I keep forgetting to post about Project Origin, maybe because the name is so forgettable. This game is the sequel to F.E.A.R., but sports a different name because Vivendi, the publisher of F.E.A.R., owns the copyright. Monolith, the developer of the game, was purchased by Warner Bros. a couple of years ago, which required that they sever ties with Vivendi. Needing a new name, the development team invited people to submit ideas and then held a contest to pick the most popular name. Project Origin is the unfortunate result of that contest, yet again proving that gamer-selected names often suck (thankfully, the last time this happened to a horror game, the developers opted to use their original name rather than the terrible fan-selected name).
Anyway, the game itself looks pretty cool. There’s an official website with a trailer, and Kotaku has a clip as well. Since it’s been announced for PS3 and Xbox360, it seems like an obvious match for the Quest. Project Origin is currently slated to ship this fall.
As an aside, Monolith has really been racking up the horror games lately! Not only did they just release Condemned 2: Bloodshot, they were also apparently involved in the new PS2 port of Silent Hill: 0rigins. In fact, they haven’t worked on a non-horror game since 2005.
I’ve always been a bit dubious about F.E.A.R./Project Origin as a horror series really. It’s basically Die Hard with psychics. It does have a few genuine jumps in between the constant firefights, but so did Doom 1&2…and they’ve never been called horror really.
I think because Monolith added a Sadako-esque girl and talked so much about J-horror, I think they just about got away with it. But strip away the ghostly visions and it’s a sci-fi at heart.
So what was the unused fan selected name for Obscure?
“Mortifilia”
Thank goodness they dropped that idea.
Project Origin is a forgettable name, but it’s not a bad one. On the contrary, its more descriptive of the game than “fear”
I dunno, man, at least with “F.E.A.R.” you have some idea of what to expect. What the heck is Project Origin? Or Project Offset? Or Project Zero? Terrible names, all of them, I think.
F.E.A.R is just an FPS with “scary” elements. The gameplay is far superior to the story/atmosphere so I don’t even consider it to be in the horror genre.
Can’t there ever be a clone army that doesn’t turn out to be evil?
Projects took place at some place called “Origin” – I don’t remember what Origin was, but it was the name of something. The name sounds far more random than it really is.