Unfortunately, I don't think too many people (outside of hormone crazed 13 year olds) will share my love for this game. Fear Effect doesn't have the greatest controls or the most inovative gaming idea (basically it is just a slightly different take on the style of game play made popular with Resident Evil), but I think that it remains to this day one of the more entertaining games to play. One neat aspect is that you get to control three different characters throughout the game. This game emphasizes stealth and smarts over just your average shoot-em-up, walk-into-a-room-loaded to-the-teeth and start-blowing-holes in the earth kinda game. There are numerous puzzles involved (none of which take alot of smarts to figure out, but serve their purpose.) The thing that makes the game fun; however, is the storyline, which gets freakier by the minute.

I don't want to deprive you of the fun of playing the game and discovering the twists and intricacies of the plot, but I will anyway. A rich Chineese business man's daughter gets kidnapped. You play the part of a team of mercenaries, who are trying to get the daughter so that you can hold her for between her father and the kidnappers in a bidding war. However, as you play the game you find out that the father made a deal with the devil: his first born daughter for a vast amount of wordly riches. As the game progresses you find that because hell is getting full(?) the devil plans to take the daughter and transform her into a walking spiritual mirror and then release her in the earth. When someone looks at her who is not forgiven of their sin, they see how disgusting they really are and understand how deserving they are of punishment, and this turns them into a sort of zombie-hell-on-earth type of thing.

Oh, but the story gets better. See, you travel down into hell and fight the devil. That's right. You get to kill the devil. You get to kill the devil with a handgun. This last sentance isn't exactly all that believable but I suppose if you were going to go along with it this far then you are willing to accept anything.

But the theology of the game doesn't end there. Many different theological implications arise throughout the game. One of the main character's former 'madame' is actually a demon, possibly symbolizing the obvious evil of the world's oldest proffession. Another theological implication comes when one of the three main characters you control dies, and when you make your descent into hell to kill the devil with your trusty handgun you see him there, in obvious torture. He is furious with you, as he blames you for leading him astray and not telling him that what you were all taking part in would strip him of his salvation and send him to a place like this. Then he tries to kill you. This game is seriously sweet.