(Over)dosing Fear
True to the motto 'better late than never', we bring you the review to 2009's first scary game. Find out inside why this is not just another scary movie.
Published: March 1, 2009
Now let's come to the horror part. The first game had to hear a lot of criticism regarding claustrophobic and unvaried environments. Monolith kept that issue in mind when working on F.E.A.R. 2 ironically somewhat sacrificing a smart tool of creating that tense feeling that made F.E.A.R. so creepy. Now saying that Project Origin isn't scary would simply be a lie and despite some foreseeable and somewhat clichéd scare moments the game does a fantastic job of creating a sense of fear and threat. This however brings me to another point that needs to be addressed: The game starts off really slow. Horror elements aren't as tense in the first quarter or so of the game. Though once you make it past the hospital area the psycho trip really starts to unfold. While it always is more of a mystery title with horror elements, never reaching the intensity of some survival horror games like the in recent history released Dead Space, it does what it intends on doing quite well. You always feel that there is some deep sadness in Alma's appearances, which are timed very well and mostly stand on its own. Combine that with a lot of gore and some really disturbing flashes, images and visions and each encounter with Alma leaves you with a mixture of emotions, fear most definitely being one of them, though not always being the primary one.
While the story itself does a good job of keeping you wanting more and therefore going, the way intel and bits of background information are spread out throughout the levels in the form of readable documents is somewhat outdated and sometimes detracts from the overall mysterious atmosphere. However some folks might like that slow reveal of information.
Something that really is interesting and thoroughly missed in many other games is a smart sense of humor that is spread out throughout bits of dialogue and intel here. Definitely my favorite character is Snake Fist who midway through the game is responsible for one of the smartest, funniest and coolest scenes of the entire game. Don't expect a Metal Gear Solid here, though F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin did a good job of surprising me in the right moments.
The finale itself is a small masterpiece. Not many games can build up this amount of tension, and not many games start off a bit cold, only to climax in a fantastic and mysterious last couple of hours that seem to go by like a flash. Or did they? I actually blasted my way through in under 9 hours on the hardest difficulty, and usually I am the type of gamer that tries to explore everything as much as possible. Even with some frustrating moments where I struggled with the smart enemy AI and kept trying to get through an area over and over again the game didn't feel very long nor very hard. For the hardcore gamer this game definitely borderlines the 'too easy' stamp.
