Monolith Software must have employed Bertha Rochester during the more formative years of the company, it's the only way to explain their track record.
For every excellent concept they develop, they somehow manage to screw up several other bad ideas in the process.
Two of their early titles, Blood and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division were excellent titles and solid concepts. The only drawback was that in both games most players wouldn't live long enough to see the actual game as your character was more frail than an anemic child.
Then came their problem with sequels... they are universally terrible in comparison to the first game 90% of the time. Ok, I'll grant you Aliens vs Predator 2 and maybe No One Lives Forever 2.
FEAR 2 breaks that curse... kind of. Perhaps a little bit of history is in order, both of myself and the game.
Back in 2004 I had first heard of Monolith's next titles, one for that new fangled Xbox 360 coming out the follow fall with the other being a PC only title through and through. I found out the console one was about beating up the homeless while the PC title would be a cross between the X-Files, John Woo, and Rainbow Six.
As any punk kid with a new Alienware would do, I bet on FEAR being the megahit.
So thus the waiting game began, but the game of life took greater precidence. Notably, I went off to college like adultescent boy my age and fell into the rut of excessive boozing and studying.
Put blunt, life was damn good.
Near the end of my first month, I remembered that both FEAR and Quake 4 were to be released and thus immediately picked up my copies.
Now, it's important to note that I purchased my copies at the Leominster Circuity City. At the time, it was the only electronics store within a 30 mile radius of my college outside of Gamestop. Though the prices would fluxuate wildly, I ended up making that store my third most visited location in the glorious Fitchburg/Leominster area, behind the liquor store and Tiki Tiki- the best Chinese takeout in Fitchburg fyi.
Eagerly rushing back to my dorm to install all 5 cds of FEAR, I came to a horrific realization within two hours.
It sucked.
It wasn't a straight up suck that just has the marks of a bad game written all over it, but it was a special kind of suck where every good idea an intention they may have had with the finished product resulted in a disaster.
In short, it was pretty analogus to the Leominster Circuit City.
Now, four years have passed and everything has been turned on its head since then. My PC continues to age and languish while I buy dongle after dongle for my 360, I found to my pleasure that Condemned's hobo murdering was game of the year material, and I've since been forced off campus due to my aforementioned lifestyle.
More importantly though, Circuit City will probably be nothing but an abandoned storefront by the time you read this.
Fitting then, that Monolith finally brings its A-Game to the table when I'm at a point in my life that it means so very little.
Anyways on to the game itself. FEAR 2 is a retooling of FEAR 1. Monolith discovered the hard way no one cares about PC games anymore, therefore the entire game is nothing but a retelling of the first game.
It's also in this retelling they loose a wondeful plot to the throes of stupid designs. Goddamned Bertha.
Watch out, I'm going to spoil the game for you and not care so stop here I guess if you want to play this and not have the ending ruined. In all honesty though, you can enjoy the game more if you know the disappointment that follows.
FEAR 2 ends with your protagonist being raped by the ghost of the 14 year old clone of the Ring girl.
Yes, that is the ending. It is as stupid and as contrived as one can get in a first person shooter. It resolves no plot, provides no closure, it just simply ends with your character feeling his seed in the belly of Alma.
Were the writers and designers of Monolith actually intelligent, it could have made for a great play upon the suburban nightmare of teen pregnancy. Moreover, they could have explored very real prejudices and "fears" within their target audience. After all, for the 15-25 year old male, nothing is more terrifying than the idea of unwittingly becoming a father.
Interestingly, and perhaps a sign of silent protest against Bertha, levels are designed around the concepts of areas in which teens meet and fuck. It's quiet ingenious in all honesty. Of course, there are the science labs, test areas, and all the other shlock that comes with the territory of a sci-fi shooter, but brief moments of insight shine through.
For instance, at one point in the game you're forced to explore a school. Simple, straight forward, and insipid once you realize it's an underground testing site!!!!!! (Those exclamations are to represent your shock you see)
Nevertheless, the crux of the spooky sequence in the level take place in the dimly lit broom closets of the school. Wearing nothing but her hair, Alma meanders the coridors always two steps ahead of you, seemly luring you to follow her. When you do eventually catch up to her, which occurs only at her discression, you're momentarily pinned up against a locker while she seems to smile while inspecting your body.
Later in the game, as you meander through the city streets shooting spacemen or the storm troopers or whatever they are, you discover lines of cars parked outside a movie theater. Expected within a city, yes, but the fact it is still standing with Alma waiting inside for you suggests that the developers wanted to simulate a sort of destructive relationship between the player and his fictional "girlfriend". Hell, there's even 14 levels in game, which mirrors her age.
Now obviously all of this sounds like fan fiction bullshit above, and it's ignoring this potentially fun mindfuck with the player that the game falls apart.
After trying so hard to use subtley and smart AI tricks in the first game, FEAR 2's guards run at you with like minded purpose. Your ability to slow down time is rendered moot, as plentiful armor and weapons exist around every corner. In all honesty, you can tell they wanted to go for a regenerating health system but were afraid of scaring away their former audience. Your comrades in arms all die expectedly and offer generic shits, fucks, and "what the hell is happening" for you to groan at.
But it's during these groans you notice another feature of the game, the prevalance of water. Everywhere you turn water is dripping out of pipes, onto your mask, etc. I'd like to pretent it's a silent reference to the fact that when Alma's water bursts the world will be left as ruinous as the cityscape you're currently exploring.
That'd probably be out of Bertha's realm however.
The core combat is fairly satisfying, but slow-mo just feels less fun this time around. The goons you rip through just feel muted compared to their chatty counterparts in the first game. While you've got the ability to create cover on demand, none of it ever proves too useful.
You'll probably also end up killing yourself while fiddling with your inventory more than actual gunfights will kill you.
Should you check it out? I guess, it's certainly a competent little game. Maybe if you've just arisen from a coma and never played an FPS since Doom it'd seem like the most psudeo realistic terror experience ever created. To anyone who has played Halo 3, play it again while running a copy of The Ring soundtrack in the background. Maybe have your girlfriend or a special lady friend sit next to you naked while doing so. It'd be the same experience.
Wait, goddamn it that sounds like a better time already.
What's really a disappointment is that the title of FEAR is never once scary. This is just so disappointing when I remember the terrifying department store fistfight in Condemned. Come now Monolith, you can do better.
Then I also remember this was the same company that had you fight a zombie bear in Condemned 2.
Goddamn Monolith.
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