FEAR 2: Project Origin discussion

[Peptuck]

Wow, some more light industrial/abandoned buildings!

The majority of the game takes place within Spoiler

a penthouse, a hospital, an elementary school, ruined city streets, and a number of Armacham facilities.

Surprisingly little light industrial/abandoned buildings, unless you count the ruined ones from the explosion.

I can't wait to see the ludicriously huge underground nuclear bunker this time.

Spoiler

There's four of them. Two are linked by a massive underground tram system.

Yeah, that shit is ridiculous. Armacham apparently has more resources than a third-world country, too.

[Stark]

Yeah I've only seen the demo of FEAR2, so I don't know what the level design is like for the whole game; it certainly didn't make me want to bother with another incoherent story packed with contrivances to justify the 'not very' scary shit.

[Peptuck]

There's still a lot of corridor combat, but also a lot of open-ground battle too. A lot more variety than there was in the first FEAR (which honestly never bothered me much). The only two areas that seem to drag on in terms of samey-corridor length are the hospital and the elementary school. There's a few alterations to the scenarios (battle on the back of the tram, manning the APC turret, manning the power armor, etc)

Weapons balance is a bit iffy. Campaign-wise, the assault rifle is pretty much your go-to weapon, alongside the submachinegun. Those two can kill everything you meet pretty well. Pack a missile launcher for armored threats, which are more common than in the first FEAR but not that much. There's a lot fewer of the Heavy Armor troops, too, and they're not as annoying to kill. I'm extremely annoyed that the Napalm Cannon sees so little use, and the laser and energy cannon burn through their ammo too fast.

Enemy variety is sorta the same. ATC troops and Replicas are essentially pallete-swapped versions of each other (former uses submachineguns and combat shotguns, latter uses assault rifles and automatic shotguns) but they switch out often enough that they're different enough to not be as bland as the "all-Replica-all-the-time" you get in FEAR. There's more combat with Power Armor, and Alma's ghosts pop up a lot more (and are much, much scarier this time around) Every now and then the game hits you with surprises, like Replica snipers, Abominations, and the Remnants. There's a lot more Assassins this time around, too.

Horror scenes are hit-or-miss, depending on what tickles your scary bone. This game does a better job with atmosphere (the elementary school is a piece of genius, IMHO) than its predecessor. Some of the setpieces have little to no buildup, while others have a great deal of buildup. Alma's attacks will sometimes come out of nowhere, and this time around she can and will kill you.

An especially creepy and very subtle bit is Spoiler

in the elementary school, where you've been finding all these doors blocked off by stacked desks and the like. Except the ATC goons have been using welding torces, not stacked barricades. And then you realize Alma is the one setting up these barricades, and then you begin to wonder whether she's doing it to protect Becket or to herd him, and oh jeez, the paranioa....

The plot itself isn't the same as the first FEAR game, and is a lot more straightforward. Without spoiling anything, bad shit is happening, and you have to escape, survive, and kill Alma, in that order. Alma herself is the real meat of the game, and the game does a great job setting her up and fleshing her out without giving a whole lot away. She's a primal, horrible, powerful force but is very sympathetic at the same time.

The game does have a twist at the end, but its not as obvious as it was in FEAR. The last ten minutes of the game are a real mindfuck.

I haven't played the demo, so I have no idea how that stacks up compared to the actual game itself.

[Stark]

Some random person just called something in a video game a 'mindfuck'.

I'm pleased they included the school level which has been de riguer in 'horror' games since well before Silent Hill, however. I tremble at the very thought of the outrageous plot nonsense they try to feed you THERE.

There's only one important question however - does the protaganist persist in never, ever reporting any of the mission-critical and astounding and relevant things that he sees?

[Stark]

EDIT - Oh Peptuck you gave me a huge laugh indirectly; the only thing funnier than a 'mindfuck' ending that's only confusing because the writing is so poor is hordes of retards on the internet speculating about it. Did you know that Beckett is pointman? It's irrelevant that this is impossible! Oh dear.

[Ford Prefect]

I can't wait to see the ludicriously huge underground nuclear bunker this time.

I have to say that I actually smiled when it turned out that the hospital you tool around in for ages is actually inside a giant nuclear bunker.

[TheMuffinKing]

I'm yet to have a chance to play - but apparently there are references to Condemned in there. Can we get a cross-over game now?

What would it add? A protaganist who can slow down time for no reason, thus making the game laughably easy? A bunch of not-scary things? More clumsy attempts at psychological horror like in Condemned 2?

If you crossed the FIRST FEAR game with the FIRST Condemned, you could have something interesting (wierd magic ninjas under the ground destroying human civilisation from within while a team of four guys and one car try to save the day by loitering in warehouses) but the sequels have shown they have no idea what was successful about those games.

RE FEAR 2 - I pulled down the demo on 360 and it was massively boring. I can see where it's SUPPOSED to be all scary and shit (it's more hamfisted and obvious than even FEAR itself) but it's just so boring and generic. Wow, some more light industrial/abandoned buildings! I can't wait to see the ludicriously huge underground nuclear bunker this time.

The bunker is even bigger than in the original! That has to be a selling point!

[Peptuck]

Some random person just called something in a video game a 'mindfuck'.

When I say its a "real" mindfuck, I mean it in the most literal sense possible.

Basically, at the end of the game,
Spoiler

Alma rapes Becket. Which you watch from first-person perspective.

I'm pleased they included the school level which has been de riguer in 'horror' games since well before Silent Hill, however. I tremble at the very thought of the outrageous plot nonsense they try to feed you THERE.

Spoiler

The big plot revelation in the school is...ATC is experimenting on children. Again.

But that's not really presented a plot revelation at all.

The game doesn't really force feed you a whole lot of plot. There's a lot of collectible intel files that give you interesting background, but the majority of the plot is fairly straightforward, consisting mainly of "Alma is trying to eat Becket. Are you a bad enough dude to kill Alma with your brain?"

There's only one important question however - does the protaganist persist in never, ever reporting any of the mission-critical and astounding and relevant things that he sees?

He doesn't, but then, he doesn't need to. The rest of the squad already knows what Alma is by the end of the second level, and are fully aware of the freaky shit she does. Though Becket is oddly silent on Spoiler

Jankowski and Fox's deaths.

[Stark]

Yes yes, but it's not confusing or a sudden dramatic twist at all, hence my humour. People on the internet are, generally, very easy to surprise with plot 'twists'.

FEAR2 being entirely a setup for the third game is NOT a plot 'twist'. And I'm already well aware of the plot nonsense the school level gives you; turns out Armacham owns pretty much all of New York and a series of giant underground nuclear bunkers? It's just sad at this point.

The first game's plot is basically 'oh my that Paxton man, go get him. Now he's over here'. It still sucked. At least FEAR2 doesn't give THE ENTIRE PLOT away in LITERALLY THE FIRST THREE SECONDS OF THE GAME.

[Peptuck]

And I'm already well aware of the plot nonsense the school level gives you; turns out Armacham owns pretty much all of New York and a series of giant underground nuclear bunkers? It's just sad at this point.

In the first game, it kind of almost made sense. One big secret underground bunker, already pre-built by the military, and ATC's troops were just lightly-armed mercenary security mooks in spiffy hats and sunglasses. An EVIL CORPORATION, INC. would have access to those kinds of things.

In F.E.A.R. 2, they've got entire buildings built underground. Not just bunkers, an entire fucking building, built inside a bunker. And a giant tram network connecting two massive other bunkers. Plus a bunker underneath a school. And another secret bunker inside a nuclear power plant. And a fully-equipped army - and that's before you even factor in the Replicas, which they've apparently been making by the truckload since before Paxton Fettel was out of diapers. That "battalion" of Replicas they mentioned in the first game? Yeah, you can up that to "division," minimum.

F.E.A.R. 2 basically turns Armacham from an aerospace weapons development company into Umbrella's older, bigger, smarter, and generally more awesome brother. These guys could probably conquer a medium-sized third-world country, the sheer number of resources they have.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Armacham is fun as hell to fight, and for all the ridiculousness of their resources, they make a reasonable bit of sense in how they're deployed and used (well, excepting the ten story building built inside a bunker). I'm just wondering how they can top having two fully-equipped private militaries and virtually owning an entire city.

[Stark]

Sorry, for me to be scared of something fictional it needs good writing to create mood. FEAR has actually gone downhill since the first game, a truly impressive feat but not one that improves the game. They were always going to be corridor strollers with a veneer of plot, and if that plot stinks its all over.

[TheMuffinKing]

Sorry, for me to be scared of something fictional it needs good writing to create mood. FEAR has actually gone downhill since the first game, a truly impressive feat but not one that improves the game. They were always going to be corridor strollers with a veneer of plot, and if that plot stinks its all over.

Who honestly purchased F.E.A.R. for the horror though? IMHO I bought both because of the slow motion combat, cool enemy designs, and the ability of my computer to run the game at high levels. Hmm, I suppose my love of cheesy "B" movies helped too, especially considering the story driving this franchise. Now that I think about it, with the available firepower and ability, almost any game like this will have a hard time scaring anyone. I mean really scaring anyone, jumping out of shadows and surprise enemies are just bullshit and frustrating, thankfully I experienced only a minor amount of it in this game. I still had a lot of fun with fear2 and am hoping for the sequel to be released!

[Stark]

Take away the 'plot' and it's just another boring gimmick shooter that you can finish in a day. Does it at least have worthwhile multi?

Bashing FEAR is like kicking a retard, but this threat demonstrates there are people who take it seriously.

[TheMuffinKing]

Take away the 'plot' and it's just another boring gimmick shooter that you can finish in a day. Does it at least have worthwhile multi?

Bashing FEAR is like kicking a retard, but this threat demonstrates there are people who take it seriously.

I take kicking retards seriously too, I seriously think its HILARIOUS!

Spoiler

Well, no, not really.

[Stark]

People need to be sensitive to my poor sentence structure. It's interesting that FEAR really benefits from the near-death of the shooter on PC. For a long time I loaded the interesting parts of FEAR because there was simply nothing else. Sad, really.

[Big Orange]

After playing the first FEAR game recently on the 360, I must agree with Stark in regards to the rather bland (yet logical and competent) level design with your usual round of warehouses, offices/labs, alley ways, and the quintessential secret bunker (strongly modelled on the one from Akira). The game play was addictive and fun enough, but lacked variety and replay value, with you going down very claustophobic corridors and rooms with poor lighting, blasting away wave after identical wave of Replica/ATC goons (meeting the occassional lumbering battle droid).

Although one bit slapped me round the chops:
Spoiler

You go around the Armacham administration campus and it is empty with surprisingly few bodies, then you go in the lift maintenance area and you look down a lift shaft: you see dozens of dead office workers piled up in a dense stack, piled up on hundreds of more bodies beneath them judging by the height of the building.

[Stark]

'Logical and competent'? The office level is almost Halo Library-level terrible. It's got recycling, it's got massively illogical arrangement (it's not that hard to go into an office building and discover they're not laid out like rat warrens) and enourmously tedious length. I think it's easily the worst part of the first game, even worse than the 'sewage plants don't work that way' level and 'what do you mean corridors exist to go between rooms' buildings.

Ps those bodies were just on top of an elevator, no huge stack required.

[weemadando]

I'm yet to have a chance to play - but apparently there are references to Condemned in there. Can we get a cross-over game now?

What would it add? A protaganist who can slow down time for no reason, thus making the game laughably easy? A bunch of not-scary things? More clumsy attempts at psychological horror like in Condemned 2?

If you crossed the FIRST FEAR game with the FIRST Condemned, you could have something interesting (wierd magic ninjas under the ground destroying human civilisation from within while a team of four guys and one car try to save the day by loitering in warehouses) but the sequels have shown they have no idea what was successful about those games.

RE FEAR 2 - I pulled down the demo on 360 and it was massively boring. I can see where it's SUPPOSED to be all scary and shit (it's more hamfisted and obvious than even FEAR itself) but it's just so boring and generic. Wow, some more light industrial/abandoned buildings! I can't wait to see the ludicriously huge underground nuclear bunker this time.

I was more thinking of a hobo with a wrench running around going Kratos on an ARMACHAN mech.

Did you ever play the cops v hobos mode in Condemned 2 MP? It was actually fairly good - 2 SWAT guys v as many Hobos as there were other players. Quite a lot of fun from either side of the equation.

Perhaps the best way to re-do it all would be to just put FEAR guy into Condemned and Condemned guy into FEAR as a mod. Lets see how unbalancing we can make things.

[Ford Prefect]

Guns are ludicrously more lethal in Condemned 2 than they are in FEAR, though. Try it out in Condemned 2's practice arena thing: I promise that you will utterly demolish wave after wave of hobos like no tomorrow with any gun. Even the glock puts down those huge muscle guys with one well-placed shot - I remember accidentally killing one of those guys when he startled me by coming through the wall like the Kool Aid Man. There are other gameplay elements that render them less useful, like how Ethan cannot aim for shit if he isn't dossed up on some random whisky, but the Pointman would a) not be a drunk and b) have slow and thus make every killing a person with every bullet trivially easy.

[weemadando]

Guns are ludicrously more lethal in Condemned 2 than they are in FEAR, though. Try it out in Condemned 2's practice arena thing: I promise that you will utterly demolish wave after wave of hobos like no tomorrow with any gun. Even the glock puts down those huge muscle guys with one well-placed shot - I remember accidentally killing one of those guys when he startled me by coming through the wall like the Kool Aid Man. There are other gameplay elements that render them less useful, like how Ethan cannot aim for shit if he isn't dossed up on some random whisky, but the Pointman would a) not be a drunk and b) have slow and thus make every killing a person with every bullet trivially easy.

Yeah, that would be the easy one. But what happens when Ethan is suddenly faced with Clone Super-soliders? That's the fun game. That's the game I want to play.

And the shooting in Condemned 2 was great fun, because the haziness of it accurately portrayed the "JESUS FUCK JESUS OH GOD THEY'RE COMING AT ME OHGODOHGODOHGOD THEY'RE GETTING CLOSER FOCUS DAMNIT FOCUS DON'T DIE DON'T DIE DON'T DIE!" aspect of being a lone guy in a city full of raving psychos w/2x4s.

[Stark]

In what sense are the clones super, or even any good? They're massively passive, talk on open comms even though they're psychic, and display no real super abilities at all beyond 'scream like little bitches when they die'. Parkman will just shoot them. I fail to see what is so great about this idea; you're basically saying FEAR - slowmo + worthless melee because clones have guns. Um... yay? Gears already exists.

[Peptuck]

In what sense are the clones super, or even any good? They're massively passive, talk on open comms even though they're psychic, and display no real super abilities at all beyond 'scream like little bitches when they die'.

The only real advantages they have are disposability, ease of replacement, and absolute, preprogrammed loyalty. They're not even really all that smart; according to the intel files, the best they can do is recognize thirty-two distinct voices that they follow orders from. The only thing they really understand is killing and dying. Their whole existence is nothing but "train, fight, and die."

For all intents and purposes, the Replicas are nothing more than purpose-bred mooks.

[Lagmonster]

Sorry, for me to be scared of something fictional it needs good writing to create mood. FEAR has actually gone downhill since the first game, a truly impressive feat but not one that improves the game. They were always going to be corridor strollers with a veneer of plot, and if that plot stinks its all over.

Naturally preference and culture have a lot to do with it; my exposure to horror movies and modern horror literature, for example, is minimal, whereas my exposure to horror in classic folklore is probably greater than anyone else on the board.

Maybe it's because I'm used to being entertained by classic ghost stories with literally hillbilly levels of logic holding them together, but I actually played Fear, the first expansion, and now the sequel entirely for the enjoyment of learning about the character of Alma, treating the combat sequences like intermissions. I think that the writers, intentional or not, benefit from people used to a kind of Granpa Mills storytelling, where you're supposed to feel the creeps rather than be frightened or revolted (although Fear does wander into gore territory when it doesn't need to, something I could do without, to say nothing of Alma's apparent missed calling as a cheap porn star).

From my standpoint, the problem with Fear is its length - they tell a one hour story in what will end up being 20 hours after all the expansions and sequels are done, and thus end up having to introduce dozens of characters and plot contrivances and enemy factions in order to artificially extend the story. Anyone who's been around a campfire knows that there are no long ghost stories. If you have to explain something, you make people think or worse, take away the need by force-feeding them all the answers. If people are thinking, they're not imagining for themselves. If they aren't doing that, it's harder to be frightened. Frankly, all the pseudo-scientific babble and Evil Big Corporation chatter was entirely unnecessary when the story should have told itself: Uncontrollably powerful psychic gets abused by loved ones, suffers horribly tragedy, gets killed, becomes godlike entity of eternal rage, gets revenge on planet; protagonist stumbles through it surviving by skin of teeth and eventually either fails, escapes, or forces a resolution.

The best horror element of Fear 2 in my opinion, and one which was used effectively but not often enough, were the specters of all the people who died in Alma's rampage but who she was maintaining in a state of frozen rage. They were indestructible, creepy, and wonderfully appropriate.

[Big Orange]

'Logical and competent'? The office level is almost Halo Library-level terrible. It's got recycling, it's got massively illogical arrangement (it's not that hard to go into an office building and discover they're not laid out like rat warrens)

It was PURE EVIL INCORPORATED's headquarters, it could arrange its office space however it wanted (in fact there are homages to Office Space, even with the ATC logo). Although I do wonder where the fire exits are. There is a lot of recycling, but there is some moderate variation in the level design as well with the marketing and accounting departments (which had to ALLLLL DIEEEE!!!), a office wing being renovated, a R&D science block, the executive's area (with its occupants likely skipping town if ATC was still in operation in FEAR 2), and a big carpark, with numerous roof areas in between.

I think it's easily the worst part of the first game,

The ATC administration complex was pretty much most of the first game.

even worse than the 'sewage plants don't work that way' level

Oh God you are sad, knowing how a sewage works is actually laid out.

and 'what do you mean corridors exist to go between rooms' buildings.

Fancy corporate architecture is like that.

Ps those bodies were just on top of an elevator, no huge stack required.

It's hard to tell, but I like to think Fettel had his clone men kill hundreds of people and then throw most of their bodies down the elevator shafts at the centre of the building (there was blood pooling out of many elevator doors at the ground level).

I'm also puzzled at how big ATC suddenly got in FEAR 2, judging from what I've seen on YouTube. In the first game Armacham is a very, very big company but they're still kinda of plausible when they're presented as a hybrid of General Electric/Microsoft/Blackwater/Lockheed-Martin, but in the second game they suddenly exceed the size and scope of Omni Consumer Products/Umbrella combined. Where did ATC's divisional strength army come from when they supposedly just had the billed cap wearing rent-a-cops?

[Peptuck]

I'm also puzzled at how big ATC suddenly got in FEAR 2, judging from what I've seen on YouTube. In the first game Armacham is a very, very big company but they're still kinda of plausible when they're presented as a hybrid of General Electric/Microsoft/Blackwater/Lockheed-Martin, but in the second game they suddenly exceed the size and scope of Omni Consumer Products/Umbrella combined. Where did ATC's divisional strength army come from when they supposedly just had the billed cap wearing rent-a-cops?

Seriously. Armacham is now something like a vaguely competent ShinRa.

One has to wonder about the profit margins of all these ultra-expensive, state-of-the-art military-industrial bunkers. Maybe ATC conquers countries for profit.