(Page 2 of 3)

Crispy Gamer: Will you be facing off against any new enemies, and if so, will you have any new weapons with which to kill them?

Mulkey: We have really pushed for variety in the enemies for Project Origin. Even within the base "soldier" factions, we have a strong variety of specialists that add more visual variety and varied combat challenges than most games. On top of that, there are a variety of "preternatural" entities to freak out the player and really mix things up. We are reworking the entire arsenal, but it will remain a mix of realistic military and near-future, high-tech weaponry.

Crispy Gamer: Did you bring back those occasionally invisible, but always jumpy dudes? Because those guys piss me off.

Mulkey: Oh yes, they are still a part of the action. They have received some updates since the first encounter, though. Their cloaking effects have been totally reworked, they are way more intense with their Parkour-style navigation in the environment, and now they have these electrified shock fists that act like taser brass knuckles on steroids .

Crispy Gamer: Great, thanks. Have the game's graphics changed a lot since the original, or have you kept a similar art and architecture style and just made everything look better?

Mulkey: We have added a ton of new features to the engine that will pump up the looks, but the big change comes from the visual variety we are adding. Right from the start, we set the goal of ensuring that there is a strong variety in visuals across the game. The player will go to a lot of visually diverse locations.

Crispy Gamer: One of the things that, for me, really made F.E.A.R. into a great first-person shooter were the fluid, responsive controls. I'm assuming you haven't screwed them up, but have you changed anything about them? Like added a button so you can look down the barrel of the gun or refined the melee combat so you're hitting your enemy with the butt of your gun instead of doing some weird ballet kick to the face?

Mulkey: We have spent a lot of effort getting the F.E.A.R. combat experience to feel nice with a console controller, and I think it is feeling really nice. We have added "iron sight" aiming, but the ballet-slow-motion-flying-bad-ass-kick-to-the-face is a staple to the franchise; we can't pull that out.

Crispy Gamer: Another great thing about the original game was the freaky moments. Will this game be trying as hard to scare the crap out of me?

Mulkey: Certainly. In the original game we could really ramp you in slowly and build up the scares with fleeting glimpses and subtlety, but this time around players already know about Alma and what, basically, she is. I don't think subtle glimpses of her will have the same effect the second time around, so in Project Origin you are going to find that Alma will be "touching" the player more.

Crispy Gamer: A lot of the original's frights seemed to be influenced by Japanese horror movies. Will the scares in this game also be strongly influenced by J-horror films, or has the team been watching any British, South American or Eastern European horror films lately?

Mulkey:The heart of the franchise is in, and still remains in, Asian horror, but we tend to pull influences from all around. Whatever freaks us out tends to make its way into our work in one way or another.