F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin

7.5

Format PlayStation 3

Developer Monolith

Publisher Unknown

Genre First Person Shooter

13 Comments

Are you looking forward to when the missus goes to bed? So you can turn out the lights and sit in your pants, on your own in a dark room ready to be scared silly by F.E.A.R. 2? If you are, you're in for a bit of a letdown. We've been spooked more by a kitten.

To be honest they should have called it M.I.L.D.L.Y U.N.N.E.R.V.I.N.G 2 because it's just not scary. It tries to position itself as a horror game but it's a crime to put this in the same category as pant-fillers like Dead Space or Siren.

Dive into F.E.A.R. 2 expecting to be freaked out and you'll be sorely disappointed. Don't expect much of a storyline either.

Did we understand, care for or even remember what happened in F.E.A.R 2? Not really, but we were left with a taste of psychic powers, some ghosts, and a nuclear bomb that wipes out an entire city in our mouths. Remember Alma? The demonic-looking woman/girl. She again appears here and there to trip you out but it never makes you feel uncomfortable.

So it's not a horror game, or a captivating narrative experience. But Project Origin IS worth playing. Because, despite all the exterior horror-themed guff that marketing people have attached to it, F.E.A.R. 2 is a bloody satisfying FPS.

For what it lacks in intrigue and scares, it makes up for in raw, shooting joy. It's like it achieves what EA's Black did - fun with guns. When you pull the trigger, your speakers let out an earthy rumble and your enemies get ruined. We like that.

The sound and accuracy of the guns, the ridiculously excessive gushing blood and the physics behind the enemies' reactions to your bullets combine with the game's slow-mo mechanic to form FUN. If someone gets too close when you're holding a shotgun, one blast transforms them into bloody chunks.

	F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 2:23  Direct feed gameplay footage DEBUG - skip to curtain Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again.. Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 2:23  Direct feed gameplay footage F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 2:23  Direct feed gameplay footage                                                                                                             DEBUG - State:  Status: skip to curtain Now playing More videos Share this   Now playing More videos Share this   Email this video to your friends Enter your friends' email addresses below, one per line. This functionality is currently disabled. Embed this video into your own page Copy & paste the HTML code below into your own web page or blog. <iframe src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090214204617if_/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/video_embed.php?id=2343" width="418" height="378" border="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 2:23  Direct feed gameplay footage Now playing More videos Share this

There's an emphasis on using grenades too. The normal Frag grenade is always a favourite, but incinerator grenades torch everyone around, making enemies prance about as the flames burn through flesh. Not a pretty way to go.

Stun grenades explode into bolts of electricity that paralyse - not so needed against normal drones, but when the game starts throwing giant mechs with ridiculously large gun turrets at you, a stun grenade (or five) is a godsend.

Fours hours in and you'll still be shouting "EAT IT" out of sheer satisfaction as one of your slow-mo shotgun blasts just obliterates an enemy soldier.

The environments have a say too. You can flip tables and vending machines to create cover, and each room is full of objects that go flying when grenades go bang.

Now, the first game was a pretty satisfying shooter in that sense too, but it was hindered by an almost relentlessly repetitive grey office-block setting. This sequel is far more varied in its choice of environments.

There are sinister-looking laboratories, a wrecked, post nuclear city environment with ashes raining from the sky and char-grilled civilians littering the streets, futuristic scientific installations with strange machinery - and that's just the opening few levels.

What's great about F.E.A.R. 2, as with the original, is that the enemy AI is able to make use of the environment as effectively as you do.

You'll often see them moving scenery about themselves, ducking into cover and spreading out as they work in co-operation with each other.

It's not long either until you encounter the game's more threatening foes. There's this little goblin-like thing that scurries along walls with such agility and ferocity that it's tough to shoot without slow-mo powers. And there are deadlier beasties later - we won't ruin it for you.

It's not particularly challenging (we ran through the normal mode without many problems at all) but it's so much fun shooting stuff you won't care.

	F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 0:59  Heading into hell... DEBUG - skip to curtain Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again.. Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 0:59  Heading into hell... F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 0:59  Heading into hell...                                                                                                             DEBUG - State:  Status: skip to curtain Now playing More videos Share this   Now playing More videos Share this   Email this video to your friends Enter your friends' email addresses below, one per line. This functionality is currently disabled. Embed this video into your own page Copy & paste the HTML code below into your own web page or blog. <iframe src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090214204617if_/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/video_embed.php?id=2344" width="418" height="378" border="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin 0:59  Heading into hell... Now playing More videos Share this

And it has an exploratory element to it too because, as well as data recordings that expand and explain the game's storyline, the levels are packed with chemical shots that permanently enhance your health and slow-mo powers, so you'll be nosing around every dark corner and through every one of its impressively detailed rooms to find everything you can.

Shift over to multiplayer and all the bullet time, horror game malarkey goes out the window. Instead it sticks to the traditional multiplayer trends, with nine fairly-sized maps, a standard death match mode, along with a Battlefield-style outpost capture mode, called Armored Front here.

It's not the most inspiring of multiplayer efforts and it won't have you putting down CoD 4, anyway. It's worth a pop if you fancy something more hard-hitting than Activision's realistic offering.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin dresses itself up like an edgy, scary, sinister horror of epic proportions. But under the surface it's a solid FPS with a good weapon set, clever physics, ample gore and Matrix-style slow-motion.

Mike Jackson