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

Guns, guts, and dead little girls.

Good old-fashioned American Delta-force machismo and (even older-fashioned) Japanese-inspired, creepy-little-ghost-girl horror—it’s a veritable Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of seemingly contradictory, elemental goodness. Picking up just 30 minutes before the conclusion of F.E.A.R., this first-person shooter puts players in the combat boots of a new operative who must confront (among other threats) Alma In All Her Fury.

As a Creepy Little Girl™ in the last game, Alma Wade was bad enough—but now, players will have to deal with her other manifestations as an angry, mistreated, grown woman scorned.

Her wrath has brought atomic-scale destruction, and players will move from the relatively intact, ‘familiar’, enclosed corridors of the Armacham facility… to the all-new, outdoor, street-level urban environs of an entire city laid to waste. The open-air segments in the urban aftermath of the ‘Alma bomb’ might seem to be a strange environment for a horror-themed combat game, but they provide a thankful bit of breathing room between the creepy, claustrophobic indoor segments.

There will also be some feel-my-mechanical-wrath moments when you can take command of a large and satisfyingly ass-kicking mech. But you’re still going to end up back in those dark, enclosed corridors, too—in the predatory presence of all-too-human military hostiles, as well as the entirely-other threat of Alma herself. Any titular reference to the original game is missing here (due to all-business, I.P. issues)—but any way you slice it, it still comes up F.E.A.R.