It takes a whole lot to scare gamers nowadays. Basing a game around a creepy naked girl, like something out of a Japan horror film, should do the trick, but somehow F.E.A.R. 2 falls a little short in the scares department. Thankfully, it delivers just about everywhere else. The game opens just prior to the events that closed the original F.E.A.R. You play as an entirely different character this time around, as part of a separate paranormal unit, looking to arrest Genevieve Aristide, connected with the happenings in the first game. Just as you close in, all hell breaks loose; in nearly literal fashion. The rest of the game turns into your quest to find Aristide. Along the way, you have plenty of opposition in the form of cloned soldiers and paranormal experiments gone-wrong. Then there is Alma, the aforementioned creepy naked girl. It turns out, Alma is the mother of the apocalypse, and the further you play the more apparent it is that she is about to go into 'labor'.
Alma's fascination with your character stems from your paranormal abilities, which she intents on 'absorbing'. There are some nice twists and turns along the way, but the ending is rather disappointing, setting up another obvious sequel. The strewn about collectable intel items fill in the details for those who want more answers, and load screen text makes sure you are never lost in the story. The game's biggest weak point is its unimaginative level design. You blast your way through an apartment building, a hospital, a laboratory, a school, and a subway system, but really only the subway system and underground laboratory look very different from the rest; with those two treading very closely to each other. You trudge from one compartmentalized room to the next, with little distinguishing each passing area. Without an in-game map, you would get lost more often if not for the grainy paranormal flashes and blood trails to follow. The game chooses the claustrophobic feel of bland institutional buildings rather than exploring the deteriorating world outside. The decision would be fine if the game either delivered more scares or at least showed a little more variety in the environments.
There is plenty of movable cover in the game, but without a true cover system hugging your character to it, it only serves as 'stuff' to duck behind. The readily available health packs and armor, not to mention your slow-mo skills, make cover a luxury. F.E.A.R. 2 is more supernatural thriller than survival horror, so it is not exactly out to make you jump with every blind corner. Still, the game does not do enough with the material they have to create a truly scary experience. Alma is definitely creepy, and her unsettling sudden appearing and disappearing act is unsettling. She too rarely jumps at your character, instead ominously keeping her distance. There is the occasional ghost moving through the area, but they mostly just show you where to head next. Some of the more paranormal enemies, like the zombie-puppets, are creepy, but are more fascinating than scary. There are no jumpy moments here, which is a shame with a story so tailor-made for them. The game is a shooter first and a thriller second, which ends up being just fine.
The gameplay itself is a blast, thanks to some fantastically realized weaponry and your slow-motion paranormal abilities. The arsenal is standard at this point, with the exception of the nail gun inspired 'hammerhead' and the late-game energy blaster, but it is the weighty, realistic feel of them that sets them apart. Firing your weapons feels very real, with some definite thought going into each gun's kickback and subsequent accuracy. You can carry four weapons at a time, in addition to some well-varied grenade types, and the steady flow of new weaponry will keep you experimenting until the end. Your upgradeable time-slowing skill comes with its own recharging meter that refills on its own when not in use. Though time alteration is nothing new to games, F.E.A.R. 2 does a nice job rewarding its use with some slick, bloody, and disgusting kills. You move in real-time, while all else around you slows to less than a quarter of normal speed; making it easy to dispatch a handful of enemies at a time.
The game has some nice hit detection and a sick sense of humor. It is entirely possible to blast off limbs with a sniper rifle, or make your enemies disintegrate into a sloppy red mess with a close-up shotgun blast to the chest. The most rewarding kills come in the mech portions of the game, where your turrets can literally slice enemies in half. The mech is a highlight for more than its precision shooting abilities, as it handles incredibly well and has a slick on-screen display; making you long for another as soon as the metallic killing spree ends. The enemies themselves are a bit too often of the 'replica soldier' variety. There are a handful of different variants, each with their own weapons and weaknesses, but the game would be better off delivering more of the paranormal baddies, like the robotic ghost assassins. Though most of the A.I. is great, a few of the replica soldiers are obviously clones of clones; occasionally shooting at random items in the environment instead of you and lacking the ability to throw a grenade anywhere near you.
The online portion of the game adds plenty of additional hours to the experience, with six modes and nine maps. The modes are nothing out of the ordinary, with your standard deathmatch, capture the flag, and control point options. Failsafe is something done before in the Socom franchise, but that most shooters ignore. One team must plant and detonate a bomb at a specific location, while the other team attempts to stop them. Strangely, the game seems to recognize the need for a map for the online modes, providing a constant on-screen mini-map and easily accessible full-screen version with enemy locations. The game is a visual treat, with some great character models and environments, in spite of the industrial look of most levels. The ghost effects look especially convincing, with some nice stylized visuals to convey their movements. Character faces, in the few spots you are with others in your squad, look solid as well. The voice acting is a little underwhelming, but lazy writing, that makes some of the characters talk like an adolescent Samuel L. Jackson, is mostly to blame. The rest of the sound fares better, with some entertaining banter between replica soldiers and the requisite eerie score. F.E.A.R. 2 is a very good game that is just a few scares short of being great.
