FEAR 2: Project Origin Review
Still scary a second time round?
By AXIS of Reality
©2009 Alex Baldwin
FEAR 2 received a lot of unintentional publicity early in production as developer Monolith split with the publisher of FEAR 1, Vivendi. While this happens frequently as studios switch publishers, in this case Vivendi still maintained ownership rights to the name FEAR despite the work already started by Monolith of a sequel, hastily renamed Project Origin.
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While that’s all done and sorted with the FEAR name being returned to Monolith to make FEAR 2: Project Origin, since then there’s been little notice taken of FEAR 2 alongside juggernauts (which incidentally are also sequels) like Gears of War 2, Halo Wars and Killzone 2. Now that’s it’s quietly snuck in before the heavyweights, how does Project Origin stack up?
Before answering that question, a reminder of what made the original so special that the obvious flaws could be overlooked. Fusing western first-person-shooter combat with Japanese-inspired horror scares and ‘visions’ (who doesn’t remember the hallways of blood?). Throughout the convoluted storyline the player was stalked by a ghostly girl later identified as Alma.
Despite the incredibly blocky level design and repetitious environments, the game made a name for itself through the heavy use of slow-motion ‘bullet time’ combined with some of the smartest enemy AI ever. The more psychological horror aspects were also a change from the usual zombies and monsters of western horror.
Already five paragraphs in a not a word of how FEAR 2 plays. Well, on almost every account it is an improvement on the original. The AI is smarter with enemies ducking for cover and reacting to explosions. The slow-motion is back and now enemies even glow blue in this mode for quickly seeing the edge of adversaries hiding behind cover. But most of all, the levels have a lot more variety.
While still distinctly corridor-based, open areas make an appearance as well as several large setpieces to spice things up. The design of the levels feels significantly more organic though the game could stand to lose a few doors with some areas having almost as many doors to open as enemies to put down.
From a visual front, FEAR 2 is a mixed bag. Certain environments are fairly basic while others have beautiful lighting and some of the enemies in particular posses incredible special effects. One of the more inventive are invisible ninja soldiers that appear as a hazy glow before shooting them distorts the air in hexagons as electricity sparks from the partially malfunctioning camoflague.
Their electrical attacks blast your helmet-based HUD (heads-up-display) with static and the world washes out in sparking blues, whites and blacks that actually makes the game appear better than it really looks. Fire is the only real letdown, looking worse than FEAR 1 as it’s degraded to just overly glowing orange blobs. However, the ghosts in the game look great as they appear to smear across your sight as you look around in an unsettling but effective manner.
Speaking of ghosts, I have to admit the game has lost some of what made it FEAR. The scares are very lacking, with most predictable and boring. There were only 2 points in the game I actually felt any sense of dread, and both came quite early on.
The supernatural visions are more confusing than frightening with no apparent build up or reason for many of the supernatural interruptions to the gunplay. The story in general does little to string the game together with an overuse ‘intel documents’ to pick up (think Bioshock’s audio tapes) that don’t add anything significant to the experience.
It’s good then that the firefights still work so well. Action is fast and furious until a touch of the reflex button to slow the action down into a ballet of death. There’s little variety of enemies, but the AI makes up for it. The sections where the player pilots a walking mech suit also provide a good change of pace as the focus is on pure destruction despite the massive departure from the more claustrophic corridors of the ‘scary’ sections. In the end the action more than makes up for the less successful horror elements.
Multiplayer barely needs a mention. It’s your usual FPS fare, with nothing to really make it stand out but good for a go if you need a break from Gears of War 2 or Call of Duty.
To go back to the first question of this review, Project Origin does indeed stack up well. While not a competitor in quality some of the other massive releases coming soon there is no doubt FEAR 2 is a quality game that deserves at least a rent. In the coming months of the usual mid-year game drought, remember to take a look at a game that will inevitably be swept under in the tide of mega releases. It might just keep you occupied until the Christmas onslaught.
©2009 Alex Baldwin
“8.5/10
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin media
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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | F.E.A.R., FEAR 2, Fear 2 reviews, Monolith, OXCGN, Project Origin, Project Origin review, review, Vivendi Studios, Xbox 360
To me the current issue seems more about how the rating correlates to each game genre.
The FPS genre is extremely competitive at the moment with scores below 9 branding games as mediocre in the public’s eye. However, there has been a very positive response to Star Ocean: The Last Hope betting 8/10 average as this is seen as great for a JRPG.
I’m inclined to write an article on the issue now…..
There’s commentator on Game Grep that sees the game as a “mehh and only gives it a 8.5 . . . ONLY 8.5/10, as if it’s some bad thing to hang around the neck of the developers for putting out such a terrible game.
Mehh level games are 3 – 5/10, not 8.5/10. This is the very thing I mean by the rating system being totally devalued from what iot was intended to be.
If you followed the rule of thumb for “current” ratings where 8.5/10 is “average or just mehhh etc, then where the hell does 5 rate, if it rates at all.
It’s a sad sad day when 8.5/10 is brandished around as a poor score. Gamers of the last few generations really have no idea of what gaming is like and where it has come from. They have entered on the coattails of seasoned gamers and game developers who have been around for many years, and worked their way up from 8 – 16 bit games that todays gamers would laugh at . . .
Yet it’s through this ‘process’ that the developers have grown and made even better games. However, the current gaming generations, especially the last 2, are making it exceptionally hard for any developer or distributor to even consider promoting or developing a game.
If half of them knew the costs associated with bringing in ONE game to this country, then they’d sit back and eat humble pie. And, most distributors can not just take on one really good AAA title.
The contract will stipulate they must also buy 2 or 3 other titles and support them to their full capacity. An example is Sega’s recent Sonic Australia promotional costs were $AU450k which the distributor must shell out before getting a cent on any returns.
So when they see how the buying public shy away from perfectly good (read great) titles simply because they have a “terrible” 8.5/10 rating, they just simply do not bother, and move to a AAA sequel that is assured of a return even with lower ratings.
Well said Grant.
The most important part of a review is the actual text after all. The number at the end is a quick summary of how good a game the points raised in the text make.
@ Segmentnext, on February 28th, 2009 at 6:38 am Said: Edit Comment
Low rating, good lord . .
Our highest rating ever is 9.8/10 as we believe there’s very few games that warrant or deserve a full 10/10 – ever – never.
This is the problem with many gamers these day, especially the two current newer generations coming in since 2005. They see rating at 8 or 8.5 as “low” or unacceptable, when in fact, out of /10, that’s an amazing score.
It’s now affecting developers as they go through their games, some of them excellent titles btw, and eliminate them because they believe that their Metacritic score will be below 8.5/10, and thus not sell as desired.
Games need to fall back the the ‘normal ratings’ where:-
• 2- 3/10 Were Lower level terrible games and are given to games that should never have been made, but were and your really should do yourself a favour and not waste your money on them.
• 3-5/10 Is an “Heeehhhh – it’s okayish”, but buy it at you own risk if you really want to, but don’t expect much
• 5 – 6/10 was “Average” and worth getting if you’re simply after some fluff and casual fun . .
• 6-7.5 is Great game, well worth grabbing and playing and one that will deliver a solid amount of gameplay.
• 8 – 8.5/10 are games that are Excellent, a definite cut above the rest and well worth shelling out on as keepers for anyones’ collection.
• 9 – 9.8/10 are for those games that Excel in almost all areas and are the games that would make it into the GOTY awards on any sites listing.
You only have to look through well researched and respected magazines to see that games scoring 7 etc are common, and are games that some sites wrongly label 9 and above, simply to win over the reader. Whereas 7/10 or 7.5/10 is still a damn fine game worth having.
In effect, gamers of today are making a rod for their on back, and will suffer for it by game developers culling off games that really need to be made if innovation and change is to be had.
If you knew some of the games that both THQ and Eidos and Atari have trashed you’d be crying in your hands right now, as they were “excellent” games, but focus studies showed they would ONLY get a 8.8/10 . . now that is down right scary to think that we miss out on games that used be classified as brilliant, all because the “current perception” of ratings is over inflated.
8.5/10 isn’t a low rating at all!
FEAR 2 is a great game I had a lot of fun with. It will probably be overlooked buy the masses due to the release of Killzone 2, Halo Wars, SF4 and RE5 but it’s definitely worth getting.
Speaking generally, FEAR 2 is a very solid and enjoyable FPS but it doesn’t excel in any particular area to push it to a 9/10.
Agree with the fact that Fear 2 is a redesigned and improved model of Original Fear and I am kind of confused about the rating system we have got here and the fact that fear 2 got low rating…. but u can say i am being biased as the long term fear fan that might explain the reason why i cant find flaws in the game that can’t be overlooked
Haha interesting title suggestion for FEAR 3!
To tell you the truth though I’d much rather have a Condemned 3 – I’ve found them to be the best horror titles of this generation for pure scare-factor.
Dead Space was a great game, but really it was only really scary near the beginning.
Well the guys from Dead Space are busy beavering away at Dante’s Peak, so expect a similar experience from thatwhen it ships later in the year.
I agree with you, I enjoyed this game imensley even though it got a wee bit samey near the middle, i thought it was gonna be a game breaker for me, but things eventually pulled out as I hit the prison level, and i never really looked back. All we can do is wait for FEAR 3: A one Parent familys nightmare ( my own personal working title) lol