F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate

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.