A personal bugbear with the modern games industry is coherent storylines. Or a lack of them, anyway. Admittedly, plot’s not as important in games as it is in films or books, but the levels of complexity that interactive entertainment is now reaching means that story is often the only difference between a good game and a great game. And F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin has a whole other level of storytelling obstacles to clamber over: that of a logical sequel.

We begin this review with talk of properly establishing a sequel’s premise, because F.E.A.R. 2 makes it evident how important this issue is and what a profound difference it can make to a game when done properly. The challenge faced by Monolith is in crafting a game that improves on the already popular F.E.A.R. franchise, that brings something new to the fans, feeds the need of immersive gamers and is still accessible to those who just like to jump in and blow limbs off without worrying about plot or exploration. The good news is that F.E.A.R. 2 manages to find a remarkable equilibrium between all these important factors.

The game begins with a First Encounter Assault Recon team (F.E.A.R., for those who hadn’t figured that out) on their way to arrest a senior member of the Armacham Corporation. It’s a tenuous abbreviation intended to sound a bit cool and hard, but on a superficial level it works quite nicely and conveys the horror aspects through the title in a very suitable way, so we can easily forgive the macho connotations.

What’s particularly satisfying about this seamless tutorial level is the way it binds the original game and this sequel together. It’s pretty clear as you make your way through the condominium block, searching for Genevieve Aristide, that you’re being taught how to use the new main character (Michael Becket). But just as your fledgling mission comes to a close, this event overlaps with the climax of the original game as a nuclear/paranormal blast destroys half the city, and leaves the rest of it in ghost infested ruins.

It’s a dramatic incident that sparks off the events of F.E.A.R. 2 incredibly well, while placing the game clearly within the canon already established in the first game. The upshot is that no one – no matter how fanatical they are about F.E.A.R. – will feel cheated or disjointed by the new plotline, and the momentum with which the game begins grabs you by severely fraying your nerves and twisting them into submission.

This nuclear blast serves as a conclusion to the original game, but makes just as good a jumping off point here in the sequel. Knocked unconscious by the blast wave, Becket and his team wake up disarmed (and tampered with) in a besieged hospital, with signs of fighting and chaos strewn about the place as you attempt to rally with the other F.E.A.R. agents. Your time spent in the hospital has seen you altered by unknown forces (though Genevieve Aristide is still running about the joint – throwing you the occasional bone to keep the plot moving) to equip you with the psychic powers at the core of the original F.E.A.R. premise.

… continued