Bloodthirsty abominations, lethal hand-to-hand combat and a kick-ass slow-motion option may just change the face of 2008 horror videogames with the release of Project Origin, sequel to the hit game F.E.A.R.! In the past year or so, horror videogame releases have been quite scarce with basically one title for horror-gamers to get all giggly about. However, even that anticipated sequel title, Condemned 2: Bloodshot received mixed reviews from the community. Yep, unfortunately, those who like to blast undead brains to bits on their HDTV have hit a bit of a dry spell. But never fear horror-gamer! One of the lead designers over at Monolith Productions and lead designer of Project Origin, John Mulkey, is giving gamers a reason to seriously look up! Not only did Mulkey take a break to talk to us about the upcoming fall 2008 release on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (Monolith plans to announce the specific date at E3 this week), he also sent over about 10 awesome exclusive screen grabs from the film!!

By Gabrielle DiPietro and Giaco Furino

How does Project Origin differ from its predecessor F.E.A.R.?

When we were making the first game we were really establishing the vocabulary of that style of game play - a guy armed to the teeth with weapons and running around a military kind of scenario. Trying to put a horror element into that was very challenging. We began going with a sort of Japanese horror style approach, you know, where it's more subtle storytelling than anything, and seeing glimpses of things in the corner of your eye that put you on edge; and you're expecting something to occur. We really built up that psychological fear. There were a few elements in the game where something jumped out and tried to get you, but it was a lot of subtle, unsettling tension building.

How did you continue the story?

When we began the talks of 'What are we going to do for a sequel?' one of the first things brought up was that I don't think those same kinds of tactics are going to play. The players know the vocabulary, they see the little girl in the corner and it's not as frightening as it was before. So we needed to come up with a whole new vocabulary, and sort of hold on to what was there, and beef it up so people still recognized it as the game that they loved, and still take the horror game to the next level.

It's going to be a much more personal experience. They're going to touch you a lot more in this game then they did in the last game.

More hand-to-hand combat?

Well, we used a lot of the same style of combat in this game, particularly the whole slow-mo aspect of it. In this game we're taking the core of the first game and just ratcheting it up. There's more stuff that's destructible, there's more types of weaponry, there's more types of enemies.

Were there any specific influences from genre films on this game?

You know it's strange, when we were first putting the game together the Japanese horror thing hadn't really hit the States yet. I mean no one knew what Ringu or Ju-On was and all these other horror films that got remade for American audiences. With the first game it was something that no one had really been exposed to. Then The Ring comes out and it's a huge success, and the American remake of The Eye. It kind of freaked us out a little bit because we were concerned?it would seem like we were trying to pump another game out that was reaping the benefits of that, and that wasn't the case.

J-Horror tends to hold a lot of paranormal weight. Can we expect more paranormal elements, or at least more blood and gore in this game?

One of the conscious things that we tried to avoid in the first game, which may seem odd when you look at it, was we didn't want it to be Hellraiser, we didn't want it to be a gorefest. We didn't want it to be a very American-style horror, we didn't necessarily want to go that route. We didn't want just gore and slasher. That said, there's a lot in this game, but mixed in with the more psychological horror, the more thriller than horror, and we kind of balanced it out.

Are there any plans for Project Origin to release on the Wii?

I don't know if I can answer that question but I will anyway. Right now we're launching on 360, PC, and PS3. I don't know of any plans to develop for the Wii. We're not developing internally. So I don't know if later on someone wanted to try and take it there, but there are no current plans to.

It?s been rumored that F.E.A.R was to be adapted to film. Any word on that?

I would say that every single game I've worked on at Monolith has had some sort of a movie attached to it. It seems like with every game that's ever made, there's some discussion about a movie, but I've kind of become a bit jaded because of that.

written by Gabrielle DiPietro