F.E.A.R. 2

The preview for Fear 2 showed a child’s swing set against a barren background, and vast devastation, conjuring memories of the start to Terminator 2. It ended with the catch phrase, “learn to fear Alma again”, which I thought might be a difficult task as I hadn’t played the first Fear and was thus an inexperienced Alma-fearer. However, it quickly became apparent that I’ve met Alma plenty of times in various movies, TV shows and games, most notably in the Ring, the Grudge, perhaps in the Fatal Frame series… hmm… amazing how much media exposure a spooky little girl in need of a haircut can get. It turns out, though, that said little girl isn’t so little anymore, and in Fear 2 you get to confront all your best Freudian fears of women while intermittently slaying hordes of faceless nameless soldiers and occasionally tromping around in a big suit of power armor. Who knew the psychic apocalypse could be so much fun?

Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Fear 2
Platform: PC
Played For: 8 hours


In Fear 2 you play a telepathically awakened soldier who witnesses a vast Akira-scale city-wide psychic disaster while invading a corporation of dubious merit. The disaster was caused for unknown reasons by Alma, a psychic girl who spent most of her brief existence in the hands of military scientists… i.e. kept in a box and prodded by sharp sticks. Understandably maladjusted, Alma is now a purely psychic entity who commands vast forces of psionic clone soldiers and has a sordid special interest in… you. Hunted by evil paramilitary forces and Alma herself, can you find a way to survive in the destroyed remnants of your devastated city?

Fear 2 is a first person shooter that aims to have a heavy horror movie element. It certainly has plenty of gore, as your character tromps dutifully through the usual hospitals, kindergartens and city ruins full of bloody mess (oh, there’s another eviscerated corpse… roll eyes, sigh.) On the actual fear side, however, the game falls a bit short. A psychiatrist or a feminism theorist would have a field day analyzing Alma, who appears in visions as either a spooky little girl or an old naked crone. Here are male fears of the female form realized… only the pretty 20-something Lt. Stokes is at an acceptable age to be admitted as one of the guys. Amusingly, this theme continues throughout the game… I won’t spoil it for you, but Alma’s ultimate goal is the most fearful thing of all to an adolescent male.

Okay, but enough psychology. Alma also isn’t scary because she doesn’t appear to be very threatening. Other than an unfortunate tendency to jump out at you and try for a quick hug (and blow up the occasional city), Alma mostly wanders around in front of you, leading you this way or that… you get the distinct impression that she’s kind of on your side. By the way, this is a classic FPS, meaning there is one and only one path to traverse throughout the whole game, so if that bothers you, be forewarned. There are a few moments when the lights flicker off and the creep factor is ramped up, but I never felt nervous in the way I did when playing, say, Dead Space or Condemned.

That being said, the game works quite well as an action piece. The level of detail in the environment is, quite frankly, stunning. Every book on every shelf has its own title (and the contents vary depending on the location… medical texts at the hospital, kids’ books at the school, and so on.) Running water, electricity, clouds, dirt, rats… everything is dynamic and realistic, and contributes to the mood. There were a number of times that I had to stop my forward advance and just stare around in awe of the backgrounds, and a number of other times that I had to scramble fast… because something credibly dangerous and surprising was putting my character in immanent danger of being flattened, spindled, or otherwise obliterated.

Having given up PC gaming a long time ago in favor of consoles, it felt strange for me to return to the mouse and keyboard interface (I remember having the same problem when I first switched to consoles… I had been used to the keyboard-mouse for tomb raider, for instance, and using a controller to make Lara to leap over chasms correctly was a special kind of torture.) Regardless, basic functionality was easy to achieve, weapons were easy to use and the variety of bad guys to shoot was very satisfying. Some keys took some reaching… most notably the zoom on the sniper rifle and the grenade key, but overall the action was fast, furious and relatively free of frustration. About those enemies… the animations were great, with special kudos going to the spooky ghosts, the acrobatic test subject critters and the invisible super soldiers.

In addition, there are two levels where you hop into a robot mech suit that was conveniently left lying around (actually, just about any time you need a specialty weapon like the sniper rifle or rocket launcher, you’ll find one nearby. Unrealistic, but it helps to keep things moving in the right direction.) The mecha was a ton of fun, literally. I was particularly impressed by the feeling of weight that the armor conveyed… something that is so often missing from both video game and Hollywood predecessors. I also liked the sound and visual effects as the mecha took damage, pelted with bullets, missiles and lasers from left and right. As your shields drop your view fills with static, and little warning lights start showing up all around your control panel. Piloting the mecha is just the right mix of feeling invulnerable and yet needing to proceed with caution.

Fear 2 is available on both consoles as well as the PC. I played on the PC because Scum is a big fan, and I suspect he’s right that the level of detail on the PC still can’t be matched. However, we had a devil of a time getting the computer to run the game… had to throw a bit of money into both video card and processor and bring things fairly close to top of the line. Nevertheless, if you have a machine that’s impressive enough to run the sucker, it is certainly worth it. In terms of story, game play and setting, there’s nothing really new about Fear 2. But the execution of these tried and true mechanics has never been better, and the story still makes a hell of a lot more sense than your average Hollywood blockbuster these days (I’m talking to you in particular, Star Trek!)

Will I play it more: I think I already forgot my steam log-in info. Drat.