With kinetic gun-fu and tense thrills, Trepang2 is an indie FEAR

There have been a lot of attempts to recreate the FEAR games over the years, with varying success. With a recently released demo on Steam, Trepang2 is one of the more promising that I’ve played. The fairly short demo, and accompanying horde mode, is a gory blast from the FPS past in how it mixes slides, melee, and bullet time. It even has a creepy thriller aspect, making its influences all the more apparent.

While the environments for this demo are a bit stark and bland, I’d overlook them in favor of the thrilling combat. The guns feel good, the feedback on movement isn’t bad, and it really encourages you to keep moving by letting you slide, vault, and kick your way around the rooms. The combat also seamlessly blends from stealth to firefight and back again. I was—and I don’t say this often—actually impressed by the way the AI reacts too, fanning out and getting multiple angles to attack me from as I slid from cover to cover.

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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.