The original FEAR was groundbreaking in its own ways, but FEAR2 sadly gets shattered in many ways.
Gameplay:
The game's shooting mechanics are great. Most guns are very fun to use and have the right oomph to them mostly due to heavy bullet reactions on the enemy and quick ragdoll death effects. Raining bullets with your SMG on all sides to see bodies flying around in a death ballet is very entertaining. Unfortunatly, while some guns are very fun to use, some of them are a complete joke. Here are some examples:
You'll be given a pistol, wich is a broken semi automatic ; it doesnt shoot as fast as you press the trigger, making it a very useless weapon ( unlike FEAR1, where I used dual pistols most of the time for John Woo fashion ). The napalm canon isnt only ugly, it shoots a stream of hot steamy urine that shows very unconvincing flame effect. You'll also be given a super-cool plasma canon, wich you'll use against eight dudes and then thats it, you'll never touch it again, wich is a bummer and a raises major questions to the dev team.
FEAR1's guns were horrendeous, yet they had a good punch to them. Like an ugly, yet brilliant guy. FEAR2 made the guns look a lot better, yet in the progression, some of them lost their appeal.
Most firefights are great fun, with the exception of sniping moments. Yep, they not only feel like a shooting gallery, but they also dont fit very well in the action and makes everything feels fake. You see, when you see a sniper rifle against a crate right in the middle of no where, it'll mean you'll have to auto-aim pop heads of hidden snipers that will magically appear out of no where in the following moments.
There's loads of ''interactive'' stuff, like seing your own hands to press buttons ( the character doesnt press the actual button, but the wall )and such, that are not so well animated, wich is odd since the game is from the same developper as Condemned2 and the first person hand gestures and animations were amazing. It isnt to say they're all bad, since some of them are quite cool ( executions on some key characters for instance )
The graphics of the game are quite solid, but on home consoles, the game makes an overused of bloom, blur and grainy effects that ruins some of its graphical appear. Where FEAR1 was clean, yet blocky, FEAR2 is way better looking, yet too grainy and blurry. Some not-so-needed graphical touches makes their appearences, such as a weird blue glowing aura around guys when in Slow-Mo mode. It makes everything feels cartoony unlike FEAR1's spooky and brutal slo-mo effects.
The story of the game is quite bad. Actually, I don't get how people can think it's well writen or anything. It seems to me that the scripters really went out of ideas and tried to justify everything with the first reasons they could find. And really, they don't give you any reason to care about the plot. You just shoot dudes, see a naked girl a couple of times until the end. The game isn't scary at all, because unlike FEAR1 where you tried to figure out what the hell is going on, you know what is Alma and you can guess almost every moment where she'll uselessly pop in in a lame attempt to '' boo '' you. Wich destroys the atmosphere of the game. What works once doesnt always work twice, and I hope people can get that.
The game also ends in a '' second part of the trilogy '' fashion. Remember Resistance 2? Halo2? Yeah? Well it's some laughable crap like that. Overall, you don't feel like you've accomplished something, and yet again the writers of the story forgot to give enough to the audience to justify another game. Its nice to see games having a proper and satisfying ending without having to ''rely on its sequel-or-you're-screwed''.
It makes me wonder why Monolith complained about the development of the two FEAR1 expansions when they can't even deliver. As much as I loved their past games ( Condemned 1 and 2 are one of my favorite series ), I don't get what went through their mind with this one. To the point that if I was told, hey monolith didnt make FEAR2 but another developer did, I would have believed it.
Rent it, you'll beat it under seven hours.