<-125x125 Button - left->Interesting choice for a name, that is what I said as well when I installed the original game. Extraction Point is a follow-up story that happens right after the events from the end of the first adventure. The same characters come into play again like Paxton Fettel and the “little girl” Alma. In this story the girl in a red dress will play a changed role and there will be a taller older girl, just as mysterious but with no good intentions. What did you expect, cheers and flowers? This is supposed to be a “horror” game.
the beginning
The levels are well anchored within the game plot and each of them brings new areas of shooting-action, under various environments, such as buildings, metro stations, sewers and water filled areas. There are 6 “intervals” as the levels have been called, and the whole purpose of the small missions is to reach the final area where is the extraction point, at the roof of Auburn Hospital. As hardware requirements, 1 GB of memory is required, at least a 2GHz CPU (for a smooth rendering), 3.5 GB of storagespace and a DirectX 9 video card with 256MB video RAM memory.
The game story starts in the helicopter where “the ghost girl” makes an appearance that makes everything go blurry, after which there’s a crash… Our hero barely makes it out alive from the burning pieces of metal and glass and heads out to a point where he can reach the 2 members of the FEAR team. There are some “spawned” soldiers out there of Paxton Fettel (who has been brought back to life by Alma probably). However, they are not moving for some reason (like statues) and they pose no threat. Moving on ahead as a player you will see a church. When you enter and reach the altar, you will see Fettel with his soldiers. He brings them back to life and the bullet-time show begins. The soldiers will have to be neutralized as soon as possible, and they will literally vanish in smoke and ashes.
Next, the player will find out that Kwon (the female member of the team) has been captured by Fettel but she manages to escape while she was transported through the subway. She starts her own journey towards the Auburn Hospital. The player meets Holiday, another member of the F.E.A.R. team, and they both go through a warehouse. Holiday gets killed by the sneaky monsters and thus, the player has to go alone through the metro stations.
gameplay
While trying to reach out for an exit the player will see Alma (in a younger version), the “little” girl in red dress clearing the path for him by removing the Replica soldiers. But these soldiers become desperate at one point that they are starting to plant demolition explosives in the hope that our hero will just fall into the trap and die under the pressure of a heavy wall. At first, there’s a rate of success on dodging the explosives by either destroying them or by making the Replica forces blow them by accident. The final explosion thrusts the player from the tunnels into a parking area, from where he heads straight towards the hospital.
The mission was to find Jin (another F.E.A.R. team member), but he is found dead into a room from one of the floors above, with ghosts flying around him. Now the only hope of Point-Man, our hero with super-powers, is to reach the roof as soon as possible, and there’s even Kwon telling him on burst radio transmissions that she needs help and backup in fighting against the Replica forces. Here’s when things go wrong again – there’s a power outage and the player must find a way to restore it. In the basement, Point-Man has some hallucinations of Alma’s victims from the previous game and in the end, the young Alma reunites with the old one under a blue light. After that there’s no more blood on the walls of the hospital at return, and the player proceeds to the roof area, where he has to “dispatch” another squad of trigger-happies. As soon as the Blackhawk helicopter lands, Paxton Fettel destroys it through unknown methods and renders the Point-Man in an unconscious state. Fettel’s words at the end are “a war is coming, I've seen it in my dreams”.
epilogue
The sound in the game is enhanced by ambiental music which contributes to the state of the player, especially when hallucinations occur. There is also some action music this time, yes, I actually noticed it when compared to the one from the original game. The red-laser gun is not very loud, but definitely my favorite for its effectiveness. The developers must have worked pretty hard for the sounds effects of the ghosts – they’re quite scary.
Publisher, Developer: Vivendi Games, TimeGate Studios, Sierra
Official site:
http://www.whatisfear.com
Buy:
$29.95
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Published by: Allan Gabriel in Reviews
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