F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

[kuddles]

I already posted some of my thoughts in the thread for the last podcast, but I might as well do it here.

I understand why the reviews are kind of lacklustre. It just feels like more FEAR, and more refined at it, but nothing dramatically different or new about it. I will say I appreciate Monolith’s approach to level design, though, as other then Valve, I can’t think of another developer who keeps the rails part of a linear shooter well-hidden (i.e. environmental clues as to where to go next instead of glowing arrows or something, like a trail of blood or other doors being blocked).

Combat is still as fun as ever, and this one is “scarier” in that it maintains a creepy atmosphere better, similar to Condemned. I think part of the reason is the spooky stuff is better integrated, as in you get split-second surprises out of the blue instead of obvious sequences. It hasn’t made me jump the way Dead Space did at times, though. I agree that's it's on the easy side

It's surprisingly easy, which is fun for the ridiculous shooty-shooty stuff, but also a bit of a cakewalk. I know "the game was totally meant to be played on hard" tends to be a typical thing for dorks to insist on pretty much every FPS under the sun, but I rarely play games above the Normal setting and even I found it pretty well.

I agree that it does feel a little consoley in it’s design, although I guess I should count my blessings. I’ve been putting off playing Condemned 2 on my 360, but the chance of a PC version is looking incredibly slim now that over a year has passed and no news has come forth.

All in all, a good solid game, and I enjoyed it as a nice traditional shooter with good pacing. Despite the over-scripted parts as Chris Remo mentioned, it still is significantly less scripted then the majority of games, letting me enjoy the majority of it on my own instead of constantly having glowing highlights telling me where to go next and what to do. And as much as I wish Monolith FPS games that weren't dark and gritty also sold well, it still manages to be a breath of fresh air since I'm not walking around brown and grey battlefields with inspired steroid-infused assholes as my comrades.

And yet I'm still kind of disappointed so far as to how little has changed. As I said above, more satisfying then a lot of it's peers, but I expected something that took it to the next level, not something that was more of the same but slightly improved. If it was anyone other than Monolith making this game, I probably would be much happier with it.

[beanman101283]

I enjoyed it for the most part. I never got the feeling that the AI was cleverly hunting me down like I did in the first FEAR, but the combat and slomo stuff was still fun. My biggest complaint is that it didn't really advance the story at all. Like Condemned 2, it spent more time fleshing out the story of the first game than doing anything new.

[MonkeyWrench]

To be fair though, the original story did need fleshing out quite a bit

As for the AI, I agree for the most part, but it was still a cut above and there were a couple of moments that really did impress me. One was after leaving the subway section where one of the replicants, running for cover, opened a car door and took up position.

[MonkeyWrench]

Anyone tried this online? I had a few games last night and it wasn't great, the lag was excruciating. The lobby was showing fair to decent connections for everyone, but in game they were teleporting all over the place...the last time I encountered that was playing Quake World on a 56kps dial-up! Definitely won't be playing it again any time soon.

[kuddles]

If you're playing the PC version, then I believe it. I hate to ring the "traditional PC gaming is dying" bell, but the fact that most PC versions of shooters don't even bother to have dedicated servers running for them is quite distressing.

[MonkeyWrench]

Nope, the 360 version here. It seems like the network rating you see in the lobby isn't representative of the players connection. Normally you might see the odd person lagging, flitting around the place, but it was literally everyone in the game. First thought would be that it's my connection (8mb), but I've not had problems with any other games.