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

I hope their desire to throw Shogo into the game doesn't take away from the creepy tone they've already established.

Damn was the 1st one scary.

I absolutely loved the first one. When it came out I had just lost my job, and scrounged up $50 to grab it on PC on release day. Office after office after office was inexcusable, especially when you're dealing with such great possibilities from the paranormal standpoint, but the enemy AI was incredible. It would curb stomp you in a matter of seconds if you made a mistake. And the very last shot of the game, when Alma is in the helicopter...ya.

I'll probably end up waiting for a price drop, but I really hope it lives up to the first one.

Those mech models look like they've been made on the original Quake engine.

The levels look nicely detailed though.

Shame 'big robots' wasn't the thing I was crying out for from this franchise.

I wish they would get off their asses and make a Shogo sequel. The rocket launcher in that was the best weapon ever.

While F.E.A.R.'s environs were its biggest problem, I actually liked the office setting better than the nondescript boiler rooms, rubblescapes, and warehouses of the other chapters, probably because I can relate to the office setting much more than the others. I hope they resurrect the fat IT nerd.

My dad and I are big FEAR fans and can't wait for this.

I think the fat guy died violently in one of the expansion packs.

I thought he was left for dead in the creepy Alma headquarters/ghost prison. I avoided the expansion packs after trying out the awful demo. Did I miss anything?

Cool. I can't name another character in the game, but I remember desperately wanting to kill the fat IT guy.

Oh, the clips I've emptied in impotent anger every time he would appear.

From a graphics engine stand point the game is a work of art. Looks fucking fantastic. They have some neat effects work selling the tone of the game.

But, I found myself mostly bored with the demo. Even with the sound cranked up; which is just as good as the work done in Dead Space...gun combat didn't feel as visceral or as exciting as it once used to be when I played it on the PC. Even after getting into one of the mech's slaughtering folk I just kept wondering when is this going to get fun?

Weird.

Demo?

consider me one of those 'qore suckers'...

Cool. I'll definitely try and download this tonight. Thanks for the heads up. Scray + Shooting is always good (even better though, when it's done well). it IS kind of neat that you can add it to the queue from the net. Nice.

Ok, now I can't wait to try this out tonight. F.E.A.R. had plenty of problems, but for me, the A.I. and atmosphere were enough of an offset to make it my favorite shooter of '05.

Downloading for the pc right now. Really looking forward to this.

This is pretty fucking sweet, actually. Definitely a must-buy now.

No shit. Thanks, Alex, I didn't even know we could do this.

Alex, are you going to write up demo impressions for the site? If you don't, I'll give it a shot in the evening. It's a slow MCP news day (unless you want to write about layoffs).

I am very much digging the demo. This is a day 1 purchase for me.

After having my expectations lowered over the last few days (reports of the melee being nerfed to just pistol whips), they shot right back up after some demo play (oh shit yeah you can still kick people with your ENERGY LEGS).

Yeah, that scissor kick in the original was hilariously nuts. I think I used that more than the pistols when I ran out of ammo.

Let me re-adjust my previous praise, as at that juncture I had not reached the Mech stage of the demo.


THIS THING FUCKING ROCKS.

I couldn't wait to get the hell outta that elementary school, towards the end it was getting seriously creepy. Great gunfights, amazing graphical flourishes, and the Mech was just the icing on the cake.

I hope it holds up in the full release, but nevertheless, I'm there day one. Hell, I might pre-order right now.

Not Helping, Guys. Need Xbox 360 At Work.

I'll download tomorrow and give it a whirl. I'm not surprised to hear it looks good - the original looked fantastic.

Level design was the weakest part.

Is the AI as keen in this one?

I really like this. Its genuinely creepy. Only thing that bugs me is the HUD. The blue lines on the left and right make it seem like my vision is kinda narrow.

Sadly i think ill be passing this one by. This along with Condemned 2 plays like shit on my TV. For some reason it leaves trails constantly.

The first one was too monochrome and repetitive in its level design.

Yeah, that's right. I wanted it to be more bright and colorful.

( 'o')::::3

(spit take)

Exactly the reaction I expected.

Hard to tell. Demos tend to be easier than the final product (Ninja Gaiden 2, I'm looking in your direction), so the AI represented in the demo might not be as violent as the AI in the full game.

Jesus Christ. They broke everything I loved about the original. Downgraded from Day One to 'when I finish everything else coming out in the next couple of months, and at least one backlog game' purchase.

Right now I'm questioning what it was exactly that you loved from the original that's broken in the demo.

Unless you really miss the office and warehouse generic grey level design, I'm baffled.

The AI doesn't feel fun like the first one. At all. It feels generic. And the shotty fells pussified. Mostly I ran into a room or around a corner, hit slow and aimed for the head. No screams of terror, no flanking, no awesome devious shit...just enemy grunts dying at my hands. And that is disappointing cause the AI was so damn fun in the first.

However, the melee jump kick is still there, so that's cool.

Humbly submitted.

The level design was much better. I'll echo some complaints about the A.I., but I'll probably still buy this one.

Downloaded this for the PS3 last night and had a good time. It's so stupid that Microsoft makes silver members wait for demos. It's like they want me to buy the game for the competition.

The movement is significantly slower and clumsier feeling, so charging into a room and fucking up everybody's shit is practically impossible. The HUD layout is just fucking stupid, making the slo-mo bar TINY and right next to the aiming reticule, and putting the sprint bar in the lower left hand corner, and also tiny. The numeric health and armour gauges have been replaced with bars (again, tiny) that are hard to get a solid idea of how much damage you can take. You have to sprint to do slide kicks. Hell, you have to sprint, period. No leaning. The blood particle effect is now a shiny globular cartoonish mess, and dismemberment is significantly toned down. Corpses stop having collision with the player character after their initial ragdoll. The weapons don't feel as meaty. They re-designed all the AIs, apparently after a visit to Gears of War art school, so where in previous games they all looked like normally proportioned human beings in combat armour, now they all look like 'roided up psychos. Grenades don't explode on contact with enemies, so they're nearly useless now. The lighting is muddier, and everything is darker and harder to see. The sound is flat out broken, and there's no auditory feedback when you get shot. There's no menu option to enable or disable hardware acceleration for sound, so I don't even know if it's using my sound card properly. CONSTANT 'Press E to do [x]' pop-ups.

In short: Everything feels off from the previous game, and I'm extremely disappointed.

I'm glad you explained what that was because it sure looks like something different.

So maybe I'm a pansy but this game got me to jump a few times last night. It probably helped that I had the 5.1 pumped, the lights off, and was a tad stoned. Not sure if it's a buy on day one (I only played the first one on my PC) but if alot of people here get it I may pick it up for some multiplayer goodness.

That short demo certainly kicked those crap expansion's arses...can't wait!!

I really didn't care much for the first one, so I wasn't expecting much from this but damn I'm glad I tried it. The school seemed like it came from Condemned, until the ghost started fucking things up and scaring the shit out of me. My wanted list of upcoming games is starting to grow again.

Damn this is fun! I was really glad that the game tossed a bunch of cool weapons to us right from the beginning. Might become a day 1 purchase.