been enjoying a sweet renaissance as of late. In fact, it's not that devs are just cranking out good games. They're really hitting them out of the park, with Doom 3, Half Life 2, and what looks like a mega hit, the upcoming first person shooter F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon). Developed by Monolith Productions Inc. (makers of Aliens Vs Predator 2 and No One Lives Forever 2), F.E.A.R. looks like another high quality trek in the darkest depths of evil, and personally, I can't wait to make the trip.

Details concerning the game's single-player component are scarce, but from what I've gathered it's a cross between Aliens, Event Horizon, The Matrix, and The Ring. After a strange paramilitary force invades a multi-billion dollar aerospace compound and holds its inhabitants hostage, the government sends in a special-forces team to defuse the situation. In typical sci-fi movie fashion (and this is where the Aliens/ Event Horizon influence comes in), they lose contact with them, their only clue being a chilling sound that emanates through the speakers. When the video comes back a chilling image has been painted across the screens. Everyone's been slaughtered and lying broken in pools of blood, and there's no clue as to who...or what's... done the damage. Undeterred, the government sends in another team to clean up the mess and take down whoever's running amok over there, and this is where you come in. Armed to the teeth with all sorts of weapons including a shotgun, assault rifle, dual pistols, submachine guns, a nail gun, a plasma rifle, a battle cannon that fires highly explosive shells, and a rocket launcher that blasts not one, not two, but three rockets that perform a beautiful pirouette through the air before detonation, you must stop and take down the ones responsible for the murders...that is...if they're human.

That's about all we know, and believe me when I say I'm extremely frustrated because I desire info! All there is are various screen shots that are strewn about the web, some of which show our hero battling wave after wave of what appear to be humans in military gear, but then there are those "other" shots of the girl, the terrifying pasty-faced female that looks like a cross between the character in films The Ring (Ringu) and The Grudge (Ju-on). She's really the key that's going to unlock the game's secrets because it's her inclusion that makes it unlike anything we've really seen before. There's apparently some supernatural element to F.E.A.R. that hasn't been disclosed, and just the thought of what horrors lie within Monolith's ambitious FPS is enough to make the hairs on my arms stand up. I want to be scared so badly I can taste it.

Since that's about it for the single-player campaign, it's best that we now look at what we do know about F.E.A.R. We know that enemies will feature advanced AI that'll allow them to use actual flanking maneuvers to pin you down, and supposedly there will be "creatures" that'll walk along walls, so there will be a definite threat from above. The game also features vehicles, but whether you'll be able to ride in them is unknown, though there is a spectacular sequence where you're riding in what appears to be an APC and the thing 360s, producing a neat effect, and supposedly you'll be involved in a real-time helicopter crash as well as death-defying car chases.

Judging by the screens as well as the movies floating around the web, F.E.A.R.'s going to be #$%#^%# intense! Visually striking, the game features super realistic textures that are damn near photo realistic and the environments are a nice mix of sci-fi locales, so you'll traverse sterile-looking hallways, more normal-looking and homely offices, and get to go outside. Everything looks gorgeous, even when you tear it all to pieces. All of the glass can be shattered, you can actually tear chunks from the walls and floor as well as kick up dust, and sparks rain down from damaged electrical equipment.

In addition to the game's luscious visuals, I'm also excited about its Havok 2 physics system. Everything reacts as it would in real life, and the guns do some cool effects, but rifles and machine guns aren't the only deadly tools you'll have at your disposal. F.E.A.R. allows you to perform melee attacks and not just whacks with your gun. Not only can you do hand to hand but also jump and kick moves as well.

Like most great first person shooters F.E.A.R. has a robust multiplayer mode chock full of maps. Most of what's going to be offered is standard stuff we've come to know and love (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch), but there's a neat item that, when activated, will slow down the game. All of the players will be affected by this but the one or team that got to the item first will be able to move a bit faster than their opponents.

The slow-mo item isn't available in standard Deathmatch. Rather, it's just included in other multiplayer modes. Whether it'll be adopted by the PC community is yet to be determined, but it's at the very least a different take on the stale online Deathmatch modes we've been mindlessly playing for over a decade.

F.E.A.R. is definitely at the top of my must-buy list. Its awesome physics, gorgeous visuals, and cool weapons are enough to get me salivating, but it's the unknown pieces to its story that really have me interested, the paranormal element that'll be the deciding factor as to whether the game is just another FPS or a stand out title in a league all its own. Releasing this June, F.E.A.R. for the PC should take us all to a new dimension of survival horror.