GAME REVIEW : F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Xbox 360)

F.E.A.R. 2: PROJECT ORIGIN (Xbox 360)

Developed by Monolith
Published by WB Games

STORY

This was the main problem for me. It's hard for me to review the story. This isn't really the fault of the game, the problem was that I never played a lot of FEAR 1... and this was a direct continuation. What it meant was that I didn't know what was going on a lot of the time! It still managed to intrigue me though, enough to keep playing. The story gets deeper the more you look into it, as you can find Intel to read everywhere (a bit like Doom 3), if you choose to read these, you will get a richer experience... but the storyline is still pretty good.

GRAPHICS

Another difficult one to judge. Often the graphics were absolutely stunning, but sometimes they looked just mediocre. The characters truly blossom here, when you see them up close... they look amazing. Also Alma (the little girl) is suitably gruesome in her rendering... and quite chilling to look at.

The gore effects are great, and of course, very over the top. The lighting system is top notch, the scariest moments in the game are when the lights go out and you start to see things illuminated.

SOUND

The game truly shone here. Extremely creepy atmosphere all around. I couldn't really say anything about the music, because I didn't notice any at all. If there was, it was all ambience tracks, nothing spectacular. The scary sound effects were fantastically done though, made me jump quite a few times. If anything, sometimes it all gets a bit crowded... but that's not going to ruin your experience playing.

The voice acting is really good too. I was surprised to see that Jenna Taylor (the voice actress who does Cortana from Halo) played one of the main characters... she was great as always. As such an avid Halo player though, I found it a little distracting, it felt weird to hear Cortana swearing in my ear all the time!

It's all top notch stuff though, except for the music.

GAMEPLAY

At first, I really hated the gunplay. The aiming seemed a bit slow and clunky for me... I tried to adjust the settings but nothing really helped. I kept at it though. After a while, I learned to love it. The combat system is great, the thing that I needed to get over was the fact that this was a horror shooter, not a game like Halo... and therefore I had to take everything a bit slower.

The real star of the show here is the slow motion, which works perfectly. There is nothing better than clearing a whole room of soldiers in one slow motion burst.

The weapons are all fun, but just seem to be a rehash of everything you've seen before - like the nail gun from Half-Life, or the laser from Unreal. Don't let it put you off though, it's still great fun wielding these beasts around.

As for the main premise - the scares. It was very 50/50 for me. Sometimes the game was very creepy and had a great atmosphere, but it didn't stay like that constantly. Often the game turned into quite a generic shooter which was a bit disappointing. Don't get me wrong though - when the game wants you to be really scared, it can be really creepy indeed. Alma is a great villain, and one that made me not want to go into another dark bathroom with mirror's everywhere...

BEST MOMENT

Some of the set pieces are incredible. The visual moments are out of this world. My favourite is when I was walking along a bridge, and some crows all flew into my face... then overhead with a huge roar, a jumbo jet on fire zoomed past my head and crashed nearby. All I could say was "Whoa..."

There's also a great moment when you are making your way through a subway tunnel, then you realise there are rats everywhere beneath your feet running the other way. Was a great mini moment in my eyes.

STORY

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GRAPHICS

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SOUND

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GAMEPLAY

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OVERALL

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