[Mechanical R]

Mech goes head to head with Alma to show you there’s nothing to F.E.A.R.

Unfortunately FEAR 2 takes a lot from FEAR 1, almost so much that there very hard to tell apart. You, part of a team of do gooders are sent out to take out the head of a the corporation Armacham when you soon discover you and your team are in fact unwillingly apart of a project Armacham are performing, complete with bioengineering and super abilities, an ordeal which seems a little too familiar to Fear 1, or other games for that matter.

We see our team put against a telepathically controlled army, controlled by, that little girl everyone’s grown to run away from, Alma. You soon learn that she’s after you, and she’s not very happy.

You’ll follow with your team, yet as usual end up splitting up, ultimately ending in each team mate being finished off as you progress leading you up to just you and Alma getting up close and personal.

The game sees you take a path through the partially destroyed city in which the first game ended in; your travels take you through a rather limited amount of scenery which occasionally seem to blend together. There’s about 3 levels to each setting, making a lot of your treks quite a drag, and also a little hard to distinguish what your actually doing or trying to get to.

If you haven’t played FEAR before, then you won’t be overwhelmed with much else in the game. Its levels are very linear and set out through a series of levels all close to each other, a few levels are stretched out over each setting and it’s pretty much run in and shoot your way out throughout.

The game uses a bullet time mode to allow you to gain an ‘upper hand’ on your foes however you can use the so much it almost takes the fun out of the shooting. It regenerates enough for you to see out a fair amount of enemies quickly with just the tap of the Y button.

Fear 2 chops up the shooting game play with…ok more shooting game play; however this time were in giant mechanical robots. You’ll then get the opportunity to let rip with full control of the robot, sadly, the time you get to spend in these is only around 10-15 minutes worth, and there spaced out badly throughout the main game making it more of just one other way of getting across the street.

Now, is F.E.A.R. 2 scary? Short answer. No.

Long answer, Fear is well known for it’s over the top gore, with walls covered in blood, with more body parts lying around than socks in a teenager’s room, but the game just doesn’t scare. There are segments within a few of the levels in which your flash light is your friend, one being the school section featured in the demo, but these parts are far and few between, the game now has the infamous yet widely despised live action button sequences usually when an enemy or Alma (yeah, Alma has a go at you this time) gets up in your face to try and give you the spooks.

Unfortunately, something overlooked from FEAR 1 was the scary set pieces in which say entering a new room would trigger something scary too happen, again like its predecessor, it required you to be actually looking at something in particular. If your lucky, you would be, but a lot of the time, you’d be looking elsewhere only to hear a classic horror shriek, only to turn around and miss the part of the piece that was supposed to scare you.

Again whilst not pushing the boundaries in FPS visuals what it does is keep up the standard in, the settings admittedly don’t vary much from laboratories to darkened corridors but what it does it does well to create a suitable atmosphere to keep you gunning.

Until things go quiet later in the you won’t really notice much noise, besides your typical gun fire and explosions the game won’t always give you a massive experience in the audio department, make your way through to the school

The game won’t last you very long. It’s a very straight forward point A to B style of game and its very easy to become lost in how fast your progressing through, as until you completely leave an area by advancing a few levels, everything can look the same.

Whilst the 2 expansion packs which came out after FEAR were poor and story wise should be ignored, FEAR 2 unfortunately doesn’t stand out in a redeeming sequel to the franchise, its story plot has no closure and only opens yet more questions with a rather blunt yet short ending sequence. It also was quite annoying for me personally to see how a Lt. of your team could be outwitted and killed by a corporate lackey as the game reached its climax, it just felt like a poor Deus ex machina to clean out the rest of the loose ends and make things less complicated.

Its fall backs on being a scary game also but the theres games out currently that do it better, now that a lot of the darker sections are clumped up together rather than strung out, making a few sections scary, but nothing to invoke you to take a box of underwear to the counter when you purchase F.E.A.R. 2

Rating 6.4

[Corporal Kitty]

The one thing that got me aliitle jumpy was those ghosts......dead space was supposed to be scarry too.

Bring on Resi!!!!

*post*

Neon