Be Green, Be Entertained, Be Creative
Sam Kench and Tara Hartnett review the Netflix made sequel “Crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon: The Sword of destiny” starring Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen and directed by Yuen Woo-Ping.
F.E.A.R 2 begins a short bit before the end of the first F.E.A.R game, however you play as a different character in a different location. Monolith still had a large part with making the game but now there is the addition of Warner Brothers.
Monolith still handles the horror elements which are in top form and Warner Brothers throws in some cash which makes the game much more polished than the first one was. The shooting is more modern and finely tuned. I loved the shooting in the first game after I got used to it, but the shooting is very good in the second game as well, but they are entirely different.
The first game had a lot of cramped corridors and droning offices but there were only a few locations and that meant you were looking at the same decor and art design throughout most of the game. Visually the game got a bit repetitive and stale.
They improved this greatly for the sequel. F.E.A.R 2 has a much higher quantity of settings as well as having more color and stronger more polished visuals which make the presentation of the game much stronger.
The horror works very well. There are some ineffective bits and relies on jump scares a bit too often, but there are still of creative, original, and ingenious scare tactics used to creep out any gamer. Alma is in full creepy mode, and though her transformation in the first game may have been a highlight, her figure in F.E.A.R 2 is creepy in it’s own right.
The shooting is a great deal of fun. Once again the shooting takes some of the tension out of the moment and you feel safe from Alma when under fire, so the integration could still be improved upon.
F.E.A.R 2 is even gorier than the first game. You can shoot a guy with a shotgun and watch him completely explode leaving nothing behind save for bloody smears on the walls and ceiling. You can blow a guy in half at the waist and watch his upper half flail around in agony. You can blast a guy’s shoulder off and admire the gruesome ribs sticking out from the side of his chest. It’s a bloody good time. There is a wider variety of guns this time. Some useful and some not so much. The guns range from being awesome and cool, like the hammerhead which can pin people to walls, to being completely lame and not fun to use, like the napalm cannon.
There are some interesting set pieces in F.E.A.R 2. There are segments when you hop inside a battlemech type thing and fire machine guns and rockets. These parts feel out of place like they belong in a different game. At any rate they are not much fun and only manage to take you out of the experience. At times the action overall feels as if it’s on too grand a scale for a horror game, but the shooting is usually fun so I digress.
*SPOILERS* The game ends with one of the downright creepiest game plot developments ever. Your character gets strapped to a chair and raped by Alma. That is pretty messed up, and disturbing to be sure, and further more she get’s pregnant, setting a wonderful stage for a sequel. *END SPOILERS*
F.E.A.R. 2 was a great follow up to the first game and furthered the cannon of the series. It was another great game being added to the eventual trilogy. Check back tomorrow to see if the 3rd could complete an entirely worthwhile trilogy.
CLICK HERE to order F.E.A.R. 2
