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

I always thought that the original F.E.A.R was an outstanding game. The shooting felt solid and the game had a great atmosphere. That’s not saying it didn’t have any issues. The environments felt very repetitive, the enemy design didn’t differ too much throughout the entire game and the characters lacked the personality that would have really made the game stand out. It goes without saying however, especially after playing the demo for F.E.A.R 2 that I was really excited to get my hands on the sequel.

The story in the game is miles ahead of the first one, where you played a nameless “Point Man” part of the original F.E.A.R team. This time your character has a name, and its Sgt. Michael Becket. You basically start the game just before the explosion at the end of the first game, and actually experience those events from your new characters point of view in another location.

Graphically, the game is superior to its predecessor. Unlike it’s older brother, F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin actually has textures, instead of the green, grey and black tiles that covered the uninteresting hallways of the original. The guns look nice as do the character models and the gore effects. The lighting is great and fits the environments perfectly, and I didn’t notice any texture popping or tears.

And the game is genuinely frightening at times. It uses quite a lot of jump scares, but it also utilizes its creepy atmosphere and ambiance to totally immerse the player. However, after seeing Alma 15 million times (might be a slight exaggeration), it stops being frightening when she shows up to crash the party. Still, the game certainly does its job of keeping you ready to jump at the slightest sound. The sound, for the most part is done extremely well. Guns sound how they’re supposed to, and even the replicant soldiers screams sound of slightly better quality than those from the first. There are, however a few issues I found with the sound. Well just one issue, but it happens more than once. For example, I was running around outside of a school being shot at by replicant soldiers. I ran underneath the swing set, expecting the sound of clinking chains, but what I got instead was “thunk thudthudthud thunk”. Other times, I killed an enemy only to have their body get stuck somewhere in the environment, flailing around violently, causing thunking noises and graphical glitches. These moments really took me out of the game. They don’t happen very often, fortunately .

There are plenty of weapons that you can use in the game ranging from your typical assault rifles, to lasers that dice enemies into pieces, to a gun that’s not unlike the BFG from Doom… Fucking AWESOME. Oh and for those of you wondering about that gun you could spear people to the wall with? Yepp, it’s made its most triumphant return. There’s different grenade types as well, including frag, incendiary, shock and proximity mines.

The enemy variety has increased as well. Generally, you will be facing replicant soldiers, but this time around each different soldier class has a much more identifiable uniform to make picking out enemy types much easier during firefights. The ninja assassin guys are back from the first one, as well as a few new creepy creatures.

The shooting mechanics don’t differ too much from the original, other than the fact that the shooting feels more solid. The slow motion power is still there and it’s just as satisfying to shoot an enemy at point blank right in the face with your shotgun. Especially now that the game is much more gory!

F.E.A.R 2 also uses a new cover system. You can knock over tables, carts, hospital beds, almost anything that is large enough to hide behind and use those items as cover. It helps quite a bit during large firefights. HOWEVER, the enemy A.I isn’t exactly stupid. They WILL try and flank you, and they DO utilize the same cover system you can use. You’ll see them knocking over tables and pop machines to avoid being hit by your bullets. Some of the environment is destructible as well. And I say some, because only certain items will actually show any damage when you shoot them. Sometimes, for example, you could shoot one computer monitor and have the screen basically explode. However, only certain monitors explode, where others do not. These are minor annoyances though. That being said, chunks fly out of pillars and pop machines explode when you shoot them. Good enough.

The pacing in the game is handled really well – it isn’t just one huge gun battle from start to finish. It’s usually broken up like this: Explore a bit, get scared and shit your pants, have a super epic gun battle with dozens of replicant soldiers, repeat. However, it’s broken up even further with the power armor sequences. The power armor is basically a walking source of carnage and destruction – it’s a mech that you can pilot to totally annihilate enemies. Controlling the power armor feels great, and has two weapons available. Pretty standard stuff actually – a mini gun and some rockets for the alternate fire. The thing is totally bad ass though.

The game does come packed with a multi-player mode as well. The multi-player stuff is pretty generic, including your typical deathmatch and TDM modes, but also includes Control (basically capture and defend), Armored Front (same as capture and defend, but teams must capture control points in order before the time runs out. Each team also has one Power Armor suit in thier possession.), Blitz (capture the flag) and Fail safe (one team is tasked with planting bombs, while the other has to defuse and otherwise stop them from being detonated.)

The overall package of F.E.A.R 2 is definitely worth checking out, although the single player experience is where it shines brightest. I would recommend giving this one a go, especially if you are a fan of the first game in any capacity. At the very least, rent the damn thing and play through the single player. Unless you’re too chicken, of course.

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