F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate

aka: F.E.A.R.: Mission Perseus, FEAR: Perseus Mandate
Moby ID: 31082
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Description official description

The second expansion pack to F.E.A.R. finds the player leading an alternative F.E.A.R. team tasked with investigating the Perseus project at Armacham facilities. For this mission, the player is partnered with Captain David Raynes and Lt. Steven Chen, who do their best to assist the player throughout the campaign.

The game's action and horror elements are tied to a plot filled with backstabs and double-crosses, as a senator, his lackey and a group of shadowy mercenaries clash in their journey to unlock the mysteries revealed in the previous F.E.A.R. games. In addition to the weapons from the first two F.E.A.R. games, in Perseus Mandate the player has access to a grenade launcher, a lightning gun and an advanced rifle, all of which will be necessary to dispatch a tough new cast of bad guys.

Unlike the previous expansion, this title can be played stand-alone and does not require the original game.

Spellings

  • F.E.A.R.: Проект «Персей» - Russian spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

316 People (278 developers, 38 thanks) · View all

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Average score: 62% (based on 24 ratings)

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Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 38 ratings with 4 reviews)

Another F.E.A.R. game, minus Point Man

The Good
Perseus Mandate is the second expansion pack to F.E.A.R. It is different to the first two games. For those people not familiar with the first two games, I'll give you a run-down of them. In the original game, you controlled a silent protagonist simply known as Point Man, and you were assigned to the F.E.A.R. team whose purpose is to investigate paranormal activities and stop a madman named Paxton Fettel who is telepathically controlling the Replica soldiers, the main enemies you have to deal with. You have a few glimpses of Alma, and the cut-scenes in the game tells you her background story. At the end of the game you managed to kill Fettel and thus deactivating the Replica soldiers. You, Holiday, and Kwon escape in a chopper just as the Origin facility blows up, but Alma manages to climb on board and causes the chopper to crash.

In Extraction Point, you reconnect with both Holiday and Kwon and the first part of your mission takes you to the church where you discover that Fettel is back from the dead, causing the Replicas to be reactivated, and this eventually leads to a cat-and-mouse game. You soon learn that both your teammates are murdered by Alma's apparitions, and that there are two forms of Alma - both child and adult - but only child Alma helps you overcome obstacles that get in your way from time to time. As with the first game, you escape by chopper after you deal with unfinished business.

And this brings us to Perseus Mandate. The game is set in an alternate universe where you pay the role of a sergeant and you are introduced to a new F.E.A.R. team consisting of Capt. David Raynes and Lt. Steven Chen as they attempt to recover information regarding the Perseus project at Armacham. While you assist this new team and accomplish each mission given to you, Point Man is still out there completing his own missions from the first F.E.A.R. game.

As usual, you explore each area fully and take out any enemy hostiles that try to stop you from completing their mission. The usual enemies - ATC guards, Replica soldiers, and EVE robots - are still there. The Replicas play a minor role this time, only appearing at the start and end of the game. The Nightcrawlers are introduced and they are the main ones you have to deal with. They have the same abilities as you (including the Slo-Mo function), making them a bit difficult to kill. The Nightcrawlers' purpose in the game is to extract Alma's DNA, and it is part of your mission is to recover the DNA before the Nightcrawlers get their hands on it.

As with any F.E.A.R. game, the main menu contains a series of video clips of what you'll expect as you progress through the game. Although one of these contain Alma walking, she is rarely seen in the game. There are several glimpses of Paxton Fettel, Alma's son and the main antagonist of the game.

The real scary stuff doesn't happen until much later in the game, after the destruction of the Origin facility. In the missions that follow this, not only are there the usual paranormal events. In one scene, you witness one of your partners get violently dragged into the floor by a monster. The same thing will happen to you if you don't act quickly against it.

All the weapons from the first two games are carried over to Perseus Mandate, but there are some new weapons that you will be most helpful to you. To me, the Lightning Gun is the best one. I had a lot of fun killing off the Nightcrawlers by electrocution, and then doing it again to make sure they stay down. Another new one, the grenade launcher, is more effective against those big robots.

I found the three bonus missions an excellent addition to the game, and in all of these missions, you basically have to get as far as you can without losing all your health. What I like about completing these missions are the wide open areas you have to navigate through, and these areas are occupied by Replicas who will stop you from proceeding. Providing that you use stealth or other tricks to sneak up on them, all three missions should take fifteen minutes to complete.

While completing each mission given to you, there is that background music that sounds pleasant while you are exploring the area, but the music changes to a more intense one as you get involved in a gunfight, and more disturbing as you walk into an area where a brutal murder just took place. The same soundtrack from Extraction Point is present here, but there are some new pieces as well.

You even have the opportunity to revisit the same locations in the first two games, and the most memorable one is the Armacham facility. If you forget that chopper ride to Armacham in the first game, the game reminds you of it now. Even though this chopper-ride scene is non-interactive, you get to move the mouse around and admire the spectacular view of the city. I loved exploring every bit of Armacham once again, seeing what power-ups and weapons I can get.

The highlight of the game for me was exploring this condemned building and listening to the creepy soundtrack, all the while knowing that something bad is going to happen.

The Bad
Well, I think that replayability is an issue here. Would I play Perseus Mandate again? Probably not. You just made friends with your first F.E.A.R. teammates and you enjoy helping them investigate paranormal events and tracking down Fettel. But here, you are introduced to strangers who don't care what happens to each other. Also, discovering information about the Perseus project isn't as interesting as what you did before.

In the first two games, you had Alma and Paxton Fettel causing havoc wherever they go, plus you had a few paranormal events here and there. ButPerseus Mandate just isn't scary enough. Both Alma and Fettel are rarely seen, and you don't witness any paranormal events until after the explosion of the Origin facility, as mentioned before.

You equipped Slo-Mo feature is useless against certain types of Nightcrawlers you meet much later in the game. since they have an unfair advantage to the player. There are umpteenth times where, using Slo-Mo, I aimed and fired at one of them only to miss because they are able to zig-zag around the room quickly. I actually ran to another place to where I needed to go and they didn't attempt to follow me there.

The Bottom Line
Perseus Mandate is a stand-alone expansion pack, meaning that you don't need to own F.E.A.R to play it. Other than the paranormal events that take place in the game, it is in no way connected to the first two games, so you can choose not to play it.

The game introduces new weapons such as the Grenade Launcher and the Lightning Gun and an additional enemy, the Nightcrawlers. Other than that, the gameplay is the same.

This is the last expansion pack to the original F.E.A.R. series. The next major game is Project Origin, which involves Alma wreaking havoc once again.

Windows · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2011

Was this a F.E.A.R. game?

The Good
It still has the same AI as the original F.E.A.R., the enemies are still very tactical and flanking your enemies is still the best choice you can make.

Now you can team up with three NPC's to fight the Replica soldiers which is a lot of fun. You just got to love their reactions whenever you use slow-motion.

Unlike the previous expansion, I didn't notice any glitches that got on my nerves.

The Bad
I am sure everybody agrees that Monolith wanted F.E.A.R. to be about Alma Wade (they even made an official statement saying so), but in this game both Paxton Fettel and Alma are pushed to the side. This story is more about some PMC that employs psychic themselves. You can't believe how fast I lost interest. It gives the impression that somebody was just making a generic shooter using the F.E.A.R. AI and crow-barred some horror into it one week before release.

This story is even more simple then Extraction Point, you are just chasing people. There aren't even any good horror moments, the only one that startled me was one they copied from Extraction Point. The only new enemy in the story is an over-obvious dark hole in the ground that will suck you in, but there is no way anybody could ever fall for that more then twice.

The game introduces a completely new F.E.A.R. team, but fails to endear them to the player. I really didn't care what happened to the new characters. Even Point Man is absent, you are now playing as another F.E.A.R. operative with psychic powers and a lack of emotion, but they forgot to explain why that is so.

The game took me three hours more then Extraction Point, but the problem is that the game is incredibly repetitive and stretched out. The last few minutes were quite interesting, but everything before that was in dire need of an editor armed with a chainsaw.

The Bottom Line
The only people I can recommend this game to are the ones that just can't ever get enough of the franchise. Even if you got the game for free on Steam you might want to pretend it's not there.

Windows · by Asinine (957) · 2011

Better of the two.

The Good
I don't understand why every reviewer bashes a late (and probably second) expansion pack to a critically acclaimed game. Sure, it may not bring major improvements to the table but when the original is already polished to perfection, why should the developers mess with the successful formula instead of providing more fun revolving around the initial premise laid down before them?

Timegate's (now non-canon) second effort do not strive for treading new ground and even more than the first pack, focuses on small-scale, visceral infantry combat. Seriously, F.E.A.R's replica troops are among the best (if not 'the best') AI soldiers I've encountered in a shooter - and I know I longed for more when I came to the premature end of the original story arc. They're nearly alive as far as AI opponents go: all the cold-blooded talk and clever maneuvers make them more to be feared than the so-called 'scary moments', at least for me.

That doesn't mean I don't like those defining moments either, they were surely original and initially nerve-wracking. However, TimeGate's copying of the same ideas to their first expansion pack took away much from the effect. I'm happy to state that Perseus Mandate does not offer more than a handful of such scenes (or they would surely be annoying this time). Since you don't play as the 'Point Man' anymore, the idea makes sense too. Why would Alma show herself to a mere sergeant, who is not of her blood?

To be exact, I didn't like what was 'thrown' at me as story in Extraction Point. Simply put, it was a lazy excuse - five minutes into the game and I discover that Fettel's still alive commanding his troops. Sorry but what happened to that dramatic scene where I, as the 'Point Man', put a bullet through his forehead? Then in the midst of the relatively short campaign, my only contacts, Holiday and Jin were also taken away from me one after the other. The expansion than turned into a slog to the said Extraction Point after throwing false premises at me. What remained then was the core combat which suffered much owing to the poorly-constructed and overly dark maps. The new weapons were fun, but the overall experience was not.

Perseus Mandate gets rid of 'Point Man' and gives you the role of a sergeant in the secondary F.E.A.R. team that goes in when things go awry. Thus the pack takes the 'Blue Shift' route where at times you experience the same events through a different perspective. Having clearly defined objectives and a team of two (usually) with you helps much with the sense of accomplishment as well as the immersion.

Since TimeGate's mappers are obviously not as experienced as Monolith's, their chances rely on design choices - and this time, it works. Even though Monolith neglected these two packs, TimeGate's story here expands the universe with newer characters and of course, more evil schemes behind the initial experiment than you've thought.

Although technically inferior to the standards set by Monolith, the maps on offer are highly varied and sees the player fighting outdoors as much as indoors. To tell the truth, they're more practical than aesthetically appealing. However, the set pieces on offer are well thought-out and I guess that's what matters most in a game that relies on tactical firefights - so no worries here. On a positive note, this straight-forward, less-detailed style of mapping helps the game run more smoothly, especially compared to the prior pack where it was clear that the authors craved for highly-detailed, brush-based design which was obviously way beyond their technical expertise.

Just like the first pack, TimeGate throws in three more weapons to an already sufficient inventory. Apart from an advanced assault rifle which helps in darker environments, the other two remain mostly as one-shot affairs (again, just like the prior three) since they're all heavy stuff and you won't find much ammo lying around.

What makes the combat fresh is not the weapons but the addition of a new mercenary group coming in with intentions of their own, namely Nightcrawlers. Their AI may not be much different from the now standard replicas, however their speech patterns and weapon selection makes them special enough - and beware of the Elite among them! With inhuman reflexes, even one of these guys will give you a hard time.

Composed of seven intervals, the campaign takes longer to complete than Extraction Point's. The intensity gets higher along the way and the last few levels turn out to be an all-out war. That's not a bad thing in case of F.E.A.R. I say. Moreover, you unlock three bonus maps (each one clocking around ten minutes) upon completion which will make sure that you remember the original F.E.A.R trilogy as an adrenaline-pumping shooter. That is, if the campaign on offer here hasn't already formed such an idea in your mind.

The Bad
Even though I mentioned above that the campaign here is more about combat and taking the player through different environments (still within the given context), I must also admit that even looking at it from this perspective, some maps come out unacceptably bland in the end - and that's not a comparison between this and the earlier products within the series. The quality highly differs in the product itself: the first half looks neglected compared to the second. It must be a case of different authors.

Sadly, both TimeGate's packs lack Monolith's polish. I believe that the levels here would benefit much from a re-lighting process. Apart from a few later pieces, Monolith's high-contrast, dramatic lighting is nowhere to be seen - thus the character shadows are also mostly missing. Worse are the levels which are dimly lighted all throughout even though there are no apparent light sources in vicinity. Details like these reminds me of poor users maps for older shooters out there - amateur designers may get away without polish, but a professional studio can't.

I didn't get how the sergeant I played as is capable of slowing down time. Apparently, he is no 'Point Man' and has no psychic connection to Alma either. He is your ordinary grunt, nothing more. Still, I didn't wonder much about it once the action fully kicked in. Simply explanation: SloMo is a gameplay gimmick that couldn't be removed, or the pack wouldn't be a F.E.A.R. extension anymore. Even a boss battle is acceptable, as herein done, but SloMo is destined to stay no matter what.

Another little detail that irritated me came out later in the game where the control was taken from me to show what happens right before my eyes in a cutscene. What is the point of that? I don't remember a single instance where it happened so in the original game after I took control of things in the very beginning. It is against the style. Here, have a little cutscene in the midst of Half-Life: would it be acceptable?

The Bottom Line
Perseus Mandate is unambitious, it does not offer anything vastly new, it lacks the overall polish of the base game - but who is to know what it sets out to do? Here are the most enjoyable firefights of the original trilogy. It clearly surpasses the previous pack and stands at the top with the original pack in this respect - at some high points, it even bests the original game's set pieces owing to the sheer scale of the things.

I strongly believe that if the gameplay remains enjoyable, dedicated players will always see behind the technical shortcomings and get the enjoyment out of the product. I don't think the designers set out for more than an extended brutal battle. Thankfully, they accomplished it. I wouldn't recommend the first pack with ease but get this one if you enjoyed F.E.A.R. (even slightly) on its combat basis.

Windows · by erc (435) · 2010

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

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A little mistake. Optimus Prime Apr 24, 2015

Trivia

German version

Various blood and gore effects were removed in the German version.

Online servers

The game's online servers which were hosted on GameSpy were shut down on 5 December 2012.

Subway

In one of the levels, The Sergeant goes through a subway to reach the surface, where he appears at an airplane crash site. This is the same spot that appeared in the first expansion, Extraction Point, when The Pointman (protagonist of the first game and the first expansion) was entering the subway. It should also be noted that The Sergeant was there before The Pointman, as the Replicas are still deactivated. In the same level, while The Sergeant is still in the subway/tunnels, the crash can be heard, and a subsequent quake noticed. This is the only place that is visited multiple times throughout the series.

The Sergeant

Although players aren't supposed to see the face of the protagonist, the Sergeant actually has a fully made face model. It can be viewed when accessing the game files.

VES Advanced Rifle

The VES Advanced Rifle (a new weapon found in F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate) is a fictional gun, but is based on the XM8.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Richard Appleton.

Additional contributors: Sicarius, Stratege, coenak, Medicine Man, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added November 15, 2007. Last modified March 20, 2024.