Release: Jan 10 2009 (US), Jan 13 2009 (UK)
Develop: Monolith
Publisher: Warner Brothers Interactive
Genre: First-person shooter

FEAR 2 is a game with an identity problem.  Since its earliest stages of development – and the whole Vivendi, Monolith, Warner Brothers war over who owns the copyright to the name and who needs to buy what from whom in order to get the sequel made – it hasn’t seemed to have a clear sense of direction.  Inevitably that same lack of direction has found its way into the final product, making it not enough of a shooter to satisfy the FPS crowd and not enough of a horror title to satisfy your fright fans.

We’d recommend that you play through the original again before setting off on this particular adventure, as you’re pretty much expected to know the prior events off by heart.  The story starts just prior to the climax of the first game, putting you in the shoes of a different F.E.A.R. squad making their way through a different location within the game’s setting.  Despite witnessing (from a distance) the mushroom cloud explosion upon which the first game ended, you never really get a sense of why you’re undertaking your set tasks, why the world is the way it is or why you should even care.  It’s a shame, considering how intense and involving the original plot was, that new players will simply have no clue what the hell is going on.

While the story may be difficult to pick up and initially sink your teeth into, the gameplay is quite the opposite; it’s extremely easy to pick up but, sadly, difficult to keep your teeth sunk into.  Everything you’d expect to find on a ‘my first shooter’ list is present and correct; from exploding barrels to health pick ups and that most quintessential of modern first person shooter collectibles, the intel item.  It follows the established rules of the genre much too closely to ever differentiate itself from its vast legion of competitors, and as a result the whole experience feels massively outdated and lacking in anything fresh or new.  In many ways (in terms of its design), considering the numerous innovative features the original bestowed upon us, it feels as though your playing a game made prior to the first.

Despite what the packaging – and various trailers – may suggest, FEAR 2 is heavily focused on combat and its approach to it is traditional in the most stubborn of ways.  The action takes place in a web of corridors, or the occasional street (read: corridor without a roof), with enemies bursting out from behind corners or from small side offices.  You quickly realise that they share the most minimal quantity of brain cells between them, and the challenge (like shooters of old) simply comes from the relatively large numbers that your forced to contend with; on numerous occasions the enemy would take cover on the wrong side of a wall, giving you a completely open shot at their soon to be bullet ridden corpse.

Some elements have been added in an attempt to make it seem that some form of tactics are required in order to succeed, but you soon abandon these in favour of the good old fashioned ’shoot first, think later/never’ style of play.  For example, you have the option of flipping over various objects and ducking behind them for cover.  It’s a pretty decent idea that works to a degree, but it’s never necessary to employ the mechanic because the A.I. just hasn’t been programmed to allow you to engage them using such tactics.

The majority of the game unfolds something like this: burst into corridor, shoot bad guys, kill bad guys, take damage yourself, use health pack, kill more bad guys, pick up new health packs, enter new corridor and repeat.  It would be a lie to say that this style of play wasn’t at least a little fun – because it can be – it’s just that it never really deviates in any meaningful way, quickly becoming an exercise in monotony.  The game does see some change of pace when you need commandeer a heavily armed mechanical ‘RoboCop-style’ suit and wreak havoc on anyone stupid enough to get in your way.  It’s enjoyable to a point but, like the rest of game, lacks a sense of innovation or excitement.

Slow-mo, as in the original, makes an appearance although – once again – it’s not really a tactical device.  Best saved for when you find yourself overwhelmed (although its easy to become overly reliant on it), slow-mo actually serves its purpose pretty well, giving you time to either remove the problem or locate a place to hide from it.  Plus, it is fun to run up to the comically slow moving Neanderthals and blast them into oblivion with a well placed round from your combat shotgun.  In fact, all the weaponry packs a pretty decent punch; it’s just a shame that you never have to think about how best to use your arsenal in a meaningful way.

The combat is interspersed with scary moments that, for their type, are fairly well executed.  They tend to take the form of sudden shocks (things suddenly appearing out of nowhere, for example), as opposed to the constant underlying feeling of dread and unease built up in something like Bioshock, Condemned 2 or the original FEAR.  Don’t take that as a negative though as the frightening moments here serve their purpose of putting you on edge while reminding you that that there is a little more to this world than simply fighting mindless drones through a set of corridors.  In fact, the game could have been significantly improved if these moments were fleshed out a little more, cutting down on the time given up to combat.

Visually FEAR 2 lacks the wow factor of its modern counterparts; Killzone 2, for example, or even COD: World at War which was built on the same engine as a game released over a year ago.  On the surface the graphics are passable and stand up to a certain level of scrutiny, but look a little deeper and you’ll see that the small – but oh-so-important – details haven’t had much attention.  Textures look rough and are repeated ad nauseam throughout the game and things like the blood splatter against various surfaces more resembles something from an early Marvel comic book than a serious, adult shooter.

FEAR 2 is not an altogether disappointing experience; it’s just not a fresh or exciting one either.  It relies much too heavily on the established rules of the genre and as a result doesn’t give you much of a reason to play through until the end; you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve seen it all before, in numerous other games, making it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who has experience with the genre.  That being said, if you’re after something that you simply turn on and not have to invest much effort in then you might want to think about giving it a chance.  It’s more than a little disappointing that we’ve had to wait some four years for a true sequel to a fantastic game and it hasn’t delivered enough of the goods for it to rank alongside the current crop of first-person shooters already on the market.