FEAR 2: Project Origin discussion

[Alyeska]

So I don't see any thread on this. Game just released in the local stores today. Been playing it most of the night. Fairly good game so far. The game play is very well done. Story is interesting so far. Couple gripes though. The game only supports three mouse buttons. Come on people, this is basic stuff here. Your telling me that none of your beta testers used 5 button mice? Absolutely no quick save feature or standard save at all. The game is entirely check point saves. Not a big deal so far, but on higher difficulties this could be irritating. The game runs with Film Grain and there is no option to turn it off.

I don't know whether to call the game a console port or not. The control setup and binding system freely changes. When you change the key, the in game prompts indicate the right key. The graphic options are fairly advanced. But then they seem to screw up on the little stuff. No option to turn off film grain. No mouse buttons above 3. No quick saves.

Something else. The game is set in a single FOV and single aspect ratio. The game is optimized for 16:9 resolutions. If you do not have a 16:9 monitor, the game letter boxes to keep the same aspect ratio and FOV. On a 16:10 monitor its no big deal. Its a little more irritating for those stuck on 4:3. The FEAR community seems to not understand aspect ratio. Those playing on 16:10 and 4:3 are demanding to get the black bars removed. They don't seem to comprehend that the only way to do that is either cut off the sides of the screen (which is the standard way) or to increase the viewable area. Increasing viewable area then becomes an advantage for standard monitors over wide screen. I think we have established that widescreen is supposed to see more then standard if anything. Traditional games handle widescreen by giving more viewable area to those with better aspect ratios. With FEAR 2 letterboxing, the entire issue is leveled. Everyone sees the same thing, no distortions.

[Stark]

Ha!

<snip hilarious bagging of engine, plot and general dated-ness>

The dropping of quicksave is probably a port issue; aside from making any game trivially easy (FEAR was the easiest shooter in a long time) consoles don't have it. It's ironic that it's broken to only work on widescreen when I think the original was broken to only NOT work on widescreen. <snip bagging of engine>

[Alyeska]

The latest patch for FEAR fixed widescreen and offered true support. All FEAR expansions had true widescreen support (Extraction Point did need an ini file change, but it was true widescreen). Letterboxing doesn't break anything. It preserves the aspect ratio and FOV. If old games did the reverse, widescreen would get black bars on the sides of the game instead of stretching it. The old method was entirely broken. The new method maintains FOV and aspect ratio completely while aiming for a widescreen display but accommodating 4:3.

When dealing with multiple aspect ratios, there are two ultimate choices. Give an unfair advantage to one display, or force uniformity. The old days forced uniformity because most games were programed for 4:3 and you had to stretch to get onto widescreen. When games started getting made with multiple aspect ratios in mind, they choose unfair advantages. Either lopped off tops and bottoms (Bioshock and Far Cry 2 initially) or standard widescreen support. Letterboxing offers uniformity while avoiding stretch. Its fair and usable on any aspect ratio.

[Peptuck]

Holy shit the ending.
Spoiler

I love how the game was setting things up so that it looked like Alma was trying to "absorb" Becket, but it turned out that Aristide dumping him in the T.A.C. was the psychic equivilant of a mating call.

Puts a new perspective on all those times Becket has to fight off Alma. She's not trying to eat him, she's trying to rape him.

Also,
Spoiler

The way Terry/Snake Fist died was both holy shit and lol. Random assassin pops out of nowhere and tears his head off, and then ninjas away. Great way to introduce the ninjas, though.

Other things I noted:
Spoiler

I was surprised we got to see what Genevive Aristide looked like. She looked....exactly like I expected her to look. Incidentally, did Genevive get killed by Alma at the end? That cutscene was kind fo ambigious.

+10 fanboy points for having Jen Taylor voicing Stokes.

We finally got to see what the Replicas look like under their helmets. Their faces are fucked up. Also, the brochures on the Replicas' creation and deployment were very interesting. Apparently, Armacham wants to muscle in on the PMC market.

Don't like the somewhat more cyberpunk style of the Replicas and the ATC elite troops. I preferred the more realistic uniforms and helmets most of them wore through the first F.E.A.R. This game, they seem to be just futuristic to be futuristic.

Holy shit Alma has some nice hips.

The school basement was creepy as fuck. The slightly off classroom projectors just amplified the creepy factor.

lol random giant elevators whose sole purpose is to give you an arena to fight ninjas.

Why the fuck did Stokes send Becket after Keegan when she could have sent Morales or gone herself? Terry already laid out the only way to stop Alma was by having Becket mindzap her, which makes him the msot important asset they have, yet Stokes sends him running off after a blatantly possessed Keegan. Plot contrivance.

[weemadando]

Fuck FEAR2. I own it on Steam, and it says that it's available, but noooo... I can't have it, because only the US gets it on the 12th. I must wait until the 13th. No doubt that's the 13th in the US. Which means Saturday. Night. Which means I don't actually get to play FEAR 2 this weekend.

Fuck you faceless corporate overlords who demand shitty split releases and bogus price points to keep stupid fucking brick and mortar retailers onside.

[Xon]

Have fun with your ~11gb download as well.

[weemadando]

Have fun with your ~11gb download as well.

Yeah, it would appear that Steam isn't even letting me fucking pre-load this.

[Hotfoot]

I really enjoyed the first FEAR game, but sadly I haven't been able to play it because, of all things, it doesn't recognize my keyboard.

I'll wait for FEAR2. It looks fun, but I've got other things to tide me over at the moment.

[Jericho Kross]

I really enjoyed the game on the 360. I really would of liked more scares and random things ( lights going out, things moving).

Does anyone know what alma says at the end? I can never quiet make it out.

( Damn, Alma in human form is kind of hot.)

[Alyeska]

Well that was an interesting ending. Anyway, very well designed game. Looking forward to the inevitable expansions.

[Tanasinn]

Didn't the FEAR franchise get butchered a bit, with the universe going to the actual creators and the name to the publishers or something>

[Ford Prefect]

I played some of it today. It's amazing how 'old school' it feels, even with the halucinations and the otherwise futuristic-y stuff going on, like the guns, the interface and whatnot. It's just like playing Half Life 2. It's among the Electric Boogaloo of FPS games out there. It's still heavy handed, still relies heavily on stuff jumping out at you for 99% of your scares and is still inexplicably sci-fi. That said, there are some visually interesting things done in some scenes and if it's anytihng like the first FEAR (and it's everything like the first FEAR) I should eventually get sucked into its atmosphere, up until a giant robot leaps out of nowhere and fouls that up.

[Peptuck]

Didn't the FEAR franchise get butchered a bit, with the universe going to the actual creators and the name to the publishers or something>

There was a bit of a spat between Monolith and the publishers, but Monolith managed to recover the rights to the F.E.A.R. title.

That said, there are some visually interesting things done in some scenes and if it's anytihng like the first FEAR (and it's everything like the first FEAR) I should eventually get sucked into its atmosphere, up until a giant robot leaps out of nowhere and fouls that up.

Wait until you get to the elementary school. Shit is creeeeeeeepy.

Also, the giant robots are one of my favorite parts of the game. Especially when Spoiler

you get to hijack them yourself.

[Ford Prefect]

Wait until you get to the elementary school. Shit is creeeeeeeepy.

I was actually amused to find that the stuff with Fox that happened in the Demo actually happened in the 'hospital' in Interval 02.

Also, the giant robots are one of my favorite parts of the game. Especially when Spoiler

you get to hijack them yourself.

One of those sequences was in the demo, and it was pretty fun. As I said my friend, I hope that they take the oppurtunity to pull of those hallucination ghost scenes with you stomping around in a giant robot.

[TheMuffinKing]

So far I am impressed with playing this. The game plays very well on my mid-range computer even with the graphics set high. As Ford mentioned, the game feels much like the original F.E.A.R., I agree with that wholeheartedly.

[Peptuck]

As I said my friend, I hope that they take the oppurtunity to pull of those hallucination ghost scenes with you stomping around in a giant robot.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, they don't.

Interestingly enough, it looks like the giant robot romp-em-stomp-em sequences can also be fought on foot, if you have the brass clankers to do that. They stuffed a lot of missile launcher ammo in the various corners just in case you decided to go hardmode, which I like. Reminds me a bit of Halo 2, where going through the lengthy vehicle segments on foot was just as viable as going in a vehicle.

Also, something very interesting in the school I just found on my second playthrough.
Spoiler

After killing the piano player Remnant and you start down the locker hall with the apparitions attacking you, there's a side room to the left. Head in there and check out the walls, and you'll find a lot of weird and disturbing kiddie drawings, including a pile of burning bodies, a giant demon eating someone, and what I swear is a kid's drawing of the F.E.A.R. Point Man shooting Paxton Fettel.

Not sure if these are easter eggs or something a whole lot more sinister.

[Ford Prefect]

Spoiler

Unfortunately, they don't.

This is a pity. FEAR honestly needed to blend together the paranormal stuff with the high tech sci-fi stuff more. As it is now, it essentially swaps from 'ghosts and hallucinations' to 'clones and mecha'. If it felt like there was more weird stuff going on during cobmat sequences then it would probably be more immersive; I had the impression, before FEAR came out, that this is what it was going to be like.

Admittedly, before FEAR came out I actually expected FEAR to be a useful paranormal investigation squad, as opposed to completely out of their depth.

[Peptuck]

Spoiler

Unfortunately, they don't.

This is a pity. FEAR honestly needed to blend together the paranormal stuff with the high tech sci-fi stuff more. As it is now, it essentially swaps from 'ghosts and hallucinations' to 'clones and mecha'. If it felt like there was more weird stuff going on during cobmat sequences then it would probably be more immersive; I had the impression, before FEAR came out, that this is what it was going to be like.

There is a little bit of merging of the two, but not a whole lot, unfortunately. For example, Spoiler

when Alma intervenes while you're in the arena fighting the Replicas, and kills the Abomination controlling them.

I personally like the swapping out, to a degree. There's a great balance in-game between the horror and the combat, and when it feels like you're getting hit by too much of one it flips around and throws the other at you.

Then again, you do have sequences like the battles against the Abominations or Remnants, which are both pretty vicious figths and scary as hell. Even the Assassins are a lot more frightening now.

[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?

[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?

That sounds awesome! Do you know where I can find these references? On an aside, I have noticed that Monolith likes to cram all sorts of details into their games and I'm happy they continued the trend into this one. Little things like the TPS reports and magazines based off of crazy ideas spread about really help add a degree of humor to the whole game for those looking for such things. I have always loved that and this game reminds me of Blood and others in that respect.

[Executor32]

I liked this quote from Snake Fist regarding you and Alma: You're like a pizza at an anime convention. She can smell you, and she wants to consume you.

[Big Phil]

I've never been able to get farther than a couple of missions into the first FEAR, as it gives me motion sickness.

[Executor32]

Also, I like the little touches that make things interesting, like being able to shoot the cleanup grunt's fuel tank or shooting down a missile in flight, in the latter case immediately after it left the launcher, which rather nicely took care of the Armacham asshole holding it.

[Peptuck]

I think I just had the single most horrifying and pants-browning moment yet while playing this game. I'm in the elementary school, and I reach the part where
Spoiler

I'm walking up the stairs and Alma melts a couple of fleeing mercenaries. I open up on the mercenaries for the hell of it (creepy rape-bitch isn't stealing MY kills!) and stopped one of them in his tracks. He keels over and dies, and then the flesh boils away, leaving his bloody skeleton lying on the floor.

Pretty standard fare, right?
Spoiler

THE SKELETON GETS UP WITH ITS GUN AND STARTS RUNNING. I panic so hard I empty the rest of my magazine and run back around the corner, chucking three grenades back where I was and switching to my rocket launcher. I fire a shot as I come around the corner, and then move up when there's no movement. I find two inert, bloody skeletons.

It was probably just a glitch, but I was honestly freaked the fuck out when it happened.

[Stark]

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.