History YMMV / FirstEncounterAssaultRecon

* PortingDisaster: ''F.E.A.R.'' for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 got a better exclusive weapon than the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 version (an automatic shotgun that didn't sacrifice any of the existing weapon's range or power, rather than a dinky machine pistol that sacrificed power and accuracy for fire rate and capacity, and took over half the spawns of the more useful RPL), but was otherwise an incredibly unrefined and choppy rushjob of a port even compared to the 360 version, which itself had problems compared to the PC original, and was pretty much abandoned after release (the [=PS3=] never even got either expansion). It may have even been partially responsible for the [=PS3=]'s early bad reputation, with several review sites blaming the poor performance of the port on the [=PS3=]'s "inferior" hardware, when in fact the [=PS3=] was the most technically-capable console of that generation and the problem was more in anyone being able to figure out ''how'' to properly take advantage of all that power.

** From the end of ''Perseus Mandate'', there's the Nightcrawler Commander's line about "Betters sending one of his tin men to kill me". He sounds like he's recounting yet another battle with his old nemesis, but it makes no sense in context because Betters and the rest of FEAR [[UnknownRival had no idea the Nightcrawlers existed]] before the events of the expansion -- and that's '''by design'''.

** There's a scene in ''F.E.A.R.'' where you get out of an elevator, walk maybe ten feet away and press a button or two to get the elevator working again. Then you look up and Alma is standing there, between you and said elevator.

* PortingDisaster: ''F.E.A.R.'' for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 got a better exclusive weapon than the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 version (an automatic shotgun that didn't sacrifice any of the existing weapon's range or power, rather than a dinky machine pistol that sacrificed power and accuracy for fire rate and capacity, and took over half the spawns of the more useful RPL), but was otherwise an incredibly unrefined and choppy rushjob of a port even compared to the 360 version, which itself had problems compared to the PC original, and was pretty much abandoned after release (the [=PS3=] never even got either expansion). It may have even been partially responsible for the [=PS3=]'s early bad reputation, with several review sites blaming the poor performance of the port on the [=PS3=]'s "inferior" hardware, despite the [=PS3=] actually being the most technically-capable console of that generation.

* {{Woolseyism}}: In Spain, the in-game meaning of F.E.A.R. was changed from "First Encounter Assault Recon" to the Spanish language translation of "Assault and Reconnaissance Elite Force" in order to keep the acronym. In Russia, it was changed to their translation of "Federal Aggressive Reaction Unit" for the same reason.

* FranchiseKiller: It is widely accepted by now that F.3.A.R. placed the franchise to a near irrecoverable decline due to the controversial change in tone from a survival horror to a co-op FPS, as well as its general ''lack'' of horror elements. But it was the release of F.E.A.R. Online that put the final nail in the coffin, as the idea of a free-to-play multiplayer-only F.E.A.R. game was so out-of-left-field that many fans viewed it as an abomination. Suffice to say, F.E.A.R. Online barely lasted less than a year before it shut down and the franchise has gone quiet ever since.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Though ostensibly set in 2025, the first game is readily identifiable as a 2005 game by several background details. As it tends to be, chief among these is that, in a game where the overwhelming majority of levels are set in the offices and super-secret underground laboratories of a highly-advanced MegaCorp that has created everything from advanced weapon systems and satellites to a psychically-imbued super soldier and a battalion of clones to follow said psychic soldier's commands, exposition is primarily delivered through listening to voicemail messages left on land-line phones or downloading what appear to be text files from very bulky [[ProductPlacement Alienware laptops]], while actual desktop computers are all universally set up with big bulky CRT monitors or flatscreens that are visibly only capable of similar resolutions to those [=CRTs=]. Another big detail is in one of the voicemails left on [[FatBastard Norton Mapes']] phone specifically, where a coworker asks him to tone down the innuendo around another female coworker, but outright claims to not personally care outside of the possibility of said coworker dropping a sexual harassment case that would bring unwanted attention on a secret task force all three of them are part of -- a far cry from the 2020s in reality, where it's a near-daily occurrence of someone losing their job precisely because they knew about sexual harassment going on but chose not to speak up against it.

** Genevieve Aristide and Harlan Wade. Which of these two is worse is up to you. For your consideration: [[spoiler:Harlan was responsible for Alma's forced impregnation - ''and'' was the sperm donor, basically knocking up his own daughter, ''twice''. Then he took both of Alma's children away from her before locking her up in the vault, raised them from birth to be psychic killers, sabotaged the friendship between the two brothers to further the aforementioned goal, and as far as we know, threw one (the Point Man) out to fend for himself when he wasn't successful, while locking the other (Fettel) in essentially a private jail after he went berserk from Alma's influence and killed about a dozen people. Aristide, meanwhile, is your typical PointyHairedBoss taken to sociopathic extremes, completely refusing to accept the blame for any fallout from her boneheaded decisions, listen to more reasonable alternatives (no matter how often she claims to do both) or even learn from previous mistakes, and in fact actively accelerates most of the bad things that happen in the second game in her zeal to recapture Alma just to save her job, no matter how much people much smarter than her insist ''the plan will not work, '''period'''''. And to top it off, she signed off on all of Armacham's atrocities!]]

** The trailers for ''F.E.A.R. 3'' - especially the lines "Mother is expecting again" and "It's not every day we get to meet... a new member of the family", accentuated by the fact that the [[LargeHam voice]] [[ChewingTheScenery over]] sounds like something out of a grindhouse film.
** From the end of ''Perseus Mandate'', there's the Nightcrawler Commander's line about "Betters sending one of his tin men to kill me". He sounds like he's recounting yet another battle with his old nemesis, but it makes no sense in context because Betters and the rest of FEAR [[UnknownRival had no idea the Nightcrawlers existed]] before the events of the expansion - and that's '''by design'''.

** The Vivendi expansion packs are also polarizing. ''Extraction Point'' is generally considered the better of the two - it's buggier, has less subtle scares, a fairly vague and incoherent plot, and is quite short, but does benefit from improved A.I, tighter pacing, more level variety, and some fun new weapons. ''Perseus Mandate'', however, is considered outright bad due to having almost no scares (outside of a few sections later on), a dull enemy faction with [[GenericDoomsdayVillain little personality]], poor level design, and almost no lighting effects, causing what was once a stunning TechDemoGame just a few years prior to wind up looking downright awful.

** The Heavy Armor fought in ''Extraction Point''[='=]s Interval 03 - Terminus is the single most frustrating enemy in the entire game. The high health it has as a Heavy Armor would be bad enough even if he were equipped with a regular weapon like the Penetrator most other Heavy Armors use - no, this one decides to come at you with a MOD-3 multi rocket launcher. Not just any MOD-3, either, but one [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard artificially overpowered]] to the point you're not surviving even the ''splash damage'' of more than a single rocket unless you are at full health and armor. And depending on your weapons, you may be set for a long fight if you try to engage at a safe distance.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Though ostensibly set in 2025, the first game is readily identifiable as a 2005 game by several background details. As it tends to be, chief among these is that, in a game where the overwhelming majority of levels are set in the offices and super-secret underground laboratories of a highly-advanced MegaCorp that has created everything from advanced weapon systems and satellites to a psychically-imbued super soldier and a battalion of clones to follow said psychic soldier's commands, exposition is primarily delivered through listening to voicemail messages left on land-line phones or downloading what appear to be text files from very bulky [[ProductPlacement Alienware laptops]], while actual desktop computers are all universally set up with big bulky CRT monitors or flatscreens that are visibly only capable of similar resolutions to those [=CRTs=]. Another big detail is in one of the voicemails left on [[FatBastard Norton Mapes']] phone specifically, where a coworker asks him to tone down the innuendo around another female coworker, but outright claims to not personally care outside of the possibility of said coworker dropping a sexual harassment case that would bring unwanted attention on a secret task force all three of them are part of - a far cry from the 2020s in reality, where it's a near-daily occurrence of someone losing their job precisely because they knew about sexual harassment going on but chose not to speak up against it.

** The Vivendi expansion packs are also polarizing, ''Extraction Point'' for being buggier, a little too in-your-face with copied-and-pasted scares from the original game to the detriment of the creepy atmosphere, and characters who aren't as well-written, and ''Perseus Mandate'' for having too much action and next to zero tense paranormal moments and a new villainous faction that's a little too over-the-top to take seriously.

* IdiotPlot:
** Half of the disastrous events of the games could have been avoided if not for the awful business decisions taken by Armacham's heads. They aren't even sure they have complete control over the psychics they are cultivating, yet they still ditch any further research and instead invest millions on a project based on an application of the psychics' abilities that is both counterintuitive[[note]]using an available RealityWarper's bloodline to psychically control an army of cloned yet conventional gunmen while keeping aware of everything happening in their area of operations is not only kind of commercially underwhelming, but also pretty impractical, as you could achieve the same results with modern communication systems[[/note]] and dangerous[[note]]gunmen were chosen over telepaths/telekinetics for being easier to control in case of a full-scale revolt, but it becomes a moot point when their numbers are so large - they have enough Replica for a full thousand-man battalion - that they're equally as unmanageable[[/note]]. The result is, of course, a project that gets completely out of hand at the first trouble for even a MegaCorp like them.
** It doesn't help either that the ''other'' half of the disastrous events are caused by Armacham being firmly entrenched in the idea of [[KickTheDog being as morally reprehensible as humanly possible]], often [[ForTheEvulz for no particular reason other than because they can]], thus necessitating they [[CavalryBetrayal immediately turn on the people they themselves called for help]] once they show the slightest bit of difficulty in dealing with the uprising, lest that help immediately uncover the ''several other'' terrible things Armacham has done and take it to the US government.

** Genevieve Aristide and Harlan Wade. Which of these two is worse is up to you. For your consideration: [[spoiler:Harlan was responsible for Alma's forced impregnation - ''and'' was the sperm donor, basically knocking up his own daughter, ''twice''. Then he took both of Alma's children away from her before locking her up in the vault, raised them from birth to be psychic killers, and as far as we know, threw one (the Point Man) out to fend for himself when he wasn't successful, while locking the other (Fettel) in essentially a private jail after he went berserk from Alma's influence and killed about a dozen people. Aristide, meanwhile, is your typical PointyHairedBoss taken to sociopathic extremes, completely refusing to accept the blame for any fallout from her boneheaded decisions, listen to more reasonable alternatives (no matter how often she claims to do both) or even learn from previous mistakes, and in fact actively accelerates most of the bad things that happen in the second game in her zeal to recapture Alma just to save her job, no matter how much people much smarter than her insist ''the plan will not work, '''period''''']].

* UncannyValley:
** One review of the first game noted that, while the graphics were impressive, the characters more closely resembled plastic dolls than real people.
** ATC troops in the first and second games do not change their facial expressions, even when getting shot or torn to pieces by psychic horrors. This may be why the ATC troops in the third game were all rendered with balaclavas to hide their faces (and most other enemies to show their faces in the second were ''intended'' to give an uncanny-valley impression).

* FirstInstallmentWins: The first game and its expansions remain the most respected in the series by both fans and critics. ''Project Origin'' has a small but dedicated fanbase for its dark themes and storytelling, but it's nowhere near the size of the first, and the less said about the third game, the better.

* FoeYay: Becket and [[spoiler:Alma]].

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Stokes asks Snake Fist who Alma is. Snake Fist replies "She's the mother of the apocalypse!", an amusingly unhelpful description that becomes somewhat less amusing in light of the game's ending.

* FirstInstallmentWins: The first game remains the most respected in the series by both fans and critics. ''Project Origin'' has a small but dedicated fanbase for its dark themes and storytelling, but it's nowhere near the size of the first, and the less said about the third game, the better.

* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: If there's one generally agreed reason to play F.3.A.R. It's that it does manage to satisfyingly wrap up the overarching plot of the series.

* ContestedSequel: ''Project Origin'' is perhaps the most divisive game in the series, what with most debates revolving around how [[ToughActToFollow it lives up to the first game.]] Fans of the game say it's a worthy follow up primarily for It's dark story and how the gameplay manages to capture the energetic feel of the first game. Detractors on the other hand dislike the changes made to the gameplay that made the game feel too similar to [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks other FPS games at the time]] as well as how the [[ActionizedSequel increase in action]] (such as the addition of sections where you take control of a mech suit) takes away from the horror. Most do agree however that it is a better game than F.3.A.R.

* ContestedSequel: ''Project Origin'' is perhaps the most divisive game in the series, what with most debates revolving around how [[ToughActToFollow it lives up to the first game.]] Fans of the game say its a worthy follow up primarily for It's dark story and how the gameplay manages to capture the energetic feel of the first game. Detractors on the other hand dislike the changes made to the gameplay that made the game feel too similar to [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks other FPS games at the time]] as well as how the [[ActionizedSequel increase in action]] (Such as the addition of a mech suit) takes away from the horror. Most do agree however that it is a better game than F.3.A.R.

** It's also rare to find someone who doesn't hold onto the pistols for as long as possible for several reasons: they're [[PunchPackingPistol powerful]] and accurate enough for the vast majority of situations, with [[GunsAkimbo finding a second one]] granting no downsides other than a slightly slower reload, it has ''the'' best ammo-pickup rate (giving you three magazines for every one you pick up) in return for not being dropped by enemies, and as a semi-auto weapon its fire rate increases when you use it during Slow-Mo, which makes it capable of incredibly quick damage per-second.