The Triangle

Issue date: 3/13/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Warner Bros.

The world of gaming is all too frequently divided by pompous fanboys of certain consoles and their never-ending pursuits to prove that their electronic love interest is the best in the land. This type of close mindedness only, however, aids the video game companies. Knowing that they can produce seemingly exact copies of games for different consoles and not have to worry about whether they will sell must be a wonderful feeling. That way, no matter what system the game comes out on, it will be lauded by some and criticized by others. This is where the "F.E.A.R." series of games fits in perfectly.

"F.E.A.R.," which stands for First Encounter Assault Recon, made its debut on the PC in 2005. It is billed as a first person shooter/survival horror game. The game was generally well-received and won "Best Story" from GameSpy, but was criticized for needing a very powerful PC to run it. That problem was fixed in the following years by porting the game to both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The original's popularity spawned two expansion packs as well as "F.E.A.R. 2," which, incidentally, make the two expansion packs not cannon.

"F.E.A.R's" original plot involved a very powerful psychic named Alma and her quest for revenge. She telepathically controls battalions of clone super soldiers, whose soul purpose in life is to haphazardly put as many bullet holes in you without worrying about potentially blowing themselves up. Throughout the game, she causes you to hallucinate and mess up your bullet time-style of fighting.

Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yes, you have bullet time. It's all the fun of being in "The Matrix," but without any of the acrobatics or showy gunmanship. Essentially, it is a make-the-enemies-stop-flailing-long-enough-for-me-to-shoot-them switch that allows you to pick them off a lot easier.

"F.E.A.R. 2" picks up right where the first game left off, except that instead of continuing with the same main player controlled character eloquently named Point Man, you take control of Michael Becket, a run-of-the-mill, doesn't say a word the entire time, faceless protagonist. The game play is pretty much the same as the original game, and while the graphics are truly stunning, the game's horror aspect can be inadvertently ignored.

Many of the graphically astonishing scenes in the game occur when Alma makes Becket hallucinate or when she appears as a ghastly child. Unfortunately, you can miss all of this if you're simply looking in the wrong direction when the scary music is playing.

Continued...

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