FEAR 2: Project Origin
Think Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon meets any one of those Hollywood remakes of eerie Japanese horror flicks. Yep, FEAR 2 takes no prisoners.
You have to experience FEAR to know why it works. On the surface you have ostensibly a run-of-the-mill game of modern-day soldiers; a first-person-shooter (FPS) that takes place against an urban backdrop. But just as movies Dark Water, The Ring and The Eye go to prove, familiarity of surroundings only makes the paranormal that much more chilling. Thus with adrenaline levels through the roof, you’re good and ready to take up your gun and shoot some spooks.
The original FEAR debuted on PC in 2005, later followed by Xbox 360 and PS3 editions that added robust multiplayer modes. That said FEAR failed to dent the Top 20 most-played games on Xbox LIVE in 2008. Undeterred, publishers Warner Bros and creative team Monolith are forging ahead to reinvent the FEAR brand with Project Origin, released in 13 February for Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3.
We rejoin the First Encounter Assault and Recon (F.E.A.R. get it?) team toward the end of the timeline that encompasses the first game. They’re about to storm the penthouse suite of the brains behind Armacham Technology, Genevieve Aristide. Armacham is responsible for ‘Project Origin’ which gave birth to psychic gone psycho, Alma Wade. Throughout the original game, Alma torments you as a little girl in nightmarish visions projected from her comatose state. At the beginning of FEAR 2 Alma’s fury climaxes in a huge explosion that completely destroys the city of Auburn. So much for the penthouse...
The smoking ruins of Auburn contrast dramatically with the plush indoor setting of the original game. We have a new lead protagonist too, a soldier named Michael Beckett, who you’ll learn more about through interacting with other characters. Non-player (or ‘AI’) characters respond to Beckett’s actions, even commenting on his decisions. The idea is really to immerse you in the role and is very effective.
Gameplay is pure first-person-shooter however and FEAR controls are famously 'involved'. Watching somebody trigger slow-mo effects, dodging bullets while sprinting to perform a melee attack is cool, but trying this yourself takes practice. You’ll enjoy getting the hang of such antics however in order to outsmart the enemy, whose unconventional methods of attack include crawling on the ceiling and re-animating the dead!
Compared to other recent FPS epics such as Halo 3 and Resistance 2, the FEAR series favours close-quarters, highly claustrophobic combat situations. It all adds to the tension. Broadly speaking it seems that FEAR 2 has embraced the same approach. However there is now opportunity to really let loose some of that nervous energy by climbing inside Elite Powered Armour (EPA), essentially a walking tank! If you want to know just how volatile and destructible the new post-apocalyptic environments are in FEAR 2, stomping around in the EPA with its colossal chain gun and rocket salvo soon lets you find out. Really, it’s magnificent.
There can be no denying FEAR 2’s hardcore appeal, but with such grand scale cinematic chaos playing out on screen combined with a seriously spooky narrative we think Project Origin stands a serious chance of taking on the big guns.
FEAR 2: Project Origin is released Friday, 13 February for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC. Look out for the review here on Yahoo! UK Games.
