FEAR 2 brings back fond memories for me, not only was it one of the first games I reviewed for That Aussie Game Site way back in March last year, but it scared me so bad I peed just a tiny bit. FEAR 3 (or possibly unless someone smartens up before the release F3AR) is on the horizon and promises to add a little originality to FEAR's otherwise overly familiar gameplay. On top of that the marketing for game gets a double geek thumbs up thanks to the commissioning of one John Carpenter, genre movie director legend, to produce the live action trailers.

Here's a slightly spoilery catchup, if you haven't played the first two games you really need too before you play FEAR 3, as the plot is definitely one of the series strong points. So stop reading and go play them right now. If you don't care about spoilers here's the down low. In FEAR you are the Point Man, a new addition to the elite FEAR team, kind of an X-Files focused special forces unit. While investigating this company called Armachan that seems to be seized by a terrorist by the name of Paxton Fettel and his mysterious soldiers. During the mission weird stuff happens, visions of a little girl and other creepy occurrences. The little girl is Alma, and incredibly powerful psychic child who was locked inside a vault in Armachan and kept in a chemical coma. Before the ago of 16 she's been artificial inseminated and given birth to two children. The first is deemed a failure and not psychically gifted, but the second is Paxton Fettel who has the psychic abilities to control the clone soldiers manufactured by Armachan. The scientists suspected that Alma was communicating with Paxton psychically and switched of her life support, leaving her to die in the dark inside the vault.

Paxton's goal is to free his mother from inside the facility. The Point Man (you) catches up to Paxton and kills him before he reaches his goal. The Point Man is also revealed as being the first child born to Alma, explaining his hallucinations and the psychic powers he demonstrated during the game, mainly a bullet time ability. Then the objective moves to blowing up the Armachan reactor and destroying Alma who despite being dead is still the real threat.  Unfortunately at games conclusion it's clear that despite blowing the hell out of everything Alma is not destroyed.

There's a few expansions between FEAR and FEAR 2 but they're not canon so we'll ignore them for this synopsis.

So FEAR 2 now, it's the same story but from a different angle. You play as Michael Beckett, part of a Delta Force unit sent to capture the Armachan CEO Genevieve Aristide. Just as you arrest her the Point Man destroys the Armachan generator causing a nuclear explosion and knocking you and your team unconscious. When you come to the you and your team are being experimented on by Armachan scientists. Aristide and her team are trying to create psychic soldiers so they have someone to fight back against Alma with but a team of soldiers from Armachan raid the facility and you're able to escape. From there its kind of a history of Alma plot trail as you learn how she became the monster she is and all the horrible shit Armachan has done. Eventually Beckett heads to a facility that might boost his psychic abilities and give him a snow balls in hell chance of beating Alma before she destroys the world in her rage. At games end things don't go very well. Your team is almost entirely dead and Aristide shows up as you get locked inside the device and locks Alma in with you. But rather than kill you Alma, erm, takes advantage of you. So you get sexually assaulted by a dead girl. The final image is Alma with a pronounced pregnant belly standing before you while the world around you burns.

It's even more messed up when you actually see it, trust me.

Alma and her two sons in FEAR 3, dysfunctional doesn't really cover it

The plot and creepy atmosphere of the FEAR series has always been the games strong points and rather over familiar shooting gameplay being it's main tripping point. The contrast between the shooting bits and the creepy bits was always pretty obvious as well. From early information it seems FEAR 3 is a whole new wrinkle to the series. You play as both the Point Man looking shaggy and scary but still in full control of his bullet time abilities, or you can play online coop as the ghost of Paxton Fettel and use your psychic abilities to possess enemies or scout ahead for your brother. So now you're fighting to protect Alma and her next unborn child as either a shaggy psychic soldier who has gone crazy or a dead psychic soldier cannibal who was always pretty crazy. It's getting a bit difficult to tell who the good guys are meant to be in this game series.

So how is this going to impact all the trademark creepy moments in the game? If you and Alma have established a happy mother son relationship is she still going to be popping up to claw at your face from weird angles. No solid details on the games plot have leaked out yet but check out the website www.whatisfear.com for those cool John Carpenter trailers.

Here's the launch trailer and the box art below.

The game will be out to threaten your bladder and dignity on October 1.