The F.E.A.R. 2 Demo is available on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. No noticeable differences, really. Here are the impressions.


The demo opens up what seems to be the opening cut-scene for the game which pretty much gives you a small hint as to the back-story of the original F.E.A.R.. The demo then puts you into the perspective of Michael Becket who is supposed to arrest president of Armacham Genevieve Aristide. The start of the demo takes place a few seconds after the original game ends(almost the exact same time because the game starts after the explosion).

Just to give you a little head-start this is how the demo begins:

You start out getting up from a helicopter crash in a hallucination. You see the young version of Alma standing a few feet away. After you get up and start moving forward she appears a couple of more times before slowly morphing into the older version of herself and disappearing.

This demo can only be fully experienced completely alone, with the brightness levels they want, and your surround sound turned up very close to the max(or at least before you start pissing neighbors off). Playing the demo it seems that for FPS novices it might be a little challenging considering there is no noticeable amount of auto-aim. And we all know that sound design is what makes a horror game, with the perfect example of being BioShock. This game perfects the sound of what your player should be experiencing and will have you turning around a numerous amount of times just to see what's behind you.

Controls are a little confuzzling. If anyone has played a Splinter Cell game you will know that you must hold a button down to open up a menu to change weapons or other things in your inventory. Unlike Splinter Cell, only ONE button switches weapons; Right on the directional pad; ->, which means that if you accidentally skip the weapon you want, your going to have to cycle through all your weapons until you get back to it, which can get a little annoying in a hectic battle. Thankfully, Slow-Mo is back from the first game which gives you a small amount of time to either switch your weapons or see your foes die in a very bloody bath. The gameplay seems to be very generic and very old-school as I haven't seen a first person shooter bring back med-packs in a LOOOOOOONG time. And although there is a flashlight, expect very little from it as it will only help you look in completely pitch-black corners as it isn't that bright.

Graphics are great. Nothing Gears of War or Crysis, but definitely better than a Halo or Call of Duty.

One thing that I HAVE to bring up is the scripted events. Some of the greatest in-game cutscenes to freak the hell out of you, but the greatest ones are the ones outside of the cutscenes. There are some great in-game scenes in the demo such as a falling bus about to crush you completely, or when you turn around in a tight hallway and see nothing, but once you turn around again to continue you see that crazy b**** for a millisecond and completely disappears, only leaving you with a slight evil snicker.

Before the demo ends you are treated with one of the games new features, which is a vehicle. A heavily-armed, mech warrior style, robot which I haven't died using yet. It's armed with a Gatling gun which can overheat and four missles that shoot all at once that take a few seconds to reload. Of course, you would use that Gatling guns to rip normal foes to shreds, while using the missles with the guns to fight the other armored warriors of death which are at least half the size of you. At the end of the demo, you encounter pretty much a clone of the mech that you are using, and after a few seconds of engaging a battle with this thing, the demo cuts off.

The demo is out now and the full game is coming out the 10th of February in North America and the 13th of February in Europe.