Trepang2

Clearly intended as a spiritual successor to F.E.A.R., Trepang2 incorporates many fun aspects of other well loved titles to create a familiar gameplay medley of bullettime, physics weapons, dual wielding, hostage taking, cloaking, and slide mechanics.

It's got a lot of F.E.A.R. in it (slow mo, lighting, intense gun fx), some Crysis (active camo, ability to grab and throw enemies), some Half Life (narrative-rich story, excellent environmental art), and a touch of Rainbow Six with supply crates that let you trick out your weapons mid-level.

This game's resources are entirely allocated into making the player a convincing superhuman and then generating the most blisteringly insane combat scenarios in which to play out this power fantasy.

The game still retains plenty of challenge, though, and on Hard (there's like 6 or 7 difficulty levels and Hard is the 3rd I think) I struck a nice balance between challenge and frustration.

While some NPC's are little more than a portrait picture on your screen during radio transmissions, their voice acting and banter will endear you to the friendly ones, and the boss enemies will typically feel like they're a cut above the average grunt.

The graphics are perhaps my second favourite part of the game, just topped by the story and setting, where it quite genuinely feels and looks like an AA game while being indie.