Enemy Down

We Have Nothing to Fear but F.E.A.R. 2 Itself

A hasty, bum clenched walk through the demo of F.E.A.R. 2

Posted by Dekko on Jan 31st 2009 21:40

One can roam the overgrown back roads of gaming as much as one likes; you can spend twelve years on an obscure Korean beat 'em up learning each block, counter and throw and never venture out onto the scary, mammoth concrete highways of the mass medium but even then, sometimes, a game comes along that breaks on to one of your moss strewn neglected B roads and makes you slam on the brakes to grab a better view, straining your rubber neck to get a better look at those gosh, darn screenshots.

One game that springs to mind which does just that is Monolith's psychological little red riding hood of a FPS, aka F.E.A.R. 2, obviously the sequel to big PC hit F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon, no less) published by Vivendi which did big business, shifted many units and other '80s big money terms back in ’05 and was later ported by Day 1 Studios to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. A few publishing qualms later and here we are, sequel time.

There was an air of disappointment lingering about the original on its console release as the hype before hand due to its PC success made many cream their jeans prematurely but the game became lost in a busy release period, the Live servers were empty shells where you’d be lucky to see a tumble weed blow past. It’d be something if you’d get a lobby with three people in it but even then they were quiet... too quiet.

We start today with a vol au vont, a demo version of F.E.A.R numero dos which many nations describe as a dazed head wound of a game which takes great joy in making the player redecorate their underwear at choice moments of play by using such tools from the eerie experience tool box as the darkened room swaying with a single, fluttering fluorescent bulb that showcases the smallest area possible letting the shadows play half of the mind games for you as you expectantly edge about the room waiting for a jump which may or may not ever come.

Imagine this supplemented by the random noise generator of doom which has you hearing monsters within the sound of every drip drop of rusty water from a burst overhead pipe or every shattering crash from some badly stacked piece of office furniture as it topples to the ground.

The little sounds play perhaps the biggest part in the games psychological make up; the little snippets of whimpering, laughter or echoes of a little girl crying pay a toll on the players nerves, grated on edge so as to fit in to exactly the place mentally where the devs want you. This game loves surround sound.

If F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin (to give it its full title, as named by the public thanks to a special contest) is a psychological little red riding hood lover then the big bad wolf would be the main 'jump factor' wrapped up within, namely the mysterious little girl in the red dress known as Alma.

She looks like a Japanese horror movie staple, what with the deathly white skin, the long, lank dark as night hair which covers most of the face, all but those burning evil eyes making the game itself feel like a Western action movie which has taken the wrong bus and ended up facing off with The Ring down a dark alley.
 
Alma’s power is a psychological rage, almost Carrie-esque but on a much larger scale which she uses against those who harmed her but this rage threatens to take our reality and replace it with that of Alma’s tortured childhood fantasy hell. Spooky.

Often described as a ‘survival horror first person shooter’ it’s more shooter with a twist of scary than survival horror, a tag which conjures up images of just a pistol with very little ammo which is here inaccurate as you come equipped with a ready arsenal of death designed for the easy evisceration of any near by foe or passing nun.

For the game isn't just there to throw out ghost train scares at your face, hooooo no, the game is in fact a brutal shooter with a love of gun rage and carnage that would make Arnie weep into his late night tipple of Met-Rx.

After seeing a flashback of a pre-hideous death Alma (who only saw eight years of sunlight, apparently) swinging on a tree swing which then all goes very red with lots of quick editing cuts designed to batter the retina of those watching.

Your character emerges from this vision dazed and staggering as if drunk into a world which looks like Mars due to the red colour palette which has been liberally spread about. He staggers from side to side, still seeing flashes of the girl with her teddy bear dangling from her hand. You follow and head toward a bright yellow hole in the ground, jumping inside your view changes as you come back to consciousness in a battered city street, the sky is a swirling, angry red, there is a helicopter which it appears you crashed in lying smashed to bits beside you.

The game, which is set thirty minutes after the huge explosive end of the original, leads you through a hole in a wall of a school which your debonair and hugely attractive character Michael Becket, a Delta Force soldier (not the Point Man who you controlled in the first game) explores, seeing strange apparitions one minute and fighting Replica soldiers the next who you first encounter when you view a patrol from above, dropping down you use your awesome melee powers to overpower the slow witted soldier & thus you have your first bang-bang device. How you managed to beat down this cloned well armed super soldier with but your elbow is debatable.

Throughout the demo you’ll sample an array of weaponry including a Combat Shotgun, an Assault Rifle, a Laser and an RPG. The Pistol doesn’t make an appearance which is a shame as the Pistol in the first game was one of the best side arms to appear in a video game, it felt good to use, weighty almost and you may of picked it for a majority of the time. I did.

The demo shows you a few set pieces. One small moment, in the school the bell rings as if it were end of class, you hear the excited clamor of exiting children but there isn’t anyone there, apart from ghosts. “Relp Raggy!”

Just after that dark spot you clamber down through the schools basement, past the fleeing rats in the sewer and out through a hole in the smashed wall and you realise you are in the subway, or what’s left of it when all of a sudden a train crashes down dramatically, toppling and standing on end.

It’s all very cinematic and the visuals of the game are an improvement over F.E.A.R. 1 with the demo showing off both a grainy, movie style mingling in with the dark corridors and blood smeared walls while the effects such as smoke, fire, debris, swinging lights and shadow all seem to smear a quality make-up over the basic look beneath.

One thing I didn’t like though was the cartoony style of the Replicas when they get hit, a Halo-esque blue shield seems to emanate as your bullets hit, it looks a touch tacky but hey, tons of blood pours out too so it’s not all bad. I hope they lose the look for the finished game and just stick with the gore.

There is also limited destructible scenery, it’s no Stranglehold but it adds to the hectic feeling of firefights while you can up-turn tables or vending machines for cover, sliding over desks in a steroidal Starsky & Hutch style adds to the pace as the game shifts up a gear from the corridors of claustrophobic quiet, fearing each turn to the very next instant where you fly from corner to corner in a frantic shoot out.

And of course F.E.A.R.'s renowned, favourite slow motion effect is again wheeled out for old times sake, alas this time it isn’t as impressive as it once was, it still does the trick it’s just a little ‘old horse’, you can get that old time feeling from a slow mo head shot all the same including a special sniper section, this demo being a smorgasbord of F.E.A.R. game play and weaponry.

One surprise of the demo was seeing a glowing orange orb huddled in a doorway which on closer inspection is a shield which covers a well armed mech suit!

Strapping in, you warm up the twin mini guns mounted on the sides and unleash hell on the waiting evil scum baddies, masonry and glass blowing out everywhere as you let rip the rockets, your lungs burning from screaming in righteous fury.

You step out of the giant mech suit, guns still smoking only to face a Heavy Assault bad ass that, if only you had your suit, you could of bought down but you wasted it on those evil scum baddies didn’t you. Best dive through that window and grab the handily placed RPG.

The demo bodes well for the finished article although I don’t think the game will have the impact of its original as it is a similar experience. You can see the publishers pushing for a quick release due to the likes of Silent Hill, Aliens: Colonial Marines and of course Resident Evil 5 all on the immanent horizon and a repeat of the release of F.E.A.R. 1 into a packed market will be avoided at all costs.

Anyway, this has been a taste of the game and it heralds good things for the sequel and try to ignore it if you like but we gamers, we try and act tough but we care too much not to enthuse about the subject and I think we’ll be enthusing about this game on release.