F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn Review

Alma senses the conflict within you. You’re a threat.

The main enemies of the FEAR games, the Replica soldiers, made up some of the first person shooter genre’s most formidable foes.  The developers at Monolith gave them fantastic AI, so they’d use their environment to their advantage and outgun you if you weren’t careful.  As an army of clones controlled by a powerful psychic, they were fearsome, but a single Replica soldier was anything but unique.  And once you gained FEAR’s heightened reflex ability, you could take back the advantage with slow-motion shooting to turn the once smart and agile Replica into a mess of bloody gore.

But then there’s Foxtrot 813.  Somehow he’s special, and different from his Replica brothers.  For one, you play as him in the downloadable campaign for FEAR 2: Project Origin called FEAR 2: Reborn.  You know he has an ambitious destiny ahead of him.  A familiar voice beckons him forward.

The intro scene reuses the fun, palette-cleansing giant mech sequences from the main game to immediately thrust you into fast-paced action, while you play out the events of the Replica takeover of Armacham.  In an interesting twist, however, the vertically-tiered Armacham skyscraper adds a more satisfying way to maneuver through your path of carnage down building stories that feel different from the street-level mayhem of FEAR 2.  At one point, a nasty fall even forces you out of your mech, creating an arresting reversal of fortune as you rely on nothing but a pistol to fend off enemies while you wait for the mech to self-repair.

Like the Replica raid, the rest of 813’s storyline runs parallel to the events of Project Origin sometime after the fallout of Auburn city caused by the vengeful psychic, Alma.  During the aftermath, you, as 813, fight alongside your clone brothers under Alma’s control. I especially enjoyed the more cooperative style to the shooting, which comes as a huge change to the solitary experiences of past FEAR games.

Why not appreciate some fine art while your mind falls apart?

That’s all actually a great setup for 813’s world to shatter: in the midst of other Replica, you hallucinate and prove just how different you are. From here, you gain the reflex ability, the fulcrum behind FEAR’s slo-mo based shooting, which amplifies a Replica’s apparently innate ability to outflank, especially now that you’re controlling one.  Needless to say, 813 becomes an enemy to his brothers, while the familiar voice within compels him towards a new goal.

Taking point from previously mentioned gameplay, the rest of 813’s ordeal takes him through shootouts similar to the peak moments of FEAR 2 proper, but with some refinement to their circumstances.  You’ll face one of FEAR 2’s most interesting enemies, for instance, the Remnants, which could revive and control dead soldiers like marionettes.

You have access to all of FEAR 2’s weapons very quickly, in accordance to the fast pacing, including the incredibly satisfying Hammerhead, the stake-shooter that can pin enemies to walls.  Even powerful weapons, such as the rocket launcher, are too easily available, yet a firefight against a Power Armor mech still effectively challenged me since some near-invisible Replica Assassins reinforced him.  The multi-floor level design here especially works well if you use the slo-mo reflexes, as with enough effort you can move between each floor to outrun, outflank, and outshoot them all.

Against a crazy clone with slo-mo? The Powered Armor should just quit already.

813 basically moves between all the major gameplay types from Project Origin so quickly, however, that the entire experience just feels too fast paced.  Barring the few brief moments, like when you traverse a completely toppled building and can hear panicked office workers banging on now horizontal doors, Reborn loses most of the atmospheric exploration of the main FEAR games.  Since it crams together all the highlights from FEAR 2, even with its alterations it still acts more like an extended demo.  Any decent FPS gamer can blast through the whole campaign in a single 1.5 hour sitting.

Unlike a certain other recently released DLC, at least Reborn actually has an important impact on the overarching FEAR story.  Despite its utterly short length, the meaningful story combined with all the best gameplay moments from Project Origin make it a worthwhile DLC campaign for FEAR fans.  Sure, it’s too short, but I enjoyed the game  enough to play through it twice.  Even as it recycles gameplay, Reborn proves Monolith can yet do more with FEAR, so I definitely look forward to more from the series.