In some ways better than the first, in some ways, not at all.
Knowing this, it makes it a little harder to enjoy F.E.A.R. 2 knowing that the game play is very basic and the design extremely console-ized. Though I hate to get the review off to such a negative start, I feel that Monolith should be scolded for falling so far backward. Like Bethesda when they released Morrowind, I dread seeing Monolith's future games continue down this ever descending spiral of mediocrity and compromise.
Although I'll admit that the first F.E.A.R. was a bit more "basic" than what I was accustomed to in a Monolith game, it was still a fabulous shooter that seamlessly integrated resident evil-esque scares with old fashioned Quake era gun play. Throw in some slow-motion abilities and you had yourself one very well made game. Of course, you still had to deal with the game's incredibly repetitive abandoned office building tile sets and textures as well as the somewhat confusing storyline. Then, even looking past these shortcomings, if you stood back and looked at it without your love of Monolith clouding your judgment it was nothing more then a simplistic corridor shooter.
Even with that taken into account, the first F.E.A.R. was still a great game that used the current technology to its fullest extent...and that was no doubt due to the PC being the leading platform for its release. Now, with F.E.A.R. 2, we see what happens when the consoles are made to be the leading platform.
First and foremost, the game play. One of Monolith's most questionable design decisions was giving the PC game the same exact Heads Up Display as the console version. Unlike normal PC FPS "HUDs", the one in F.E.A.R. 2 is incredibly obtrusive and blocks out a large portion of the screen. Not only that, but every single item in the game, whether it be a health kit or a gun, is tagged with a bright white square that is visible through both walls and enemies. While console gamers are used to this "Bread-crumbing" of items, it makes PC Gamers like myself, who have over 20 years of experience playing "smarter" games feel like it is insulting us. We're better than that, and an option to turn off item highlighting should have been made available. I could see if they feared the game's intelligence documents were hard to see in the dark, but part of the challenge is going back and finding the ones you missed. I feel like they think I'm either blind or stupid, and therefore incapable of locating anything smaller then a rocket launcher.
Another embarrassing design decision was the addition of a glowing effect around enemies whenever you enter the slow-motion mode. This was obviously added to make enemies easier to see and to therefore make the game easier to play on gamepad-using console players. While it may be fine to the shooter newbie who has had less then ten years experience in the genre, it is a disrespectful slap in the face to longtime PC FPS veterans.
Yet another idiotic inclusion would be the awful film-grain filter that ruins the game's visuals. While there are a few levels in the middle of the game that mysteriously disable it, the beggining and end of the game is covered in a thick, foggy film grain effect that makes my Quad Core, ATI 4870x2 powered super rig look like it was playing a console game from six years ago. One thing we PC gamers don't enjoy is having a designer deliberately sully our gaming experience by lowering our graphic quality just so they can placate the console users. Sadly, that's why this film grain exists. This loathesome effect is often employed by developers who want to hide the fact that modern consoles create incredibly ugly surface maps and are unable to handle the 1GB+ size shader model 4.0 textures because of their paltry RAM count. So rather then disable it for the Windows version and give the PC users a better visual experience, they decided to keep the film grain and convince us that it is there for "dramatic effect".
The demo had a player made mod that removed the film grain but did so by making certain aspects of the game (Mech Combat) unstable...so until a better version of the mod comes out, we're all stuck with a graphical "enhancement" that makes it seem like we're wearing coke bottle glasses in the middle of a snowstorm.
Adding to these graphical woes is the resolution "cap" imposed on high-end gaming rigs. Not only does the readme "warn" you of moving the game beyond the paltry 1280x768 resolution, but it slaps you with two black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. Great...a letterbox effect. Is this what it has come to? My 16:10 Widescreen monitor is still not fully supported even in the year 2009?
Next up, we have perhaps the most bone-headed anti-PC move that Monolith ever could have made..and that is the lack of quick saves. Actually, it's impossible to manually the save the game *at all*. Instead, you are forced to deal with checkpoint saves. While this is acceptable in the console world (Since the Xbox 360 doesn't come with a standard Hard Drive) it is unforgivable in the PC Gamer world. Sure, the checkpoint saves are liberally sprinkled throughout each level and are extremely forgiving, but it grates on my nerves when I have to leave the game but haven't made it to a checkpoint yet. Having to replay a 15 minute portion of the game simply because you couldn't make it to a checkpoint before you had to leave for work is extremely aggravating and is a feeling unknown to PC Gamers. Well, unless you play Project Snowblind. I still believe Snowblind's checkpoint system is what killed it, since other than that it was an excellent FPS.
Last, but certainly not least, is the lack of two very important PC FPS features: Mouse Button 4/5 support and the ability to "lean". While not leaning isn't a deal breaker for me (I consider it cheating since it makes the game far too easy and has a tendency to confuse the AI) many of the genre's hardcore players consider this a cardinal sin. My gripe isn't so much with the lack of leaning as it is with the inability to map my side mouse buttons. Since F.E.A.R. is a game that puts an emphasis on melee *and* slow motion activation, it becomes necessary to juggle your controls in order to achieve any semblance of PC FPS normalcy. In the first game I put my slow-mo activation and melee controls on the side buttons of my mouse, something I am unable to do in the sequel. To rectify this I had to ditch the weapon select menu and use its button (Mouse 3) as my slow-mo button. I then mapped my melee button to "Q" since the lean left button, which I normally reserve for it, was no longer an option. Though cumbersome and unfamiliar to me, I used this setup and found it just satisfactory enough to finish the game with.
With all of that negativity you're probably wondering if the game is worth buying or Perhaps even worth pirating in a show of protest. Well, it isn't nearly as bad as I make it out to seem. While the game is clearly a half-assed console port, it actually eclipses the first F.E.A.R. title in a few key areas.
One thing I was impressed with were the "quality" of the game's scares. While the first game was creepy and only occasionally horrific, it managed to poke and prod you with extremely unsettling imagery just when you didn't expect it. Sure, it had a few Resident Evil type "in-your-face" scares, but the game mainly stuck with the more cerebral and "shadowy" style of horror that you find in a particularly good X-files episode.
F.E.A.R. 2, however, goes full bore and spends every single second assaulting you with as many shocks and scares as possible. Hell, it even forces you to get physical with Alma by punching her or pushing her off of your body as she tries to merge with you. Also, it's obvious that the developers went for more of a "Silent Hill" approach then the B-movie Resident Evil style most other horror games currently emulate since you don't have any of that "Bodies springing to life and clasping your arm" or "body parts rolling on the floor" nonsense that insults anyone who has ever watched a horror film before. No, here the game takes the high road and throws things at you that you not only don't expect but genuinely recoil from.
Another enjoyable addition is the way they limit the amount of medkits and weapons you can hold. While four weapons is probably still one more than I feel you actually need in F.E.A.R., the 3 medkit limit is long overdue. Even on the hardest difficulty I rarely got below 8 medkits in the first game, which made the maximum limit of 10 feel like a cheat code having been activated. Limiting the sequel to 3 was a step in the right direction, even though you have to play the game on "Hard" to even get down to that last medkit.
Lastly, we have the most important aspect of any shooter: The gun play. Or, as I call it, "The Flow".
A good FPS should never force you into long periods of inactivity or bore you to death with repetitive locales. I often refer to this as "Flow". A good example of well crafted flow would be Half-Life 2. In Valve's masterpiece you're constantly doing something enjoyable. Even when you aren't shooting, you are doing something highly interactive that entertains you in some way. A good FPS should either constantly assault you with enemies (Painkiller, DOOM, BLOOD, Duke Nukem) or break up heavy combat zones with clever interludes full of interaction and seamless aggravation-free exploration (Half-Life 2, NOLF2, System Shock 2, Deus Ex). F.E.A.R. 2 does even better than the first game by very rarely breaking into these interludes, and when it does, the game gives you something to "look at". Several times I caught myself looking at things (Such as symbols scrawled in blood) that made me wonder what the developers were taking when writing this game. Classrooms with brainwashing "equipment" and hidden cameras, bloodstained metal chairs meant for holding down "subjects", macabre laboratories with documents laying on the ground which reveal key parts of the story...the "flow" is well done in F.E.A.R. 2 and Monolith truly outdid the first one in this aspect. Even the gunplay feels more enjoyable. If only the "Glow" effect that highlights each enemy could be removed.
So, in the end, the only question you want an answer to is "should I buy this". The answer to that is yes. Especially if you were a fan of the first game. While it suffers from a severe case of consol-itis, it isn't a terminal disease. In this instance, the good actually slightly outweighs the bad. While the game does lack a bit of connection to the first F.E.A.R. (You have no idea what happened to the point man from the first game) the story is much stronger and much easier to follow in this sequel than it was in the previous installment. The ending is especially unsettling, since it reveals a twist that I suspected but never thought was actually coming.
The only people who shouldn't bother with F.E.A.R. 2 are extremely unforgiving FPS grognards who, unlike me, aren't willing to compromise when it comes to consol-ification. Those folks will find the heavily consolized controls and GUI to be more than just an unsightly blemish. To them, I would say pirate it and don't support Monolith's abandonment of the PC platform. They slapped us in the face and will more than likely get away with it. Just as Bethesda and Bioware have.
Still, I enjoyed F.E.A.R. 2 enough to keep it installed after completing it, and actually slightly favor it over the original due to its better "flow" and level variety. It's a more "creative" game and ties up plot holes that have been hanging loose since the first game's expansion. It even satisfied my curioisity by letting me look at the twisted, disfigured faces of the Replica troopers towards the end of the game. No wonder they always wear masks.