The roughly 20-minute demo of F.E.A.R. hasn't changed a whole lot since it was shown at E3, except that we couldn't play it then and we could this time around. The demo started us off aboard a helicopter en route to a building that's apparently fallen under siege. Though we were accompanied by some teammates in the helicopter, we had to go it alone as soon as we hit the ground. As we made our way through the occupied office complex, we encountered several groups of enemy commandos who seemed strangely intent on gunning us down. Further into the demo, we fought new, more agile enemies using thermo-optic camouflage to render themselves invisible. But were they human? Who's the tough-talking teammate we encountered briefly and then were separated from again? What's with the spectral little girl that's killing all the soldiers? The demo posed a lot of questions and offered no answers, but it did remind us repeatedly of one universal truth: It's fun to shoot stuff.

We got to use a cheat code and check out a number of weapons in the F.E.A.R. arsenal. Aside from a machine gun, submachine gun, and shotgun, we saw a railgun-like beam weapon, a launcher that fired a three-missile burst, a heavy weapon that fires one massive slug (if the craters in the wall are any indication), and what appeared to be a sort of rapid-fire flak cannon that gouged holes in the terrain as we tried to chew up enemies with it. Regular and sticky, remote-detonated 'nade varieties were also on offer to round out the list of weapons. You can also do a weighty melee attack while any weapon is equipped, Halo-style, which brings down foes quickly. The game will even let you jump-kick enemies if you time your leap correctly, but sadly this feature wasn't working in the build we got to play, so we'll have to wait till next time to try it out.