F.E.A.R. Extraction Point

We kick off the show coverage with the expansion pack for Monolith's F.E.A.R. (I swear to God, this is the last time I'm putting in these damn dots).

Basking in a pool of blood!

Soldiers are tougher than before...

I had a chat with a really nice guy from Vivendi who actually reads AT, which in my book made the expansion the second coming. Objectivity what?

Seriously though, TimeGate Studios, who are developing the expansion pack, have done a really good job on it. The game starts off literally where the original ended. With a big bang. You discover Alma's identity and things sort of continue from that point on.

Gameplay-wise Extraction Point follows the same principles as its predecessor; with a clear accent on nightmarish horror sequences and miniatures within levels designed to scare the player.

I've played three levels from the expansion and they seemed quite a bit harder than the original game. Maybe I'm a bit rusty, but it just seemed to me that the bad guys are placed around levels so that they never give you a break.

The good news is that players get new weapons to toy with. Two of the new weapons that I tried were the mini gun and the laser rifle. Seriously, both of these weapons kick some serious, serious ass. They both take excellent advantage of the amazing particle effects in the game. I just fired up my mini gun (chain gun) for kicks and shot up a wall in front of me, then went into bullet-time mode. The thing looked so cool.

While I was admiring my carnage of the said wall, a mech unit leaped out from the shadows with a clear intention of flattening me. I started showering it with bullets from the mini gun before switching to the laser gun. Thankfully, and unlike so many other laser guns in video games, this one has quite a bit of OOMPH to it. The laser ray feels powerful as it leaves blazing trails on the walls and everywhere else that you point it at. It's just very satisfying to use.

I asked the guy from Vivendi what sort of playtime we should expect from the expansion. To quote what he said: "It took me about 10 hours to finish the original game, and it should take me around 6 hours to finish the expansion."

Fair enough, for an expansion pack that's not bad at all.

Definitely looking forward to playing this game.

Also, I got a quick tour of FEAR for the Xbox 360. The 360 runs the game with ease and the frame rate is incredibly steady (and also locked by MS at 30 FPS). The 360 version alone will feature HD lighting - a 3D effect not available in the original or in the expansion pack. Gameplay-wise, FEAR for the 360 will be taking all the stuff from the PC version, although the designers have tweaked the combat so that it's a lot more action-oriented that on the PC. I don't know what that means exactly, but I'm just paraphrasing what I was told.

-- Uros '2Lions' Jojic