F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin Review

I was overwhelmed with joy when I first heard that there was going to be a sequel to F.E.A.R, another chance to do battle with Alma and the replica soldiers with their impressive AI routines. Then being lucky enough to get to play the demo while at the GDC in Leipzig just made me salivate with anticipation even more, hungering for more Alma, counting the days till the release of F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin.

So to begin with I feel a little rundown of what's going down in funky town is in order, a snippet of the plot if you will.

You take the role of Michael Becket, humorously nicknamed ‘Bucket' by one of your fellow teammates, part of a Delta Force squad assigned to arrest Genevieve Aristide. This takes place approximately 30 minutes before the finale to the original F.E.A.R at a penthouse complex where Aristide is currently residing. This isn't as simple as it may seem due to Armacham's board of directors holding Genevieve directly responsible for the massacre at the Armacham facility (insert the storyline of F.E.A.R here) and send their own black ops team of mercenaries, lead by a Colonel Vanek, to eliminate the cause of this mistake.

Along the route to the penthouse apartment you uncover some information linking your squad and yourself to a ‘Project Harbinger', which seems to be some sort of screening program designed to create more psychic commanders capable of controlling the replica soldiers as seen with Paxton Fettel in the previous game. After swiftly dispatching the mercenaries and witnessing some Alma induced hallucinations you obtain contact with Aristide herself. She then hastily explains to Becket that his team along with himself are the only way of stopping Alma but unfortunately before she is able to explain how, the reactor at the Origin Facility is detonated courtesy of the F.E.A.R Point Man. Cue you being knocked on your bottom and fading to unconsciousness.

Don't expect to be gently eased into the pace of the game, altercations with Alma interspersed with whipping Vanek's soldiers are thrown at you very soon after disembarking from the APC. Again the impressive AI of the soldiers are evident with them flanking your position, using grenades to flush you out of that little camping spot while overturning the fixtures and fittings to give themselves more cover, all of which makes you work that little bit harder to score the kills.

This however leads me to a little gripe I have with the game. Just what in the name of all things holy are these tables made out of? Seriously these bloody things are bullet proof, indestructible and quick to wipe clean. I'm not kidding; you can throw NATO's entire stockpile of ammunition at the table and it will just remain stationary, mocking you, while keeping the person behind it free from harm. Is it too much to ask for some form of bullet penetration in games these days?

Oh while I'm currently in gripe mode it does appear that the so called mercenaries and replica soldiers are nothing more than Premiership footballers. They can take a few bullets before shuffling off this mortal coil, but should you decide to sprint in and give them a sliding tackle then they fall faster than Klinsmann himself. Highly suspect indeed.

Monolith seem to have paced out the action, what I would term as "Alma Spam", and the eerie tension building silence moments very well indeed, it seems to be all set to keep you on your toes. Now some may say that F.E.A.R is a scary game to play, I have yet to come across a moment in F.E.A.R that genuinely scared me, yes I've been shocked and startled at moments involving Alma but nothing has really scared me enough to say "right, screw you game, I'm not playing anymore".

I had the same experience with Dead Space; the press hyped it with tag lines such as "terrifying nail biting experience" or "the world's scariest game". I beg to differ I wasn't at all scared, startled and shocked yes but again never scared, infact I would go as far to say that Dead Space became predictable and repetitive. The musical accompaniment of the game always changed pace when an inevitable encounter was due, which removes that shock element from the overall atmosphere of the game.

That being said, the developers have gone to some lengths to make sure that F.E.A.R does not fall at the same hurdle other horror games do. They know players are smart enough to know when things are going to happen, such as the music changing like I previously stated. So while playing you'll probably notice that you may have an encounter with Alma while there is no music playing and you're in relative silence thinking that you're reasonably safe, or it may just play with your mind by running a score of tension building melodies that climax to nothing at all. This ensures to keep the overall atmosphere of the game immersive and gripping throughout your play time.

The graphical content of the game delivers somewhat, it may not be groundbreaking but it certainly isn't system crippling like some other titles have been recently. It runs well even on my aging system even in the middle of fire fights so you shouldn't have to worry too much about the spec of your PC for this title. Everything is rendered nicely from the locations of the game down to the weaponry you carry; it all fits into place, even down to the little things some players may not notice such as the menus at the coffee shop along with its suspect "Drink of the Month".

The audio tentatively spoons your ears with melted delight, especially through a surround headset or system. Muffled screams from different directions, the whizzing of bullets screaming past your head, the whispers of Alma infiltrating your very lobes. The voice acting however doesn't appeal to me as much. Don't get me wrong it's not Keanu Reeves wooden; it does actually fit the game adequately, it just really didn't grab me at all. It didn't hinder my enjoyment of the game but nor did it enhance the enjoyment either.

So did you think I was going to get through this review without mentioning the hugely satisfying mechs? Now roll back a number a years, some of you gamers may recall a certain mech based title crafted by the hands of Monolith which in my opinion was greatly underrated. That's right, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, coincidentally it is also the first time we encounter the Armacham name. Could these two games be linked in the future? Or simply just using the name as it suited the F.E.A.R scenario? Who knows but I digress.

The pilotable mechs in F.E.A.R 2, as I said, are hugely satisfying. Sitting in this behemoth of destruction wielding chain guns on either arm with an inexhaustible supply of ammunition, along with shoulder mounted missile launcher gives you the feeling of being indestructible. So your instincts of running amok in the area are justified and the game rewards your destructive cravings with that healthy dollop of carnage. It's just a shame that the mech sections of the game I found were a tad short.

Onto the multiplayer side of things and the first notable change from the original F.E.A.R is that the use of the bullet time mechanics has actually been removed, so I'm sorry F.E.A.R fans, your overpowered move no longer exists.There are six different game modes within MP; you get the obligatory DM and TDM which require no explanation so I shall briefly run through the remaining four modes.

Failsafe is essentially a bomb disposal scenario, akin to the tried and trusted DE maps of CounterStrike fame. 1 person on team A has the bomb, team A's objective is to plant and detonate the bomb at one of two possible locations while team B has to either eliminate team A or defuse the bomb. It's simple and it works well.
Blitz is a strange one for me; it's like a CTF game but with a twist.

You see, one team must defend one of two possible canisters while the other team has the objective to capturing them. The score is determined by the number of successful captures within a set time limit, once this has expired, the respective teams swap roles. It takes a little getting used to an attack/defend style CTF but enjoyable nonetheless.

Finally we have 2 variations of the same game mode, a capture and hold style scenario. Firstly infantry only and 3 nodes in the map itself, hold the nodes to score points, the more nodes held the more points gained, quite simple. The other variation of this mode introduces 2 extra nodes to capture as well as the opportunity to pilot the fairly unstoppable mech as seen in the single player campaign. Now only one of these is available to each team so don't expect a server full of mechs stomping around the map, furthermore the mechs do rip players to shreds literally in a couple of seconds so either grab your sides mech to take down the opponents or gather up and strike from multiple directions with heavy weaponry to take the machine down, which is generally easier said than done.

Another feature of MP is the set point load out screen, essentially every player has a set number of points to use on armour and weapons. Go for heavy armour and you will find the selection of weapons/grenades available to you is quite limited while vice versa, looking to obtain a heavier weapon means sacrificing most or all your armour points to equip the gun in question. This adds a slight tactical element to what load out to choose in which scenario but it's really nothing taxing at all.

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin is not without faults though, for instance the lack of aspect ratio adjustment is a huge blow to PC gamers forcing most to play in a letterbox format, also being able to kill enemies with a sliding tackle, Monolith what were you thinking with this one?

I've encountered limbs from rag dolls get stuck in walls making them shake more wildly than a plate of jelly in an earthquake, those bloody indestructible tables, I really didn't know IKEA were doing a titanium reinforced Kevlar range of furnishings. Also why the hell do I have to log into Gamespy to play online? Is there any particular benefit to this? Oh and where's the console screen Monolith, you should know by now us PC gamers love to tinker around with settings so give us a bloody console to do so.

Along side the above I do also have the following gripes with the game. So to keep it brief I shall just list them as bullet points.

• The autosave feature. I dont wan't this in a PC game, I want to save where I wish, not have the bloody game dictate so. We've had this option since way back in the days of Doom. Quick load, quick save and a handful of hard save slots, is it too much to ask?
•  Lack of support for more than 3 mouse buttons. Epic fail are the only words I feel I am able to use on this matter, especially in this day and age of FPS games. I should not have to remap 2 buttons on my mouse as keyboard functions for a game to utilise all 5 mouse buttons.
• Feels too much like a straight port from the console without any afterthought of the PC market. I dont want constant reminders of what button opens doors or picks up items or switches weapons, I bound the bloody keys for a start, informing me once is sufficient enough thank you!

Nevertheless the problems I faced could, and hopefully will, be fixed in a patch which would earn itself a higher score, yet they don't really deter from the fact that F.E.A.R 2 is a highly respectable game. Game of the year 2009? In all honesty probably not, it will give the other contenders a good run for the money but I don't see it taking the title, but it is worthy of your hard earned pennies and will offer many hours of enjoyment.