Given that it seems to be standard practice now that every single first-person-shooter (FPS) must have a multiplayer component, the success or failure of these games goes hand-in-glove with whatever new feature they can bring to the online party. Whether it's perks, RPG levelling, unlockables, jetpacks or vehicles, each new shooter seems to try and leverage some of the market share by providing something unique.
The developers behind the multiplayer mode for the upcoming horror FPS, FEAR 3 (or F.3.A.R., as its stylised logo would have it), have gone to some lengths to set their online mode apart, by roping in the paranormal elements from the main campaign. If you've never played a FEAR title before, the franchise's story deals with the paranormal fallout caused by shady corporate types, who conducted human experiments in their quest to create units of super-soldiers. One of their test subjects, a young girl named Alma, went rogue and used her formidable psychic abilities to take savage revenge on her tormentors. She also set off a chain of events which allowed evil supernatural entities to roam free in the streets.
For FEAR 3's multiplayer, the developers have used these horror elements to create an innovative series of online experiences. Instead of the standard match-types in other shooters, players in FEAR 3's multiplayer will find themselves possessing enemies as spectres, fending off waves of supernatural foes, watching their backs against their own team-mates and frequently running for their lives.
The multiplayer is broken into four match types; Contractions, Soul King, Soul Survivor and Fucking Run. Contractions is a team-survival mode which owes a little debt of inspiration to the Horde match type in Gears Of War 2. In it, players take control of soldiers who have to fend off wave after wave of enemies, which gradually increase in size as each wave is repelled. Teamwork here is essential; between each wave, players can forage for weapons caches which, once returned to base points, are added to the team's general arsenal. They can also use the breaks in the action to strengthen their defensive positions by barricading entry points. The atmosphere is mercilessly taught in Contractions; battles are quick and vicious and the time between enemy waves feels all too brief.
Soul King offers a very different experience, combining frenetic shooter action with what amounts to a supernatural game of tag. This time players take control of a Spectre – a quick and nasty ghost – and they dash around the map, taking possession of soldiers on the battlefield. Once this is done, their job is to stack up as high a bodycount as possible using the soldier they've possessed, and collect all the souls which drop from their victims. Their choice of target for possession can help immensely; some soldiers are armed with better weapons than others, and there are a couple of heavily armoured brute soldiers tromping around the map, which when possessed, give the player a definite edge. If a player's host soldier is shot down, they have to flee quickly into another body before they're shot in Spectre form. If this happens, all the souls they've collected thus far are dropped and can be picked up by their opponents. The player with the most souls at the end of the match is the winner.
Soul Survivor is a neat combination of the Contraction and Soul King mode. The match starts off with four players fending off wave after wave of enemies. However, one of the players is soon possessed against their will, and then their job is to use the enemies flooding their former teammates and their own supernatural abilities to turn all the other players over to their side. The task facing the rest of the players is avoid this for the remainder of the round's time limit, when an escape point will be opened up. The mode is alternately tense and gleefully boisterous; players who are trying to survive have to keep mobile throughout the match, while keeping their ammunition stocked and watching the backs of their comrades. The players who have been turned can take a more relaxed attitude to the mode, having both endless respawns and steadily increasing numbers of allies on their side.
The final and most interesting multiplayer mode is Fucking Run, which is a four-player co-op mode where the players do a lot of running and gunning. The match begins with players arming themselves from nearby caches and then running down a wide corridor-like environment. Once they start running, a large roaring column of smoke – called "The Wall Of Death" – springs up behind them and chases them through the map. Enemies pop out on the road ahead of the players, snapping off rounds and generally slowing them down. If the Wall Of Death catches them, or if the enemy soldiers shoot them down, the round is over. The more callous and selfish players out there might be alarmed to hear that if any soldier gets left behind, the match is over. Each round in the match finishes when the players get to a bunker at the other end of the map, and then they're given a brief breather to re-arm and reload themselves before being forced to outrun the Wall Of Death again.
The maps we played through in the demo were well suited to each match type – and the developers say this will hold true for all the maps over the different modes. In Contraction, the burnt-out building blocks of the Mechanised Assault map provided players with sections they could can fortify with barricading and use as bolt-holes against the oncoming swarms of enemies. In Soul King, the Fresh Fish prison-yard map was tightly constructed and claustrophic, peppered with raised walkways and corners for players to duck around should their host body die. Soul Survivor's You're Done Now map was a shanty town, filled with tight corridor-like streets at ground-level but wide open rooftops the players could dash across in their quest to stay alive. For Fucking Run, the Mother's Dark ruin map took players through a section of creepy woodland, dotted with enemy positions and obstacles aimed at making the players' progress as hazardous as possible.
The modes are all well balanced, varied in the way players have to approach them, and above all, great fun. Some matches also have a wild card tossed into them in the form of Alma, who will pop into the action with no warning. When she does, regardless of the match type, our advice is to cut and run given that she's impervious to damage and shooting at her only attracts her unwanted attentions.
It's true that when she turns up, players are forced to do a lot of running away, but then, isn't that how it should be in a horror game? The key factor in scaring someone is to ensure danger is ever-present, and ultimately unbeatable. This reduces their chance of survival to a slim window where luck is a deciding factor. FEAR 3's multiplayer may not actually terrify players, it's shot-through with enough nail-shredding tension to make picking up a copy an enticing prospect when it's released later this year.
