Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“Experience the chaos of Alma’s aftermath from an entirely new point of view: that of Replica Soldier 813,” says the Monolith press release. The FEAR 2 DLC contains four new single-player levels, with lots more supernatural happenings. The DLC coincides with a free multiplayer patch for the game which will introduce some new game modes for folks who like their slowed-down manshoot. The Steam version of the DLC is here, for £6/$10 and, er, it doesn’t appear to be available anywhere else yet, but I guess it will be at some point…

As you’ve probably seen on various news sites that really should know better, tomorrow the streets of London will endure some feline-mounted advertising. Specially-trained black cats will stalk the pavements bearing FEAR 2-emblazoned jackets. The link? Well, tomorrow is Friday the 13th, the unluckiest day of the year. And black cats are also bad luck. And being superstitious is sort of like being afraid, and thus directly relevant to FEAR 2! Their plan is genius in its simplicity.

I’m really not impressed by this most tenuous of logic, so tomorrow I will lurk doggedly by my window watching out for one of these little frackers. When I see one, I’ll spring my scathing counter-attack…
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Late last night, as I drove around frozen South Western England delivering inebriated people to their homes, I got to discussing F.E.A.R. with one of its fans. The sequel, he said, was one of the games that really excited him for 2009. While I definitely appreciated the original game and its expansions, they’re also games that I feel contain a weird tension that they never quite get past. The Fear Fan talked about that moment on the ladder, or that moment where you get clubbed in the face. I raised the invisi-ninjas as the best sections. These are great scary moments within the game, and they’re scary because you’re relatively helpless. The rest of the time, however, you find yourself being an unstoppable super-man who can slow time. How, then, do things remain scary?

I can’t help thinking, then, that the Elite Powered Armour that is shown off in this latest F.E.A.R 2 trailer does exactly the opposite to what is best in its game. It even says so in the trailer: “The Solution To Everything You Fear.” Surely that’s missing the point of making a horror shooter? Maybe that’s just me.
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Monolith have released a new F.E.A.R. 2 trailer with primary art lead Dave Matthews talking about the change in level design to more open scenarios. He chats about the team’s research process and the way that Alma manifests herself in the design of the new title. There’s also a bunch of pacey-lookin’ in gaming shooting. An odd one, as shooters go, because I know so many folks who swear it’s a masterpiece, and – although I enjoyed it – this was just another shooter for me, and not a game that crawled into my personal history books. Still, I’m sure I’ll make time to play this sequel.
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First there was the ludicrous nonsense over Sierra vs. Monolith for the rights to make the sequel to F.E.A.R., and the subsequent debacle that took place with Monolith organising a competition for fans to rename their sequel, resulting in Project Origin. Meanwhile Sierra stomped off with the ball, refusing to play nicely with others, and pretended they were making their own sequel which they would call F.E.A.R. 2. What a to-do it all was. Well, Project Origin is to be renamed. Can anyone guess what it will be?

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I seem to be getting something of a bum deal here. First I get Peggle Nights, about which a big fat nothing is known. And now F.E.A.R. 2, which is apparently being developed in a secret underground bunker fifty miles below the Atlantic ocean, by a team made up of invisible fairies.

So what to tell you? I suppose a quick re-hashing of the confusion over FEAR’s sequalisation. But Kieron already did that when he wrote about the other FEAR 2, Project Origin. Very quickly, Vivendi own the name, while Monolith (now owned by Warner) own the game. So Project Origin (a name that I’m surprised to find out has grown on me) is a direct sequel to FEAR, in terms of engine, story and all.

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