Project Origin Preview

A Preview - By Gaetano Prestia

When Vivendi Games released F.E.A.R in 2005 on PC it was met with both critical and commercial success. Its mixture of solid gameplay, challenging enemies and eerie environments quickly propelled it to the top of “must-have” lists across the world. The game was such a great success that it was eventually released on the XBOX 360. While that version wasn’t quite as successful as the PC one, it still provided console gamers with a fantastic FPS experience, up against an abundance of great shooters already available on the console.

Since then, developers Sierra and Monolith have split ways. While Sierra was able to pull away with the F.E.A.R name, Monolith got what really matters in the incredibly intriguing F.E.A.R story. Project Origin - a title chosen from a competition for the sequels name - puts you into the shoes of Michael Becket as he and his Delta Force team go to arrest Genevieve Aristide, the person behind the torture of young, but psychotic, Alma.

From the moment this Project Origin demo started up, it was obvious that this title has a lot more “colour” to it when compared to its predecessor. There’s more personality in the environments and the city feels a lot more alive and active than what the areas did in F.E.A.R. Granted, it was only a small, 15-minute demo, but we were able to move through several different areas, all of which successfully created an eerie mood while also feeling alive and bright.

As the demo began, Becket was thrown into the wreckage of a city that was infested with enemy soldiers. The action began almost immediately with enemies quickly turning on us and bombarding Becket with bullets. We got a fairly good chance to check out the enemy AI during these battles, which looks set to make combat quite tactical and involving. The slo-mo feature - which we guess will be implemented into the storyline somewhere in the game - allows you to aim for specific parts of enemy bodies with more accuracy. How successful your shots are, are very dependant upon where you shoot the enemy. For example, if you shoot a solider in the leg, they will buckle to the ground and quickly run away for cover. If they do this, you’re suddenly back in the same situation you were in before you shot them. Therefore, it is important to get torso and head shots in as frequently as possible, especially when you have three or four enemy soldiers standing over you. Using the slo-mow feature will assist you with this, so it’s a feature that evens out the playing field considering the impressive level of enemy AI.

But the enemies don’t only take cover when they’re suddenly met with the possibility of death. They almost always use the environment to advantage. While also acting to save their own lives, they’ll jump to cover and flank together to perform the best possible attack and this made things quite difficult. There’s nothing better than having to sit tight, plan your moves, choose your weapon and attack while also considering the intelligent nature of your enemies. You simply can’t run-and-gun into an area like in Call of Duty 4, because enemies will take you down with ease. Furthermore, you’ll be able to interact with the environment and knock down tables or other objects to use as cover, including opening car doors and using them to cover you from enemy fire.

Becket will be able to hold up to four weapons at once as well as several different types of grenades. It’s important to have a decent amount of variety with your weapon stocks as certain enemies dictate particular weapons. For example, an enemy high up on a building in a distance won’t be harmed by a machine-gun. Instead, you’ll have to use a single-shot sniper rifle in order to take them down before you move into range of their weapon.

Towards the end of the demo we were treated to some gameplay in a large mech unit, which deemed to be incredibly destructive and fun. The handling of the unit seemed to be quite accurate based on its size and it came equipped with two mini-machine guns as well as two rocket launchers. For Robocop fans, think of the ED-209 but far more bad-ass. It also came with a HUD that allowed for enemy identification, which prioritises which direct enemies are more threatening. For example, enemies with a rocket launcher were pinpointed with a red marker (more threatening), while those with only guns were pinpointed with a yellow marker (less threatening).

In reference to presentation, the pace of the combat definitely dictated how the game performed. While the environments are more vibrant than in F.E.A.R, they were given an extra boost of life whenever there was an intense battle happening in the area. More noticeably while controlling the mech unit, explosions and environmental damage looked really good, as did the particle effects. There was some slight slowdown whenever there was a lot happening on screen, but hardly enough to dampen the experience. What was fairly impressive was that while there were plenty of explosions as well as bullets flying everywhere, the environment actually felt like a real battlefield. Smoke and debris was flying everyone and it gave a great feeling of destruction and combat.

We didn’t at all get the feeling of suspense or fear in this demo because it was more of a showcase of combat and gameplay. Considering its storyline is similar to that of F.E.A.R’s we expect a similar thrilling direction. F.E.A.R was and is still considered one of the best FPS’s ever developed, and at the moment Project Origin looks set to live up to the standard set by that scary and challenging title.

Project Origin is set for release later this year.

By Gaetano Prestia

Tags: 3 360 Blu-ray fear fear first-person FPS Horror meaning of Origin playstation project ps3 shooter sony thriller xbox xbox360

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MrPS3 07/08/2008

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