Visuals are even creepier and ominous the second time around, but the real value is in the online multiplayer mode.

The visuals are superb. Character models are very convincing due to well-executed modeling and lighting techniques. You'll come across an assortment of ominous and down right creepy visuals like blood-smeared walls and dead bodies that each tells a story of how that character was killed. My favorite is the bloody dead guy sitting on the toilet in the men's room. I don't know whether to wet my pants from fear or wet my pants from laughter. Everything looks great; sometimes things get way too dark but that's nothing that a little brightness adjustment can't fix.

As far as the animation goes, the facial animations give very believable demeanors to every character in the game, but F.E.A.R. 2 's character animations unfortunately suffer from a dated animation technique. Although most of the animation looks great, the animators tried to create more personality by having the characters move their heads all around to communicate their attitudes. As a production technique, animators used to add boisterous head movements to give the characters more personality but nowadays developers don't need to add those kinds of movements because good facial animations do the job of giving characters personality just fine. It's a minute problem but it is noticeable. Aside from that, all the animations and rag-doll effects look great especially when you start coming across monsters.

The gameplay offers abilities like slowing down time to get clearer shots at multiple enemies. When time slows down, enemies will explode into piles of organs when they get shot; although this is a feature that has been done many times before in other games it fits the best and is the most helpful in F.E.A.R. 2. The whole feel of the game is a mix of survivor horror and modern military combat. It's kind of like BioShock but with more bullets, better guns and just a tiny splash of splicing. Thank God F.E.A.R. 2 has something that BioShock doesn't -- multiplayer. Players can go online and compete in "player" and "ranked" matches, which gives F.E.A.R. 2 some replay value after you beat the main game. The online multiplayer modes are not necessarily icing on the cake but rather the strawberries on the icing on the cake. F.E.A.R. 2 is like a graphical cocktail: the quality of the graphics is gorgeous but some of the more hideous scenes might just make you heave. What makes it fun is that it's more of the same from the first F.E.A.R. but with better graphics and a few new twists.

Peter Rizkalla is a life long enthusiast of videogames and the videogame industry. He has worked in various videogame companies such as THQ, Namco and 2K Games and avidly attends many game conferences and events. Peter can be reached at PRizkalla@gmail.com.