Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
Warner Bros Interactive

Price: £49.99 Players: 1; system link: 2-16; online multiplayer: 2-16 Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: Yes (optional) HDTV: 720p/1080i/1080p Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: Yes Vote and comment on this film: View Comments F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin starts, unlike any other game sequel I've played before... a short time prior to the ending of the previous one. Which, I'll be honest, I didn't know at first since I never got to the end of the first one (shame on me, I know, but time constraints and all that) even though it was an absolute corker. Basically, the plot is that the entire city of Auburn has been torn apart by a supernatural explosion. Who's to blame? Oh, that sweet and innocent little ol' Alma, the girl who looks like something from that Audrey Rose film which was freaky as hell in places and this title can be a little bit on the scary side too. With chaos abound, you'd think the best thing to do would be to send in a crack elite squad, led by you, Sgt Beckett, such as the one you're in, to find out the problem and stop Alma and all the shenanigans that's going on before it gets any more devastating... so why are their enemy forces ready to blast you into next week too? No idea, but it does make for a wonderful experience as you'll see from the footage.

F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 01 Premonition: Sanctuary Part 1 I do love a good first-person shooter and this is a highly entertaining one, for sure. Even if you're not into the supernatural side of it a great deal, you can get by without worrying about that too much as long as you just realise that a whole heap of crazy shit is going on, and that most of the time you can just get away with shooting, throwing grenades and having a blast. However, along the way as you sneak round corners looking for the next fire fight, strange hallucinations will appear before you, sometimes to end a scene and sometimes as brief flashes in front of you. What is incredibly impressive is how it looks and plays out. F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin contains the right amount of detail to set the scene, allowing for clever lighting, nice touches like brilliant glass shattering, splinter and gun effects and just look at enemy bodies as they continue to shake after being shot to death, as if the blood is still pumping around for a while. Lovely!

F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 01 Premonition: Sanctuary Part 2 The sound is loud and proud and kicks major ass in Dolby Digital 5.1 options, and when it comes to gameplay I particualrly liked the ability to do a Max Payne and slomo the enemies for a brief time, but there's too much to do to press buttons, or even a combo of them at times. Aiming is rather an odd thing to fathom out as you can zoom in on your scope with the left trigger, but to lock-on to an enemy you need to release and tap it. However, if they're dashing about and you haven't even zoomed-in already because you're trying to look where you're going, it just won't work in that way. Another example is that some weapons have adjustable fire rate: highlight the weapon and press the right stick left or right to switch the fire mode. More than once I got mixed up between the buttons for crouch, run, change weapon, grenade... and ended up pressing the wrong one so I threw a grenade at the wall right in front of me. Perhaps I'm just not adept at pressing so many buttons at once but so you will die frequently when starting out!

F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 02 Isolation: Awakening Part 1 Overall, while F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin doesn't try for anything original other than the paranormal angle and the fact that it's nowhere near as inventive as, say, Half Life 2, it's still entertaining all the same if you're into first-person shooters. I will say, though, that after a few hours of gameplay in one sitting, too many dark and gloomy places starts to do your head in so you can have too much of a good thing. You can pick up pieces of intel along the way, but these are really just collectable items that don't hinder you progressing through the levels if you don't get them. They flesh out the story, but they slow things down a bit and I really just wanted to continue with the action. You'll notice from the clips here that I've not appeared to have collected much of these, but it was the second or third time I played through the levels, by which time I'd collected most of the ones I was going to find.

F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 02 Isolation: Discovery Part 1 If I had any other niggles, it would be that the game follows a fairly linear path. For example, at one point I was given a new objective - "Find a morgue keycard"... Oh, there's one on a already-dead body in the next room. Hmmm... That said, I'm looking forward to working my way through it and when you die the load times are really fast to get you back in the game and it really is cool, great fun and it really gave me the heebee-jeebies when Alma appeared out out of nowhere in one place on level 1, just staring at me from whichever angle I approached her. The reason you won't see that here is because it only happened the first time I played the level. Weird! Alma's rather a mystery, but she IS bad news! If I had to sum this up, it's really just a very spooky first-person-shooter, which makes a nice break from the norm and is strong enough to keep your enjoyment levels maintained so it's well worth taking a trip through the F.E.A.R. In this review, I've uploaded a number of clips which are as follows: F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 01 Premonition: Sanctuary Part 1 F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 01 Premonition: Sanctuary Part 2 F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 02 Isolation: Awakening Part 1 F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 02 Isolation: Awakening Part 2 F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 02 Isolation: Discovery Part 1 F.E.A.R. 2 Interval 02 Isolation: Discovery Part 2 Visit my DVDfeverGames Youtube channel.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.