Preview by: Toni Schwartz

FEAR 3 takes place about nine months after the previous game. You may recall that at the end of FEAR 2 certifiably crazy but psychically powerful Alma got herself pregnant by raping Michael Becket, the game’s protagonist. Nasty stuff. In FEAR 3 she’s ready to pop with this demon baby-whatever thing, and considering this is Alma we’re dealing with, even her labor pains are psychically driven. Alma’s contractions tear little holes between reality and the “Almaverse,” the alternate dimension created by her demented little mind. In the game, you often times inadvertently jump back and forth in the real world and the Almaverse.

FEAR 3 features the most unlikely of partnerships: Alma’s sons Point Man, and his psychotic brother, Paxton Fettel – or rather, his ghost. Considering that they didn’t exactly part ways in the friendliest manner the last time they met, you can imagine that this is a very terse, uneasy alliance. Two players can play co-op as Point Man and Paxtel, but this isn’t any ordinary co-op mode. It’s called “divergent co-op”, in which each player has access to unique skills, but relies on the other player to survive. In other words, Point Man and Paxtel are psychically linked, so if one of them dies, so does the other. I’m still trying to figure out how a ghost dies, but there you have it.

During our hands-on demo I played as Paxton, while Point Man was played by another journalist. The level started off with us running in the woods (I guess you could say I was floating, since I played a ghost), when the scene suddenly changed. Alma had a contraction and poof! We landed in the Almaverse. Now we’re in an urban setting, amidst a cluster of apartments—and we’re under attack.

As a standard FPS character, Point Man can shoot at enemies. However, being undead, Paxton has some more interesting tricks up his sleeve. Paxton can use psychic blasts to attack enemies, or grab them and hold them in mid-air for Point Man to finish them off. Finally, if you want to get in on the shooting fun, Paxtel can possess their bodies. A soldier was taking pot shots at us from a balcony, so I jumped in his body. With that great vantage point, we made swift work of the remaining soldiers. Oh look, a helicopter is now raining death from above. Since I was more exposed on that balcony to the helicopter’s attacks, I quickly left that body and found another on the ground.

We were having some trouble bringing down the helicopter when the PR rep hinted for us to start running through some fences, which we did and…oh hello, what do we have here? Sweet, sweet mechs! We each took control of one and soon, that helicopter was no more. We tore through everything in our path. It was a whole lot of fun, which concluded the demo.

It was a very brief look at FEAR 3. I didn’t get the chance to spend much time trying out all of Paxton’s powers except for the psychic blast and of course, the body-jumping thing. However, I did get the feeling that he’s more of a support character, there to set up the enemies for Point Man to take down. Yes, Paxton can inhabit a body and start shooting too, but then what’s the point of being a ghost with psychic powers if one of the best ways to use them is to jump in someone so you can shoot too? Regardless, it was a very quick look at the game, and I’m sure we’ll get more details the closer it gets to its anticipated spring 2011 release date.