F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin Single-Player Hands-on

Specters, remnants, and inhuman specimens; just another day at the office.

It's not often that a game can raise your hackles, but there were certainly instances of the hair being raised on the back of my head while playing F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin at Monolith last month. I was busy playing the single-player campaign, battling my way through a deserted elementary school when I encountered the specters. Suddenly, the lights went out, and the only illumination came from their ghostly flicker and the muzzle flash of my gun. But it was the sound of them that made me shudder. Maybe it was the oversized headphones, but the combination of the dark and the inhuman sound actually gave me a creepy vibe.

It's been more than three years since Monolith unleashed the original F.E.A.R. on the world, and with the sequel, the developer is looking to ramp up the action and the spook factor. I got a chance to play through several levels of the game to get a feel for what's in store. You play as Michael Beckett, a member of a military commando squad that's caught up in the explosion that destroyed the city of Auburn in F.E.A.R. Much of the game deals with the aftermath of the blast, which was both nuclear and paranormal in nature. The ruins of the city are crawling with mercenary troops as well as clone soldiers, and then there's the really weird stuff, like the schoolgirl-turned-psychic death machine named Alma.

It's payback time, oh yes.

One of the reasons the demo jumped between so many different levels is that Monolith wanted to show off the variety that's now in the game. If the original F.E.A.R. had one issue, it was that the environments and enemies rarely changed. You fought either in deserted industrial settings, or deserted office settings. And you fought identical clone soldier after identical clone soldier. So from the get go, there's a battle atop a condominium tower against mercenaries. Then we skipped forward to the gutted streets of Auburn where we got to climb into a giant suit of power armor and mow down the opposition with chain guns and missiles. Then the elementary school turned into a paranormal haunted house; it looks just like your elementary school, only it has a crashed helicopter in the middle of it, as well as a poltergeist or two. Finally, there was a level inside a secret military facility, which may be the oldest cliché in the book, but it's still well done here, with a particularly awesome climactic moment which I won't spoil.

Along with the specters and the soldiers, I also battled one of the game's remnants. This one manifested itself as a music teacher at the school, tickling the ivories of the piano. He looked normal, but when you approach him he goes off the hook, using his psychic powers to animate dead bodies to battle you and unleashing psychic screams that disorient you. He's also as nimble as a ninja, which makes it a challenge to hunt him down.

Is thing a Ring reference?

Speaking of ninjas, those who loved the high-tech, invisible ninjas of the first-game won't be disappointed. They make a memorable entrance in F.E.A.R. 2 and you'll have fun getting your butt knocked around a bit by these guys. They move so quickly that the only way to deal with them is to kick in your superfast reflexes to enable the bullet-time slow motion and unload into them. There's also a new enemy that's sure to creep you out: specimens. These are human cadaver experiments gone horribly awry. They have the wall-climbing abilities of spiders, as well as heads and limbs that are attached to their torsos in ways that are all completely off. There's an entire lab full of them that you have to battle.

This all comes to life in convincing fashion thanks to the graphics engine, which has been drastically overhauled. Many of the paranormal elements rely on advanced shader effects to deliver visual effects that seem otherworldly; it's not just enough to simply turn the lights off anymore. The sound is also top-notch, as I alluded to with the spectral moaning, but there are plenty of other creepy sounds, too, like the noise those specimens make. And there's plenty of solid voice acting, including a turn by everyone's favorite first-person shooter voice actress, Jen Taylor of Halo and Left 4 Dead fame.

Monolith and parent company Warner Bros. Interactive are certainly making a big push for F.E.A.R. 2, but this looks like a top-notch sequel. Enough time has passed that there's new technology and storytelling elements built into the game, so this shouldn't feel like recycled material. Hopefully the story delivers more answers than questions, and maybe it's not too much to hope for a happy ending this time around? Or, at least one that's not completely depressing.

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