New F.E.A.R. modes for 360

If you have the F.E.A.R. (for Xbox 360) you might want to dig it out and zzzwwhooomph your heightened self over to Xbox Live, where a new "Control and Conquer All Map Pack" awaits even the penniless among you. I'm sorry, it's Microsoft points isn't it? The pointless among you.

"Control" and "Conquer All" are new team-based multiplayer game-types, built around the idea of capturing and holding control points on the map. You might remember them from the PC version.

In Control, there are three points to capture, and your team builds up points for the amount of time it holds them.

Meanwhile, Conquer All has five control points, and the winner is the team that holds all five at once. Otherwise the winner's decided by a points system - teams get 10 points for each control-point taken, 10 for each enemy control-point neutralised, and 1 point per kill.

It's worth noting, however, that despite being called a "Map Pack" this doesn't actually appear to include any maps - just the two modes above, which are playable on existing battlegrounds, and various tweaks mentioned below.

It's also worth noting that the Control and Conquer All Map Pack is a patch ("Title Update" in the Xbox jargon) rather than an Xbox Live Marketplace item, so you should just need to fire up F.E.A.R. to grab it.

Among its other benefits are the option to invite people from your friends list to public as well as private slots in a Player Match, while blood splatter now appears on enemy uniforms and there's a HUD-fade option, which boots health-bars and that off the screen when they're not required.

Finally, Vivendi Games says that the patch also paves the way for "new maps that will be made available for purchase throughout the summer". So watch this space. Unless you're pointless.