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

Not as good as the first but still excellent

You are Michael Becket, super imago of every gamer or man. At beginning your goal is to arrest and escort Genevieve Aristide to safety, one of main people why everything went bad in first game. Of course nothing is how it looks like and there's bigger agenda behind this for you to find. Also this game starts just 30 minutes before ending of orginal F.E.A.R. So, what you get is best balance between experience of being inside movie and controlling character, best soundtrack, better story and narrative design of campaign than Half-Life 2 likewise divided in 7 intervals that are told in 14 chapters (maps), every intel you get is added to your PDA that adds to backstory since plot is not forced upon you and is up to you to find out details or just shoot first then ask later. AI and gameplay is enhanced but it depends on the map since they now can do more variety of actions and not all of them are used in every situation, so best gunplay happens in outdoor areas than in close combat. There are new weapons but they feel less modern and more near future. You can also control mech in few sections to reach when is too hard to explore destroyed city through rubble and ruins. Also not only being dated it looks awesome today but every chapter shows accurately by map design transition how you got there from somewhere else when you advance in story and new area. No more generic offices, labs, map-fillers, every location is authentic and have sense of real existing place. Your teammates play rather archetype role since they exist as background for your character to have, so don't expect any deep emotional drama. Downsides: turret sections, out of place boss battles, no leans, new slowmo. GOG release includes REBORN DLC which happens during events of PROJECT ORIGIN but from different place and perspective. You are also Replica Elite so now you can see what they see through these helmets with hud that in a way is homage to the one from original with numbers for health and armor.

Even though the first F.E.A.R wasn't a revolution like Quake or Doom, its mix of horror (with a REALLY dark story) and FPS with the addition of the slo-mo gave the game a unique flavor. Not to mention the sound design when you slow down time giving the shootout a feeling of war fights. The adds-on weren't as great, shifting more toward action but nonetheless enjoyable. This sequel begins few moments before the ending of the first episode and continues after. The first thing you'll notice is that now shootouts are...sluggish. The feeling of the weapons has been tone down, their sound is not really impressive (not to mention their more generic design) and even when you acquire the slo-mo skill, you don't feel the brutality of the fights. Moreover, the IA is a step back compared to its predecessor, even on hard difficulty, on numerous occasions enemies were just lined up behind a door. Also, because the game was released on consoles, you cannot lean and you have the ultimate abomination : checkpoints (it's well known the PS3 and XBox 360 don't have a hard drive...oh wait). Yep, say goodbye to manual saves and hello to restart tedious sections. They also get rid of the health booster which increase your hp, so if you play on hard your armor is destroyed in 2 shots and you die in 2 hits. Talking about tedious sections : you'll also have a too long train trip, two boring moments on a mounted turret (I guess the mechas sections were too fun so they made it pretty short) and an ending which is a chore to play, thanks to checkpoints and dying in 2 shots. So in my opinion, stick to the first one which still holds up after more than 10 years and not this dull sequel...

This is a pretty good sequel. Still has the horror parts of the game but in my opinion relied more on the shooter aspect for this installment. The story was still pretty good in this game with some jump scares in between action. Also, being able to control one of those mech suits was a lot of fun. Sound effects and voice acting are fine. Graphics are still good for an older game. Gameplay is fun and has a moderate replay value, the game also has a Reborn DLC with it. I played this game on Steam so I could use my Xbox One controller to play the game. Wish GOG would have something similar for controller support. I played this using Windows 10 64 Bit and had zero problems loading or playing this game. Would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a good shooter with some scare to it. Rate it 4/5

I can get why some people don't like this game, but I think it's a solid, if uninspired shooter. The Good: First of all, I think this is a pretty good looking game considering it's 10 years old. Unlike the original which curiously starts to have serious framerate dips before even an hour of sustained play, this game runs butter smooth on my computer at maximum settings. The guns are a bit by-the-number (but the original F.E.A.R. didn't exactly reinvent the wheel with guns either), but they do the job. It is a shame that the shotgun feels pretty underwhelming compared to the awesome shotgun from the first game. The campaign is well paced and only has a few hiccups and missteps when it comes to my personal enjoyment (the mech suit sections overstayed their welcome and turret sequences always suck). The Bad: The first thing that comes to mind is that the AI is dumber than the original. I don't know how AI can not only fail to improve, but regress in fidelity, but here we are. They're not brain-dead, but they feel much more like cannon fodder than the deadly, cunning commandos from F.E.A.R. For instance, they seem to leave cover a lot more frequently and make dumb decisions (plus there are more of them, so they feel even more like standard FPS cannon fodder) where the soldiers in the first game would rarely just try to rush you and mostly waited for you to come to them or tried to flush you out of cover. The story is once again utterly forgettable and the writing is laughable across the board, but who honestly cares since the original was hardly Bioshock in the story department. I never really found the first game that scary, but this game really scrapes the bottom of the barrel with tired scare tactics and cliched horror contrivances such as an overreliance on gore and loud noise to set the mood. Ultimately, I still enjoyed my time playing it. Don't expect a masterpiece and you should have a more than adequate experience.