Se o primeiro F.E.A.R já não dava tanto medo assim, aqui abraçaram quase que totalmente a temática de um Call of Duty com só aquela pegada e temática leve de "terror" nesse F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin, que não é nem um pouco um jogo ruim, e não sabia que ele tinha um certo hate quase igual ao terceiro jogo da trilogia quanto ele tem, que é compreensível gostarem mais do primeiro, mas na minha visão, esse jogo é tão bom em história e até melhor quando se trata de fazer ela parecer mais épica e ter fases com mais intensidade e valor quanto as do primeiro jogo, só perdendo para algumas questões relacionadas as mecânicas da Inteligência Artificial dos inimigos, que virou algo bem "COD" mesmo sem tanta identidade quanto antes, e discutivelmente um pouco da sua ambientação, que não sei se renuncio em dizer isso, porque realmente achei o jogo tão de "terror" quanto o anterior e acho que estou só quando digo que gostei mais dele do que do primeiro game (apesar de achar os dois bons em suas devidas proporções).
O começo desse game é basicamente no mesmo momento do final do primeiro jogo, onde Alma é liberta pelo "Harlan Wade", e logo após rola aquela explosão massiva na "Origin Facility", onde vemos na perspectiva do novo protagonista da vez que agora é o Sargento "Michael Becket". Aqui, em questão da estrutura da história, eles fazem basicamente o mesmo que fizeram em relação ao primeiro jogo, apresentam um novo vilão para compartilhar a ameaça com a Alma e ficar no lugar do ameaçador "Paxton Fettel" do primeiro game, que agora em vez de ser alguém que está lado-a-lado com a Alma, é só um general qualquer (Richard Vanek) que pelo que eu entendi está tentando acobertar todo o caso em relação à Alma e seu projeto fracassado de controle nela, eliminando a tudo e a todos com seus agentes clones que já tinham sido estabelecidos e agora estão na mão desse general desse segundo jogo, que sinceramente não chega nem perto da ameaça que o "Paxton" tinha e fica sobrando quando se trata da ameaça principal e marca de toda essa trilogia que é a "Alma Wade", onde desenvolvem ela ainda mais aqui e é obviamente a melhor coisa desse game, tendo um dos finais mais bizarros e confusos que eu já vi (que é meio estranho se você pensar demais mas dá para passar), e muitos momentos épicos e legais em toda a campanha que me fazem valorizar e reconhecer o trabalho que fizeram nesse jogo.
Os gráficos continuam bons até para os dias de hoje, e o jogo novamente é dividido em Intervals (Intervalos), em que nesse aqui, são apenas 7 (em vez de 11 igual no anterior) ao todo. Foi nesse game que apresentaram o tema mais sinistro e macabro dessa trilogia, o da "Alma's Music Box", que meu amigo que trilha marcante e arrepiante, igualmente poderosa há de muitos temas de filmes do gênero de terror que ficam na cabeça por horas e horas, que acho que até usei ela para um dos meus vídeos de terror que eu fazia na época no meu canal, que sinceramente é tão boa que para mim podia ter sido mais usada em toda a história do game. Mas enfim, o único ponto que realmente foi o que "pesou na balança" de muita gente, é o fato de terem caído de cabeça na estrutura de um Call of Duty e perdido ainda mais toda aquela carga de "terror" que "ainda tinha" (mesmo que pouco) no anterior, mas sinceramente, eu acho aceitável a proposta que abordaram nesse aqui pelo fato do primeiro jogo já não parecer e sentir que se considerava um jogo de terror completo e sim com uma pegada disso com ficção científica, tanto que o nível que tive de susto desse para o primeiro jogo foi basicamente o mesmo, de apenas um "jumpscare" que no caso daqui, foi no comecinho do jogo dentro do "APC", e foi isso.
Por fim, como dito acima, acho que o povo pega um pouco pesado com esse game, na minha visão, ele é tão bom e até mais épico com seus eventos do que seu antecessor, sendo para mim, o meu favorito de toda a trilogia. Ok, eu até posso entender que ele "se perde" no conceito de terror, mas ainda sim toda a abordagem dele não fica para trás e consegue se sustentar dentro do que ele se inspirou que foi a de um bom Call of Duty, só que numa pegada leve de terror, fora que, ele desenvolve bem toda a trama da garotinha "Alma" e de como ela é sinistra! Além de que, F.E.A.R, desde o primeiro nunca teve muito do conceito de algo de fato puro de terror como um Silent Hill ou algo do tipo, então essa abordagem foi tão aceitável, nos meus olhos, quanto a que exploraram anteriormente, e a ideia de fases épicas e a progressão divertida de uma para outra me prenderam bem do início ao fim nesse game, até mais que do próprio F.E.A.R 1.
O começo desse game é basicamente no mesmo momento do final do primeiro jogo, onde Alma é liberta pelo "Harlan Wade", e logo após rola aquela explosão massiva na "Origin Facility", onde vemos na perspectiva do novo protagonista da vez que agora é o Sargento "Michael Becket". Aqui, em questão da estrutura da história, eles fazem basicamente o mesmo que fizeram em relação ao primeiro jogo, apresentam um novo vilão para compartilhar a ameaça com a Alma e ficar no lugar do ameaçador "Paxton Fettel" do primeiro game, que agora em vez de ser alguém que está lado-a-lado com a Alma, é só um general qualquer (Richard Vanek) que pelo que eu entendi está tentando acobertar todo o caso em relação à Alma e seu projeto fracassado de controle nela, eliminando a tudo e a todos com seus agentes clones que já tinham sido estabelecidos e agora estão na mão desse general desse segundo jogo, que sinceramente não chega nem perto da ameaça que o "Paxton" tinha e fica sobrando quando se trata da ameaça principal e marca de toda essa trilogia que é a "Alma Wade", onde desenvolvem ela ainda mais aqui e é obviamente a melhor coisa desse game, tendo um dos finais mais bizarros e confusos que eu já vi (que é meio estranho se você pensar demais mas dá para passar), e muitos momentos épicos e legais em toda a campanha que me fazem valorizar e reconhecer o trabalho que fizeram nesse jogo.
Os gráficos continuam bons até para os dias de hoje, e o jogo novamente é dividido em Intervals (Intervalos), em que nesse aqui, são apenas 7 (em vez de 11 igual no anterior) ao todo. Foi nesse game que apresentaram o tema mais sinistro e macabro dessa trilogia, o da "Alma's Music Box", que meu amigo que trilha marcante e arrepiante, igualmente poderosa há de muitos temas de filmes do gênero de terror que ficam na cabeça por horas e horas, que acho que até usei ela para um dos meus vídeos de terror que eu fazia na época no meu canal, que sinceramente é tão boa que para mim podia ter sido mais usada em toda a história do game. Mas enfim, o único ponto que realmente foi o que "pesou na balança" de muita gente, é o fato de terem caído de cabeça na estrutura de um Call of Duty e perdido ainda mais toda aquela carga de "terror" que "ainda tinha" (mesmo que pouco) no anterior, mas sinceramente, eu acho aceitável a proposta que abordaram nesse aqui pelo fato do primeiro jogo já não parecer e sentir que se considerava um jogo de terror completo e sim com uma pegada disso com ficção científica, tanto que o nível que tive de susto desse para o primeiro jogo foi basicamente o mesmo, de apenas um "jumpscare" que no caso daqui, foi no comecinho do jogo dentro do "APC", e foi isso.
Por fim, como dito acima, acho que o povo pega um pouco pesado com esse game, na minha visão, ele é tão bom e até mais épico com seus eventos do que seu antecessor, sendo para mim, o meu favorito de toda a trilogia. Ok, eu até posso entender que ele "se perde" no conceito de terror, mas ainda sim toda a abordagem dele não fica para trás e consegue se sustentar dentro do que ele se inspirou que foi a de um bom Call of Duty, só que numa pegada leve de terror, fora que, ele desenvolve bem toda a trama da garotinha "Alma" e de como ela é sinistra! Além de que, F.E.A.R, desde o primeiro nunca teve muito do conceito de algo de fato puro de terror como um Silent Hill ou algo do tipo, então essa abordagem foi tão aceitável, nos meus olhos, quanto a que exploraram anteriormente, e a ideia de fases épicas e a progressão divertida de uma para outra me prenderam bem do início ao fim nesse game, até mais que do próprio F.E.A.R 1.
a kinda turn your brain off kinda game. nothing really stood out too much to me apart from very sparse and few sections. the ending kinda sucks. the dlc, reborn was pretty short and sweet.
check out the dlc multiplayer maps, they're pretty cute. glad the maps got preserved in some way generally
check out the dlc multiplayer maps, they're pretty cute. glad the maps got preserved in some way generally
I was going to give it a slightly higher rating but the ending was so bad that it singlehandedly took that last point away, FEAR 2 is a demonstration of how to do everything wrong in a sequel. The story sucks, the characters mostly suck (Stokes is okay, the most likable character doesn't get a personality until the literal end of the game), the gunplay is a massive downgrade, leaning is gone which is one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen, there's very little tension at any point in the game (there was exactly one horror-esque scene that really drew me in, everything else was just cheap jump scares, blink and you miss it appearances, or entirely unengaging due to said lack of tension). They added a sprint for some reason and it's useless, you barely go faster and stamina drains so quickly that it's basically pointless to use, audio seems to be massively buggy (glass shattering makes no noise, explosions make no noise, gunfire's often silent which makes finding where you're being shot from a pain), at one point I encountered the "sound acceleration error" that quite literally removed all sound until it randomly fixed itself on a new launch. It suffers from the same poor choice that Perseus Mandate made with combat just being so constant it becomes a drag, enemies seem to die slower than ever, and enemies that made for tense encounters in the past are spammed so much that they might as well be generic fodder.
The only good things I can say about FEAR 2 are that the writing was actually kinda funny at times, and while the gunplay is significantly worse than it was in FEAR + expansions, it's still a bit above average even while feeling completely gimped. This is a very hard game to recommend, even as someone that likes FEAR enough to be forcing myself through parts that I'm thoroughly not enjoying.
The only good things I can say about FEAR 2 are that the writing was actually kinda funny at times, and while the gunplay is significantly worse than it was in FEAR + expansions, it's still a bit above average even while feeling completely gimped. This is a very hard game to recommend, even as someone that likes FEAR enough to be forcing myself through parts that I'm thoroughly not enjoying.
normal mode is literally a gerber baby food commercial and then hard makes you want to tear your skin off, there is no enjoyable way to play this game. and after all of that, this has an ending that's specifically made to have shock value just so this game isn't forgotten in dirt.
The peak of the series, more of the first with more guns and satisfying gameplay. Just shut your brain off and go crazy.
The most unredeemable piece of shit I've ever played. It's like a complete 180 from the last game and is a slap in the face to anyone who likes it. It actually confuses me how much this game sucks.
very nice!
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers for FEAR 2 only discussed at the very bottom. Explicit spoilers for the first FEAR discussed throughout
FEAR 2 may be the most conflicted game I’ve ever played, and I’m not talking about my feelings. Like its numerical title, it genuinely feels like a tale of two devs; those who wanted to remake Half-Life 1 vs those who wanted to follow-up on the original FEAR, and the result is a smorgasbord of unsatisfying elements wrapped up in a well-optimized package. It’s not bad by any means, however, you’d be hardpressed to find a better case study in divisive visions, the story being the prime offender.
See, FEAR 2 acts as a sidepiece to the original game, taking place before, during, and after the nuclear event. And yet, what you’ll quickly realize is just how rehashed everything is: you’ve got a spec ops team sent in to stop an Armachan stooge, the discovery of some sickening corpo experiments, and a quiet protagonist boasting a secret connection to Alma. While such “requels” aren’t inherently lazy (DKC2 is one of the GOAT video games after all), it’s the lackadaisicality here that hampers FEAR 2’s storytelling as rarely have I played a game that wanted to tell a tale yet simultaneously felt annoyed at having to do so (this negative duality going back to what I was saying earlier about clashing goals). There clearly was someone at Monolith who had a grand framework in mind (to the point where Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate were retconned+), only for their idea to get stuffed away for reasons unknown.
If I had to hazard a guess, it was probably because of budgetary concerns as everything about FEAR 2’s yarn is a step down from its predecessor’s. I’m not saying FEAR 1 was perfect; however its dedication to cutscenes and voiced exposition clearly indicated a veritable interest in narrative conveyance. Here, when you’re not being serenaded by the same boring dusty illusion of Alma, you’re treated to forgettable dialogue amidst oodles upon oodles of optional data that should NOT have been optional. I’ve never had an issue with supplementary material expanding upon a game’s mythology, but FEAR 2 takes laziness to new heights by throwing 90% of its explanations and answers into randomized computer files you have to go out of your way to find.
And it’s a shame because, if the info in those PDFs had been orated organically, we could’ve had a riveting sci-fi thriller at our fingertips; you get some genuinely disturbing revelations from a writing team that clearly knew the world they were operating in. As it stands, you’ll be spending the majority of your time following orders like a good little sycophant, a facet made all the more aggravating by Monolith going the silent hero route again. Mute leads are fine in tales where their personality has no bearing on the story; however, that is NOT the case here with main character Beckett, who serves as the impetus for most of Project Origin’s events courtesy of his unusual link to Alma(++). It becomes genuinely frustrating seeing him placed in situations that would warrant a human reaction, only for his silence to undermine the going-ons about you.
If that wasn’t bad enough, FEAR 2 is continuously plagued by the same two plot holes that ravaged its prequels, and no spoiler tags are necessary because these are literally copy/pasted verbatim. For starters, why are there two Almas? Even if I buy the logic that one represents the day her spirit died vs her body, the former should still be that of a teenager, not the 8-year-old girl you catch intermittently. Secondly, and without a doubt the most vexing, how is she simultaneously all-powerful and all-useless? Seriously, throughout the game she’s capable of vaporizing, brainwashing, and tossing humans about like ragdolls (in addition to, you know, generating hordes of the undead), yet you mean to tell me this same demon can somehow be shaken off? I get that omnipotent villains are hard to write, but the way Alma is scripted, it’s as though the developers didn’t even try to be cogent.
To the game’s credit, a couple mysteries from the first FEAR are cleared up here (such as Alma’s backstory and why certain characters have superhuman reflexes), but when it’s all done through discretionary notes, what you’re ultimately left with is a redux of Half-Life. No really, between the stripped-down narrative and pure obedience, it’s evident Project Origin was trying to go the Half-Life route of environmental storytelling over cinematic exposés, and while they are partially-successful (the school being a masterpiece of game design), even this initiative is brought down by the aforementioned budget cuts. Whereas Half-Life took you through a variety of locales ranging from labs to deserts to of course Xen, Project Origin sees you inside a plethora of drabby interiors indifferent from the numerous corridors you’ve witnessed time-and-time-again in other video games. Here’s a fact for you casuals -- when a game throws you into a subway station for an elongated period of time, it’s a sign that the studio was working with limited capital.
Thankfully, it all looks great courtesy of the LithTech Engine, which has seen a massive facelift from the first FEAR. Not only is the texture streaming superb, but the artisans at Monolith took the time to sculpt tiny little details into the majority of simulacra. During the course of my playthrough, for example, I came across the following minutiae: paintings with full-fledged descriptions etched under their frames, magazines with decked-out covers, towel racks with allocated labels, individual student signatures, guitar cases with specialized stickers, and children’s drawings constituting a variety of forms (like dinos and cities) amongst a plethora of other niceties. The amount of effort that went into crafting this setting is phenomenal, and the unsung artists behind such endeavors deserve all their flowers.
That said, be prepared to have your flashlight out 23/7 as this is an overly-dim game. Yes, it’s set in dingy buildings primarily at night, but that was no excuse for things to be this obscure. Even with the brightness turned up, I literally had to leave my torch on just to make out the ground in front of me (I also recommend turning off the film grain and head bobbing lest you procure a case of motion sickness).
When it comes to the gameplay, everyone knows the OG garnered fame for combining Max Payne’s bullet-time mechanic with slick shooting, and that formula’s been largely-translated to the sequel albeit with dumber AI. Those who read my review of FEAR know that I wasn’t the biggest cheerleader of its enemy intelligence, but those guys were definitely a step above the swarms of thugs you’ll encounter here, who display no sense of tactic other than to trade suppressing fire and lob the occasional grenade. Hampering things further is the easier difficulty - in 1, your slowdown was countered by heavier bullet damage; in Project Origin, Beckett is much more durable, allowing you to abuse the system to a greater extent.
Finally, you’ve no doubt heard about the game’s lack of particle anarchy, and that’s definitely true. For better and for worse, this is a much more conventional FPS, and while you still get the odd extravagant effect like pill bottles popping and water surfaces ricocheting, I can’t deny something was lost with the diminishment of the original’s collateral damage (most items shot simply sprouting a bullet hole over exploding).
Sound isn’t the best either, with weapons, in particular, lacking the punch their previous incarnations had. Combine that with indistinguishable collision blasts and repetitive ghost wailing for the supernatural elements and you have a rather tepid soundscape. Still, I’ll take it over the score, which is obnoxious to a fault. When I was playing the game, I remember thinking how intrusive and cacophonous the music sounded, and unfortunately listening to it separately didn’t alleviate this memory as the vast majority of pieces are simply loud melodies. There technically is diversity, with my ear detecting electronica, native vocals, and even a zurna-esque instrument, but all of these additions are directed towards pure bombast instead of something memorable.
What’s particularly bizarre about FEAR 2’s score is the sheer number of tracks it has. The YouTube playlist identifies 80, and while that does include alternatives that didn't make it into the final release, it’s still a significant amount for a game under 8 hours. Heck, I’ve played numerous AAA games with significantly less music, and though it’s not a bad thing to include more tunes, the quality just wasn't there to justify their integration (not to mention I doubt most gamers will hear the lion’s share of them).
With regards to the voice acting, all I’ll say is it’s adequate. No one is especially strong, yet none detract from the experience either. And that’s a great way to describe FEAR 2 as a whole: a fine enough diversion. If you’re looking for an action game that’ll kill 7-8 hours of your time, you can’t go wrong here as the gunplay’s solid, visuals beautiful, and storybeats easy to follow. It’s just a shame the end product doesn’t live up to the potential someone at Monolith clearly hoped it would be, with the narrative being lackluster, Alma pathetic, and the horror elements poorly implemented. The palpable lethargy on display genuinely makes you wonder what happened between 1 and 2’s releases.
NOTES
-One cool sound effect is shooting pianos generates flat keyboard notes.
-For the record, not all the tracks are loud, but even the quieter ones like Return to Lobby and Principal’s Office have a noticeable thumping.
-Just like with the first game, FEAR 2 has its own out-of-place white nerd; Snakefist. Thankfully, he’s nowhere near as annoying as Mapes was.
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SPOILERS
+I naturally find such retcons to be pathetic in general, but what’s strange is it wasn't even necessary. Perseus Mandate focuses on a completely different thread, while the Point Man’s absence in FEAR 2 makes Extraction Point’s events unintrusive. Unless the argument is Alma can’t be in two places at once, I don’t see why Monolith chose to remove the DLCs from continuity.
++Beckett has a high stat called “telesthetic potential,” that makes him attractive to Alma to the point of her wanting to mate with him. It’s a juvenile set-up that isn’t properly explained (or if it was, was done so in the background) -- why does Alma randomly want to procreate when she already has two children out in the world (and can revive phantoms)? Why is it so easy for Beckett to resist her? If Alma is so desperate to copulate with Beckett, why does she let him waltz into dangerous situations instead of dispersing all enemies? How does she even succeed at the end when he manages to activate the machine (and, you know, blatantly doesn’t do the act….do the writers not know how sex works?). I also found it more than a bit creepy to have contrasting images of a naked adult Alma with her younger child version.
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FEAR 2 may be the most conflicted game I’ve ever played, and I’m not talking about my feelings. Like its numerical title, it genuinely feels like a tale of two devs; those who wanted to remake Half-Life 1 vs those who wanted to follow-up on the original FEAR, and the result is a smorgasbord of unsatisfying elements wrapped up in a well-optimized package. It’s not bad by any means, however, you’d be hardpressed to find a better case study in divisive visions, the story being the prime offender.
See, FEAR 2 acts as a sidepiece to the original game, taking place before, during, and after the nuclear event. And yet, what you’ll quickly realize is just how rehashed everything is: you’ve got a spec ops team sent in to stop an Armachan stooge, the discovery of some sickening corpo experiments, and a quiet protagonist boasting a secret connection to Alma. While such “requels” aren’t inherently lazy (DKC2 is one of the GOAT video games after all), it’s the lackadaisicality here that hampers FEAR 2’s storytelling as rarely have I played a game that wanted to tell a tale yet simultaneously felt annoyed at having to do so (this negative duality going back to what I was saying earlier about clashing goals). There clearly was someone at Monolith who had a grand framework in mind (to the point where Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate were retconned+), only for their idea to get stuffed away for reasons unknown.
If I had to hazard a guess, it was probably because of budgetary concerns as everything about FEAR 2’s yarn is a step down from its predecessor’s. I’m not saying FEAR 1 was perfect; however its dedication to cutscenes and voiced exposition clearly indicated a veritable interest in narrative conveyance. Here, when you’re not being serenaded by the same boring dusty illusion of Alma, you’re treated to forgettable dialogue amidst oodles upon oodles of optional data that should NOT have been optional. I’ve never had an issue with supplementary material expanding upon a game’s mythology, but FEAR 2 takes laziness to new heights by throwing 90% of its explanations and answers into randomized computer files you have to go out of your way to find.
And it’s a shame because, if the info in those PDFs had been orated organically, we could’ve had a riveting sci-fi thriller at our fingertips; you get some genuinely disturbing revelations from a writing team that clearly knew the world they were operating in. As it stands, you’ll be spending the majority of your time following orders like a good little sycophant, a facet made all the more aggravating by Monolith going the silent hero route again. Mute leads are fine in tales where their personality has no bearing on the story; however, that is NOT the case here with main character Beckett, who serves as the impetus for most of Project Origin’s events courtesy of his unusual link to Alma(++). It becomes genuinely frustrating seeing him placed in situations that would warrant a human reaction, only for his silence to undermine the going-ons about you.
If that wasn’t bad enough, FEAR 2 is continuously plagued by the same two plot holes that ravaged its prequels, and no spoiler tags are necessary because these are literally copy/pasted verbatim. For starters, why are there two Almas? Even if I buy the logic that one represents the day her spirit died vs her body, the former should still be that of a teenager, not the 8-year-old girl you catch intermittently. Secondly, and without a doubt the most vexing, how is she simultaneously all-powerful and all-useless? Seriously, throughout the game she’s capable of vaporizing, brainwashing, and tossing humans about like ragdolls (in addition to, you know, generating hordes of the undead), yet you mean to tell me this same demon can somehow be shaken off? I get that omnipotent villains are hard to write, but the way Alma is scripted, it’s as though the developers didn’t even try to be cogent.
To the game’s credit, a couple mysteries from the first FEAR are cleared up here (such as Alma’s backstory and why certain characters have superhuman reflexes), but when it’s all done through discretionary notes, what you’re ultimately left with is a redux of Half-Life. No really, between the stripped-down narrative and pure obedience, it’s evident Project Origin was trying to go the Half-Life route of environmental storytelling over cinematic exposés, and while they are partially-successful (the school being a masterpiece of game design), even this initiative is brought down by the aforementioned budget cuts. Whereas Half-Life took you through a variety of locales ranging from labs to deserts to of course Xen, Project Origin sees you inside a plethora of drabby interiors indifferent from the numerous corridors you’ve witnessed time-and-time-again in other video games. Here’s a fact for you casuals -- when a game throws you into a subway station for an elongated period of time, it’s a sign that the studio was working with limited capital.
Thankfully, it all looks great courtesy of the LithTech Engine, which has seen a massive facelift from the first FEAR. Not only is the texture streaming superb, but the artisans at Monolith took the time to sculpt tiny little details into the majority of simulacra. During the course of my playthrough, for example, I came across the following minutiae: paintings with full-fledged descriptions etched under their frames, magazines with decked-out covers, towel racks with allocated labels, individual student signatures, guitar cases with specialized stickers, and children’s drawings constituting a variety of forms (like dinos and cities) amongst a plethora of other niceties. The amount of effort that went into crafting this setting is phenomenal, and the unsung artists behind such endeavors deserve all their flowers.
That said, be prepared to have your flashlight out 23/7 as this is an overly-dim game. Yes, it’s set in dingy buildings primarily at night, but that was no excuse for things to be this obscure. Even with the brightness turned up, I literally had to leave my torch on just to make out the ground in front of me (I also recommend turning off the film grain and head bobbing lest you procure a case of motion sickness).
When it comes to the gameplay, everyone knows the OG garnered fame for combining Max Payne’s bullet-time mechanic with slick shooting, and that formula’s been largely-translated to the sequel albeit with dumber AI. Those who read my review of FEAR know that I wasn’t the biggest cheerleader of its enemy intelligence, but those guys were definitely a step above the swarms of thugs you’ll encounter here, who display no sense of tactic other than to trade suppressing fire and lob the occasional grenade. Hampering things further is the easier difficulty - in 1, your slowdown was countered by heavier bullet damage; in Project Origin, Beckett is much more durable, allowing you to abuse the system to a greater extent.
Finally, you’ve no doubt heard about the game’s lack of particle anarchy, and that’s definitely true. For better and for worse, this is a much more conventional FPS, and while you still get the odd extravagant effect like pill bottles popping and water surfaces ricocheting, I can’t deny something was lost with the diminishment of the original’s collateral damage (most items shot simply sprouting a bullet hole over exploding).
Sound isn’t the best either, with weapons, in particular, lacking the punch their previous incarnations had. Combine that with indistinguishable collision blasts and repetitive ghost wailing for the supernatural elements and you have a rather tepid soundscape. Still, I’ll take it over the score, which is obnoxious to a fault. When I was playing the game, I remember thinking how intrusive and cacophonous the music sounded, and unfortunately listening to it separately didn’t alleviate this memory as the vast majority of pieces are simply loud melodies. There technically is diversity, with my ear detecting electronica, native vocals, and even a zurna-esque instrument, but all of these additions are directed towards pure bombast instead of something memorable.
What’s particularly bizarre about FEAR 2’s score is the sheer number of tracks it has. The YouTube playlist identifies 80, and while that does include alternatives that didn't make it into the final release, it’s still a significant amount for a game under 8 hours. Heck, I’ve played numerous AAA games with significantly less music, and though it’s not a bad thing to include more tunes, the quality just wasn't there to justify their integration (not to mention I doubt most gamers will hear the lion’s share of them).
With regards to the voice acting, all I’ll say is it’s adequate. No one is especially strong, yet none detract from the experience either. And that’s a great way to describe FEAR 2 as a whole: a fine enough diversion. If you’re looking for an action game that’ll kill 7-8 hours of your time, you can’t go wrong here as the gunplay’s solid, visuals beautiful, and storybeats easy to follow. It’s just a shame the end product doesn’t live up to the potential someone at Monolith clearly hoped it would be, with the narrative being lackluster, Alma pathetic, and the horror elements poorly implemented. The palpable lethargy on display genuinely makes you wonder what happened between 1 and 2’s releases.
NOTES
-One cool sound effect is shooting pianos generates flat keyboard notes.
-For the record, not all the tracks are loud, but even the quieter ones like Return to Lobby and Principal’s Office have a noticeable thumping.
-Just like with the first game, FEAR 2 has its own out-of-place white nerd; Snakefist. Thankfully, he’s nowhere near as annoying as Mapes was.
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SPOILERS
+I naturally find such retcons to be pathetic in general, but what’s strange is it wasn't even necessary. Perseus Mandate focuses on a completely different thread, while the Point Man’s absence in FEAR 2 makes Extraction Point’s events unintrusive. Unless the argument is Alma can’t be in two places at once, I don’t see why Monolith chose to remove the DLCs from continuity.
++Beckett has a high stat called “telesthetic potential,” that makes him attractive to Alma to the point of her wanting to mate with him. It’s a juvenile set-up that isn’t properly explained (or if it was, was done so in the background) -- why does Alma randomly want to procreate when she already has two children out in the world (and can revive phantoms)? Why is it so easy for Beckett to resist her? If Alma is so desperate to copulate with Beckett, why does she let him waltz into dangerous situations instead of dispersing all enemies? How does she even succeed at the end when he manages to activate the machine (and, you know, blatantly doesn’t do the act….do the writers not know how sex works?). I also found it more than a bit creepy to have contrasting images of a naked adult Alma with her younger child version.
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Jogo divertido, a gameplay é bem estranha de início, mas dá pra se acostumar. A história é extremamente simples e só se aprofunda mesmo nos coletáveis que tem por aí.
refused to play this game for the majority of my life because of how terrifying it was
This game was crazy and fun and anxiety-inducing and rad all at the same time.
A big regression in everything but presentation. Once again, it's an awkward blend of Horror and Shooter. While gunplay is more finely tuned, it's feel more like a generic corridor shooter from the times of CoD's big boom.
foda-se, é um call of duty com fantasmas
jesus how many game series did i just blindly jump into the sequels of
Weirdly this is the only F.E.A.R. game I've ever played, and I can't really explain how I ended up with this game at the time. None the less, F.E.A.R. 2 is a fantastic game, and does more than enough world building and catch-up dialogue that I never felt left behind for not having played the first game.
Unfortunately though, the ending sequence is fairly problematic by modern standards and makes the game very hard to recommend now.
The quality of the overall experience can't be ignored though, and I had a blast with it at the time.
Unfortunately though, the ending sequence is fairly problematic by modern standards and makes the game very hard to recommend now.
The quality of the overall experience can't be ignored though, and I had a blast with it at the time.
i honestly belive that F.E.A.R 2 is a little overhated, i mean, sure it is inferior to the first game, but you still have a solid gunplay and competent horror aspects, HOWEVER
It's completely understandable why people hate this sequence, devs scarificed core gameplay mechanics from the first game in detriment of following a Cod like shooter, no more lean mechanics, health points is no more, A.I is extremely weak compared to the first game, and we a got an ending that is completely ????????????? Still, gunplay is good, level design is fine and besides 1 or 2 short dumb sections i got no major problems, also, it is a very short game, no more than 6h he campaign.
If you like shooters is defently worth it.
It's completely understandable why people hate this sequence, devs scarificed core gameplay mechanics from the first game in detriment of following a Cod like shooter, no more lean mechanics, health points is no more, A.I is extremely weak compared to the first game, and we a got an ending that is completely ????????????? Still, gunplay is good, level design is fine and besides 1 or 2 short dumb sections i got no major problems, also, it is a very short game, no more than 6h he campaign.
If you like shooters is defently worth it.
I've played it but remember nothing about it, which probably tells you how good it was. The first game is much better.
heavy xbox 360 era vibes
This review contains spoilers
cw: incest, sa
fear 2 is certainly a weird time. there's so many baffling decisions made for this game that just do not work well. I could ramble on about the various issues I have with its combat (they nerfed the shotgun so hard it's barely usable. I chose not to run it.) but none of that really matters to me as much as describing the dumbass ending
at the end of the game you get to the facility holding alma wade the scary LITTLE GIRL running around the first two games. your companion that's been with you the whole game dies unceremoniously, and then alma literally sa's you (the little girl, remember. although they do age her up I guess? she's a fully grown woman when she does this thank god.) and then you like die or something after she becomes impregnated, and it's like what the fuck is even going on anymore.
it's weird, and not in the fun horror game way. there's multiple decisions made with alma in this game that are just creepy. first off, just as a refresher, alma was a little girl who was forcefully impregnated and tortured by her father her entire life. your player character is one of her two sons. so not only does a character who has almost exclusively appeared as a little girl who is also your mom fucking ride you, you then see her with a belly bump and it's just so bizarre. like yup, you came in your mom who was a torture slave her entire life.
it's weird, and it's not at all something you would want to end a game on. sex horror is not something that should be completely off the table, but this felt so needlessly edgy and just stupid. it didn't make me feel uncomfortable or give me that sick to your stomach feeling good horror does. the only emotion it elicited in me was "that was so fucking stupid"
oh, I also forgot to mention, alma, your mom, your rapist, torture and sa victim, who is mainly a little girl, has like fan service in this game? and that might be one of the worst bits of this entire thing. she has two adult forms: gross and 'sexy'. her sexy form gives her a fat ass and a bigger chest. you can argue the ending is supposed to be gross, and maybe that was the initial plan, but giving her a dumptruck ass feels like it's working against that idea, and the ending is supposed to be 'hot'.
this game doesn't upset me, even if this review may seem like it does. it's just so needlessly edgy i had to talk about it. if you wanted a woman monster gamer bros wanted to fuck, that's fine, i'm a monster fucker too. but why make it alma? make a new monster, it's not like the alma stuff is done well here anyway, could have made the game more interesting, certainly less edgy. this game feels like it was written by a 15 year old trying to make something as edgy as possible. the gameplay is mid, the lore is quite honestly moronic, and fear 3 is somehow objectively worse. yippee. fear 1 still fucks though.
fear 2 is certainly a weird time. there's so many baffling decisions made for this game that just do not work well. I could ramble on about the various issues I have with its combat (they nerfed the shotgun so hard it's barely usable. I chose not to run it.) but none of that really matters to me as much as describing the dumbass ending
at the end of the game you get to the facility holding alma wade the scary LITTLE GIRL running around the first two games. your companion that's been with you the whole game dies unceremoniously, and then alma literally sa's you (the little girl, remember. although they do age her up I guess? she's a fully grown woman when she does this thank god.) and then you like die or something after she becomes impregnated, and it's like what the fuck is even going on anymore.
it's weird, and not in the fun horror game way. there's multiple decisions made with alma in this game that are just creepy. first off, just as a refresher, alma was a little girl who was forcefully impregnated and tortured by her father her entire life. your player character is one of her two sons. so not only does a character who has almost exclusively appeared as a little girl who is also your mom fucking ride you, you then see her with a belly bump and it's just so bizarre. like yup, you came in your mom who was a torture slave her entire life.
it's weird, and it's not at all something you would want to end a game on. sex horror is not something that should be completely off the table, but this felt so needlessly edgy and just stupid. it didn't make me feel uncomfortable or give me that sick to your stomach feeling good horror does. the only emotion it elicited in me was "that was so fucking stupid"
oh, I also forgot to mention, alma, your mom, your rapist, torture and sa victim, who is mainly a little girl, has like fan service in this game? and that might be one of the worst bits of this entire thing. she has two adult forms: gross and 'sexy'. her sexy form gives her a fat ass and a bigger chest. you can argue the ending is supposed to be gross, and maybe that was the initial plan, but giving her a dumptruck ass feels like it's working against that idea, and the ending is supposed to be 'hot'.
this game doesn't upset me, even if this review may seem like it does. it's just so needlessly edgy i had to talk about it. if you wanted a woman monster gamer bros wanted to fuck, that's fine, i'm a monster fucker too. but why make it alma? make a new monster, it's not like the alma stuff is done well here anyway, could have made the game more interesting, certainly less edgy. this game feels like it was written by a 15 year old trying to make something as edgy as possible. the gameplay is mid, the lore is quite honestly moronic, and fear 3 is somehow objectively worse. yippee. fear 1 still fucks though.
What happened to FEAR after the first game and its dlc's is remarkably sad. This was a real disappointment you don't get these days with sequels. The story is a complete miss and makes the decision to be a more convoluted action horror game than even the first was. Most enemies return here with not much in the way of new encounters besides using a mech in a glorified turret section. I hope that one day FEAR comes back in a big way but without the mistakes made here and what came next in FEAR 3...
Looks to be pretty much the same as the first one and I found the first one to be mid. Such a pain in the ass that they decided to obligate you to purchase all of them to play one.
Meh
not that great to be honest its just like generic xbox 360 shotter
Nails the 'generic Xbox 360 FPS' vibe. The school level is good though.
Not as good as the first and definitely not as scary, but a very fun and well-polished FPS from its era with a compelling story, good pacing, and excellent weapons, including a badass shotgun that has a frequent tendency to pulverize the bad guys into a red, pasty mess, and one fucked-up ending that's sure to stick with you.
i get shit scared in the hospital
somehow they took everything good in F.E.A.R and made it worse.
Mediocre at best. Everything that made the first F.E.A.R. unique is watered down.
On a positive note, it's still better than the garbage F.E.A.R. 3.
On a positive note, it's still better than the garbage F.E.A.R. 3.
A solid sequel with more of the same as the original, tweaked to almost perfection.
It's been so long since i started playing this game, I began almost immediately after finishing FEAR 1 and the expansions because I just love that game so damn much. While it's almost impossible to top the first game I found Project Origin very good, and I enjoyed it thoroughly while it did some things not to my liking. Some of the sound design for the guns were lackluster but overall, the story, characters, environment and gunplay was great. I think FEAR 2 deserves your attention if you want a badass action FPS with horror elements.