Don't F.E.A.R. the Reaper

Welcome back to the blog, myself. Why, thank you, myself!
And welcome to the readers, welcome to another post about gaming and whatever else comes to my mind (not a whole lot else, I must say.)

As you probably get from the obvious reference in the title, this post's gonna be about F.E.A.R. 2, which I recently got a hold of and played through pretty soon after. If I say I'm a usually slow gamer when it comes to finishing them and at the same time mention that I had finished Monolith's most recent bloodfest within two weeks after I got it, you can guess that it's pretty short. It's not rare that a lot of big titles are lacking in length these days, still it's better to end the fun while it's still fun and not have it end with the player loudly shouting in joy that it's finally over.

Anyhow, let's skip on back to the topic. F.E.A.R. 2 : Project Origin is the true sequel to the 2005 title F.E.A.R., which gained wide attention and praise for its intense and fast action, its shiny, sexy graphics and the über amount of gore and blood. Since then the hit FPS has received two expansions, Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate, of which neither I've actually played. From what I've heard, they're pretty much the same as the original game, save for a few new weapons and new levels, of course.
F.E.A.R. 2 differs a lot more from its origin than the expansions seemed to. You no longer play as the anonymous 'point man' from the first installment, instead you play as (the awfully quite) Michael Becket, who's part of a special ops team sent out to find Genevieve Aristide before the Armachan black ops kill her (she's seen too much, basically.) It proves a bit trickier than expected, but your team deals with it nice and smooth. Soon after having retrieved Aristide, the event from the ending in F.E.A.R. occurs. The majority of the remainder of the game takes place in the ruins left behind by the operation at the Armacham facility and that's when the story really takes off.

The game engine has had a pretty nice overhaul, showcasing some very interesting visual effects such as the more common motion blur effects as well as some new ghost effects. Monolith have also become better at using the physics engine to produce some eerie atmospherical effects.
The enemies are pretty much the same as they are in F.E.A.R. You've got the usual cop-like-dressed forces that try to stop everyone who's seen anything related to Armacham's experiments and, of course, the replicated soldiers. The gameplay has been expanded with the addition of the occasional (and actually not-so-annoying) quick time events and a bad-ass power armor that you get into every now and then and literally blow the shit out of everything in sight.

Overall, I liked the game and found it a worthy addition to the F.E.A.R.-universe. It had the elements that I liked about its predecessor and added some nifty little details and things to enhance what was feeling a bit aged in the original in comparsion to today's standards. Though, it was unfortunately rather short and it wasn't exactly as spectacular graphically as the first one was when it came, not that I think graphics matter much though, but you get the picture. One thing that comes to mind that I thought would've been improved was the shadows. It becomes more common that games use soft shadows instead of the hard-edged, unfiltered stencil shadows, which F.E.A.R. 2 still uses, but it's not exactly a huge atmosphere-killer.

I'd recommand any fan of the first game to go and grab this worthy sequel, despite its lack of length and mere surface depth in terms of the storyline and how it's told. It's a fun and bloody action shooter with a cool gameplay twist (the slo-mo effect/reflex implant) and an interesting continuation to its elder sibling. For those who haven't tried the first one out either, I'd recommend getting F.E.A.R. 2's collector's edition. Not only do you get the sequel in a fancy case, you also get the first game as a bonus. Yay!

Well, I guess that's all for now. Sorry I kept it strictly to the review, but I'm way too unfocused to type some random rambling right now. Stay tuned till next month or so, for another oh-so-exciting (sarcasm much?) addition to the blog. Thanks for reading!

Until next time...
/Marcus out.

The Dead Will Walk the Earth

If anyone one of you frequents the main page of the Steam store, you'll probably have noticed that they had a weekend (now extended til' tuesday) sale on Left 4 Dead, the zombie outbreak/survival/shootfest of the century. If not for all time, there haven't been too many zombie shooter games before that I know of.
I decided that this would be the time to take the full version out for a spin, and I definetly don't regret the purchase. Though I haven't even played the campaign online with friends yet, it's so worth the money. I tried co-op briefly at my brother's though, and it was great fun.
And it's actually sort of creepy, especially the witches. Somehow, I always manage to startle them, and they hunt me down and nearly beat the shit out of my ass. Fucking witches.

I also got ahold of FEAR 2. Hell yeah! Being the collectorist-whore that I am (whoa-hey, a new word!), I purchased the Limited Edition, of course. Comes in a nice, fancy steelbook case. And the game is great as well, of course. It hasn't managed to properly scare me yet, but the feeling of suspense and mystery is great. It's so well-made that it almost annoys me, in a good way, of course.

Ah well, that's all for now. I guess the next post will be in around next month. If I continue this monthly posting, I'm just two posts away from the blog's first anniversary. Not that anyone cares, but I just noticed.

Until next time; get smarter, game more!

P.S. Oh yeah, new logo design. Just temporary, but the color scheme is a bit more neutral to ye olde eyeballs now. Hope you like it!

/Marcus out.

About those "video games"...

After another good while of quite and absence of posting, I return once again. Yup, it's that time of the... uh, well, sometime. It's blogging time anyway.

As some of you may have noticed, the FEAR 2: Project Origin-demo has been released on Steam. I downloaded it the moment I saw the advertisement. Shit, I've been looking forward to the true sequel since I completed the first one (without the expansions, haven't yet tried them.)
Although the game-gasm was very short, even a little short in demo-terms, it was truly fucking enjoyable. I'm very confident that it will be the game to admire and adore in these damp winter times that we have to reluctantly endure. Hell, it might even be the best we'll see until fall this year, 'cause everyone knows that's when most of the big titles come. Thankfully though, Monolith have decided to give us the full gory funfest that is FEAR 2 already in February.

My apologies for the lack of an Absence-review as I believe I previously promised. It will come though. I'll also write my thoughts down on Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 as soon as I'm done with them. Though I am technically done and through with Fallout 3, I want to scavenge the wastes some more before I pass final judgement to words in this blog of mine. But I'll admit that there's barely the slightest nitpicky, minor flaw to point out with Bethesda's ambitious successor to the awarded series. I've not been this attached to a game for long, if ever.
Of course, I purchased the collector's edition for it. I've considered getting one of the Pip Boy 3000 digital clock replicas as well, but I eventually decided against it, as it does have a hefty price tag, even for being one of the coolest (and nerdiest) collectibles I've ever seen.

Anyhow, that'll have to be enough for now. I think I'll be off for another walk in the wastes that I hold so dear. Either that, or I'll go sadistically driving into zebras in Far Cry 2.

Oh, one more thing, a cheer to america's new (and probably greatest ever) president! I just hope all those trigger-happy supremacist idiots in the states leave him alone.

That is all, until next... hm, well, let's say next month, at latest?
/Marcus out.