You are walking down a dark school hallway looking desperately for something or someone. There is a noise – a song that echoes through the abandoned primary school in the form of unnatural piano playing. You pass a classroom and something ghostly flickers out to the corner of your eye. You turn your flashlight in its direction but the apparition vanishes almost as soon as it appeared. A TV on the wall flickers back and forth with static, repeating a pre-war looking cartoon training program for ’special children’ at the school. Suddenly the music coming changes, it begins to clunk clumsily; angrily.

You load your shotgun and quickly turn the corner your eyes adjust to the darkness… and he spots you and stops playing. You gasp and take a step back, a man with a face grossly mutilated is sitting at the grand piano. He gives a monstrous moan and you fumble with your gun as he lurches towards you…F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origins.

If you remember the first installment to the series (F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Assault Recon), what should immediately come to mind are images of creepy little ghost girls, darkened hallways, lights with schizophrenic tendencies and telekinetic supersoldiers fighting it out against your arsenal of vicious weaponry. F.E.A.R. 1 boasted intelligent AI and a better than average marriage between the first person shooter and the survival horror genre. The storyline was multifaceted and mysterious; the action drew you in menacingly only to be let down occasionally by the flashlight…stupid flashlight

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origins continues the epic story of what happened to little girl named Alma with psychic abilities and the scientists and soldiers that crossed her and it fixes the flashlight. Unfortunately though F.E.A.R. 2 at times lacks a bit of what made the first installment so creative, that’s the really scary bits (maybe the limited flashlight made F.E.A.R. 1 scarier) and it also feels like a somewhat muddled step backwards instead of a leap forward in the story.

You play as Michael Becket of the Delta Force who is sent in with a team of soldiers to bring a Genevieve Aristide into protective custody. Now from a storyline point of view this is where it gets a bit complicated and what I mean by that is the game begins before the last one finishes and is another perspective of the final 30 minutes of the first game…I know it sounds confusing

But its best to persist because once the shooting starts it becomes clear what F.E.A.R. 2 is really all about. That is battling your way through swarms of intelligent psychic soldiers through darkened corridors (pretty good enemy AI). Its all about the shootin’ and dealing on occasion with supernatural horror-film style manifestations.

As an action FPS F.E.A.R. 2 holds up quite well, the graphics are clean and well presented and the enemy AI as mentioned is pretty good I’d admit it’s even better than F.E.A.R. 1 which is saying something given the original’s much lauded AI. Much of the fighting involves kicking over couches, tables, fridges or whatever is at your disposal to take cover from flying bullets and to strategically take out enemy soldiers.

However, word to the wise, you may want to play the game on the hard level if you are a FPS expert even a semi expert as the game is considerably easier than the original in the easy mode. Yes, as an FPS F.E.A.R. 2 does the basics well, the action comes at you hard and fast and it is always fun to use their trademark slow-motion system to take advantage of the gratuitous gore you can create from well placed shotgun shell into the enemy’s meaty bits. But as far as the horror side goes, that the franchise did really well in the first game, it is disappointingly lacking.

The game seems to focus almost too much on the action side of things and when the horror aspects do happen it seems to resort to cheap scares and smoke and mirrors. An example of this can be seen in the constant repetition of flickering lights and static flickering around your vision. (okay it was a good way to build tension in the first game but, honestly guys can’t we think of something new?) In fact every horror scene in the game seemed to be inspired by movies such as The Ring and The Grudge, you know the type – where you turn a corner and naked creepy lady with long dark hair is standing there, she moves closer to you but without any indication that she has actually moved…

One of the few times that the scares actually achieved what was intended was at one stage when Alma leaps on you and you have to press O repeatedly to stop her from eating your brain and gaining your knowledge. But then the same scene happens over and over again through out the rest of the game!

The gaming environment changes more than it did in the first game which is a good, gone are the repetitive dark office hallways of F.E.A.R. 1, this time through you find yourself in a range of places like the abandoned and destroyed streets of a battle torn city, to a dark claustrophobic subway station and the Evil Scientist laboratory disguised as a school for ’special children’ being especially memorable.

The action and the variety of scenes barely save the game for me, as its biggest disappointment becomes obvious and that is the story. It’s very loose and at times is directionless note there is a mildly icky sexual content to the game which I thought was probably added for shock or replay value more than anything else. The controls when left in default mode have big issues with the XY axis in targetting and the button mapping needs to be changed to fit your style and it’s not very user freindly

In conclusion, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origins is good but it’s not great. If you’re looking for a progression from the first game, something that gels action and horror together while adding more thrills on to it than the first glorious attempt, then you probably won’t find it here.

However if you just want to kill a bunch of baddies then slip in F.E.A.R. 2 disc and get lost in the gore and shoot ‘em up aspects that the game offers up in spades (especially the bits where you get to control the big killing robot machines). You will find you will enjoy the game much more if you’re just looking for some simple FPS fun.