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Source: Gamefreaks -
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Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Genre: First Person Shooter
Publisher: Warner Bros Interactive
Things are *%$@ up during and after the events of the first F.E.A.R and as an elite member of Delta Force you and your team are sent in with the seemingly simple task of extracting a high profile Armacham Director. Bad goes to worse when a menacing supernatural entity turns its attention to you...
Fear 2 is the long awaited follow-up to Monolith's 2005 shooter and it's got its odd real world story to go with it. The developers split with then publishers Vivendi, resulting in Vivendi creating its own expansion packs - Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate; while Monolith went on creating its own sequel without the F.E.A.R. name since those rights stayed with Vivendi. However with the Vivendi-Activision merger, the name rights were sold back to Monolith and here we have the "true" sequel which considers previous expansions to be non-continuality.
Gameplay-wise, the differences between the 2005 shooter and F.E.A.R. 2 are minimal. Instead of the unnamed 'Point Man' protagonist of the first game we're thrown into the role of Delta Force operative Michael Becket in a story line that begins shortly before the climatic events of the first game.
For reasons that are due to secret experiments, manipulative uber corporations (et al you've heard it all before) you're injected with the goods that give you your predecessor's (fate unknown) ability to go into a kind of turbo charged mode. This translates into bullet time, or for the terminology lacking, a Matrix like ability to shoot stuff in slow motion.
The end result is a game of two halves.
One part (the lesser) is a horror; filled with atmospheric music, gloomy environments and sudden shock moments - usually involving said scary little girl Alma. The rest is made up of serviceable, but repetitive, first person shooter action against the replicant (cloned) soldiers, corporation security forces and very, very occasionally against some more supernatural enemies.
That said, the shooting stuff ain't too bad. Your opponents are smart, they'll move objects to form cover, throw grenades, try to outflank you and spot your flash light even though it inevitably results in a slow motion headshot or 12, thanks to your assault rifle.
The fights are spectacular due to the fact that you'll see environments being ripped apart, chunks taken out of concrete, combustible things go boom and foes flipping over in John Woo like inspired physics.
Still the challenge is almost all gone, on the hardest difficulty, dying was rare due to the generous amounts of health packs lying around and naturally the reflex time made the take down of multiple enemies simple even in the most overwhelming situations.
There's also multiplayer. But, well... this is no Halo or Call of Duty. It'll have its fan base but expect, like most online servers, to find largely empty room. This is especially not helped by the absence of some of the game modes from the original F.E.A.R.
Synopsis: A serviceable first person shooter is supplemented by a genuinely spooky horror theme. F.E.A.R fans will find some of the answers to the story of the original game, but the ending is one that blatantly lays the groundwork for a sequel.
This review bought to you by Gamefreaks.
