F.E.A.R. Files [X360]

It seems gamers just can't get enough of small girls who can rip them limb from limb with a mere mind-flick. F.E.A.R. is making a return to the PC, PS3 and 360, in a couple of different formats, and we were treated to both at the recent Sierra Gamer's week.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so the team at TimeGate studios (not the original team behind the first F.E.A.R.) are sticking to what the game does best. In other words, get ready for lots of slow-motion gunfights with some of the smartest AI seen in a shooter, along with every creepy trick in the F.E.A.R. book.

During the brief 10-minute demo that we played, the expansion pack played out very much like the first game, albeit with more thrills and chills jammed in for the purposes of the demo. The whole gamut of spine-chilling tools played out on the screen helped us forget the brain-melting Palm Springs heat where the event was held; giant pools of blood, creepy figures on the edge of our vision, corpses being dragged and dropped off-screen by unseen foes and even the good old bendy stretchy hallways that made the first game so disorienting. Befitting of an expansion, there were a couple of new tricks thrown in for good measure.

Nicest of these is the new automatic grenade launcher. Remember how satisfying the explosions look in F.E.A.R., with their warpy shockwave goodness? The grenade launcher takes full advantage of this, allowing you to fill rooms with these transparent bubbles of destruction.

The pace of the combat has been taken up a notch as well, with more intense battles showcasing the still-excellent enemy AI. For those who haven't played against F.E.A.R.'s bad guys before, get ready to be taught a lesson or two.

Even in a noisy conference room, surrounded by dozens of sweaty gamers, Perseus Mandate still managed to elicit a few chills during our short demo. And if it can scare us here, we're sure it's going to be even more terrifying when played alone in the dark. After our demo, we caught up with the game's producer, Tim Hall.