GameSpy Review of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

Monolith's never been a company to play it safe. There was 1998's Shogo, one of the first full-polygon shooters, alternating between on-foot and mecha combat. The No One Lives Forever games took a risky approach by injecting wit into an otherwise no-nonsense genre. And then there was 2005's F.E.A.R., a more mature shooter with a story that aspired to "Sixth Sense"-levels of mysteries and twists, rare for any FPS.





So it's somewhat surprising to see Monolith pull the reins back a bit with F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. It's basically a refinement of the first game, with improved graphics, better pacing and the same outstanding combat, filled with slow-mo firefights and spectacular explosions. But it's clearly less risky, with a more straightforward story and not much new in the gameplay department. So what you end up with is an enjoyable trip through familiar territory, even if it's not quite as memorable as the first.





F.E.A.R. 2 picks up right before the end of the first game. You take on the new perspective of Sgt. Michael Becket, part of a Delta squad sent into a city that's become a war zone. It started when experimental cloned soldiers created by the Armacham Technology Corporation went rogue, resulting in their black ops troops trying to shut everything down and erase any evidence of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, there's the psychic image of Alma, the creepy little girl at the center of the experiments, creating her own unique brand of destruction left and right. Your first task is to snatch a key Armacham exec before ATC can get to her, but when half the city is nuked in the explosion that ended the first game, you're knocked unconscious. Things only get worse when you wake up in a deserted and blood-spattered hospital.










The F.E.A.R. formula remains unchanged here: Most of the time it's one fight after another, either with ATC troops or Replica soldiers. The ninja-like assassins return for brief visits, and there's the occasional pseudo-boss fight with an elite unit or two. In between, Becket is continually haunted by wacked-out visions of Alma, who's stalking Becket for reasons that become clearer as the game progresses. As in the first game, the visions are often used for shock effect, with Alma appearing out of nowhere to scare the pants off you. Scattered throughout the game are media discs, which is the main way F.E.A.R. 2 tells its backstory, whether it's about your new team or Armacham or Alma.





Compared to the first game's, F.E.A.R. 2's story ends up feeling rather bland. The locations may change, whether it's an elementary school or an abandoned nuclear reactor, but you're ultimately just escaping one secret research facility to visit two others. The first game got away with this because of the personal story that revealed Alma's past (as well as your own), but here, Becket's backstory feels like too convenient a justification as to why Alma's haunting him and why he has all the same abilities as the first game's lead character. In fact, considering that the original character's whereabouts remain a mystery the entire game, the introduction of a new team feels unnecessary and forced. (I can't help but wonder how much the split between Monolith and Vivendi following the release of F.E.A.R. is to blame.) The most memorable moment comes in the final frames, and while it casts some of the story in a new light, even that feels a little gimmicky in service of setting up another sequel.





The good news is that F.E.A.R. 2's combat is consistently satisfying. It all revolves around your character's "slow-mo" ability, where you can slow down the world in brief spurts and run circles around squads of enemies. Most of this combat takes place in semi-open spaces, like a circuit of rooms where enemies might loop around to flank you. Proper use of the slow-mo ability defuses a lot of the danger, allowing you to just sit back and enjoy the scenery as stuff blows up. And that's really where most of the fun with F.E.A.R. 2 comes from: Run into a room, activate slow-mo, and wreck the joint.

















The upgraded graphics also play a big part in F.E.A.R. 2's winning formula. As before, slo-mo bullets carve out tracer paths through the air, debris kicks up in slow motion, and grenades create a warp effect when they explode. Enemies often have air tanks conveniently strapped to their backs that you can shoot to send them flipping through the air. A large chunk of the game takes place in a location where ATC soldiers are setting demolition charges to take down the building, which is just another excuse to give you something to blow up. Add in dynamic lights and shadowing effects and every fight turns into an awesome fireworks display.





One slight improvement over the original F.E.A.R. is the overall pacing. A large part of the first game took place at Armacham headquarters, and it eventually got tedious running through similar-looking rooms and maintenance passages for several hours straight -- in fact, it was the game's biggest weakness. F.E.A.R. 2 wisely doesn't overcompensate by sending you globetrotting to ice and desert scenarios, but it does change location more frequently, and also adds special events to spice things up, like dealing with the head of Armacham's black ops squad or briefly driving a giant mech around city streets. There are a few set pieces leading up to the ending, which is definitely different from the rest of the game, but Monolith wisely avoids making things overcomplicated or tedious.





On our test PCs, F.E.A.R. 2 ran perfectly. Back in 2005, you needed a beefy machine to turn up all the details and max out the resolution on F.E.A.R., but even with the graphical upgrade, we played through all of F.E.A.R. 2 at 1920x1080 using a GeForce 8800GTX without any framerate drops. The Xbox 360 version doesn't look quite as sharp, but still looks outstanding in its own right. (At press time, we had not tested the PS3 version; we'll be posting that review with specific notes for that version later this week).










F.E.A.R. 2 also contains several multiplayer modes, focusing mostly on teamplay: team deathmatch, capture-and-hold, a Capture the Flag variant, and so on. In each of these modes, you can choose a loadout of weapons and items by allocating a set amount of points, which is a basic way of customizing your own character class of sorts. Of the various modes, "Armored Front" probably has the best chance of catching on, which involves custom maps built around the three-story armored EPA mech walkers. But in an age where you have games with the depth of Team Fortress 2 or the addictive unlockables of the recent Call of Duty games, F.E.A.R. 2's multiplayer feels like a brief diversion at best.





I'm extremely curious to see how gamers react to F.E.A.R. 2. Personally, I felt the first game was somewhat unappreciated, and maybe Monolith agreed, opting to churn out a near-identical game with hopes of getting more attention this time around. For shooter fans, the combat is still outstanding, and you'll get a great eight hours or so by the time you reach your final encounter with Alma, although fans of the first game may feel like they've done this before. In many ways, F.E.A.R. 2 feels like the middle chapter in a trilogy, and there's certainly enough momentum here for at least one more run.

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