Sega is usually associated with cutesy, brightly coloured franchises and occasionally quite surreal like Sonic or the sci-fi dance abomination Space Channel 5, or the delightful technicolour acid trip that was Nights. The titles it publishes tend to be quite firmly aimed at younger gamers and when they do foray into darker side of gaming, it's rare that horror is a central aspect of gaming. House of The Dead, for instance, was basically a slightly more gruesome Virtua Cop that never really felt scary, you were just shooting slightly uglier enemies. So imagine my surpise when the Sega logo showed on my screen after I popped in the disc for the first Condemned game, Criminal Origins. I had expected a gritty adventure in hobo beating, yet this seemed to imply I'd be doing it with a candy cane, or a unicorn.
But I was ratified to find Condemned: Criminal Origins to be among the most brutally terrifying and terrifyingly brutal games I had ever played, blowing all other contenders out of the water in one sweary, rust covered swoop. The realistic setting, the deprivation of guns and the first person perspective all put me in a uniquely frightening position that I've never quite been able to replicate. And now I got my grubby little tramp-murdering hands on Condemned 2: Bloodshot which, in case you're thick, is the sequel to which Yahtzee attached a fairly nasty review.
Now, I'm probably going to earn some ire here, but this review is partially going to be a rebuttal, or at least counter argument, to Yahtzees points. Fanboys, stop reading here and instead work out how many cocks I must suck to end up so brain addled that I don't agree with you on every single point in existence. If it helps, I don't like Brawl or MGS4. Go and rage in a corner and let the grown ups talk for a while.
Condemned 2, like the original, finds you in the shoes of Ethan Thomas, who's seen better days. He's lost a finger to a serial killer, his job as a criminal investigator, his self respect, at least some of his marbles, and the city around him is disintegrating into a giant gibbering pile of crazy. It's up to him to curb stomp his way to the truth, using weapons prised off of the nicely interactive enviroment, and use criminal investigation techniques to unravel a conspiracy that appears to be at the root of his various problems.
The game dedicates the majority of combat to melee, with fists being your stand by weapon, as well as a "boot to the nadgers" button that comes in handy every now and then. However, the enviroment is littered with improvised weapons, ranging from bricks to prosthetic arms. It's all very brutal and realistic, allowing you to block enemy attacks, throw your weapon and use the enviroment to finish off stunned enemies. Weapons get damaged over sustained use and can break. Condemned 2 has built on the original games combat system by integrating a rudimentary combo system and "Chain Attacks" which involve Quick Time Events that involve pummeling the mental out of whatever hobo you're fighting at the time. Advanced Chain Attacks even allow you to break limbs. It's all very Fight Club, brutal, bone crunching and nasty as hell. The additions made to the original are really excellent, and the Condemned series really stand out as the best melee systems in first person games. The tazer from the first game also makes an appearance, but now has limited batteries instead of recharging after every use, making it much more of a commodity to be saved.
Criminal investigations in the original were very crude and really nothing more than just scouring the area for the right item. Condemned 2 builds this up remarkably, giving you much more intelligent and challenging tasks to complete. You're rated on your performance in these and how well you do reflects the overall rating of the level (whereas in the original, you were really rated on how many dead birds you found). After hooking back up with his buddies at SCU, Ethan is equipped with an awesome PDA, which gives him a UV light to pick up blood spatter, a digital camera, a GPS and a device that can detect the presence of sonic emitters. It also allows him to keep in touch with his mostly lab-bound partner Rosa, who will process the evidence he collects.
Guns. An FPS wouldn't be an FPS without them. And the Condemned games are no exception. However, to keep a stronger basis in reality, guns in Condemned and Condemned 2 are very powerful and quite rare, making them valuables to be respected, and ammo has to be made to count since it is quite limited. Condemned 2 is more trigger happy than the first, which is where Yahtzee and I come into conflict. Yes, guns become a larger part of gameplay, but this isn't really a bad thing, since they are so well done. You are given a little more free reign with your guns than before (you can earn the ability to holster a single firearm to use a second, and you can also take ammo from a gun of the same type), but nothing that turns Condemned 2 into a conventional FPS by any stretch of the imagination. First of all, it retains a lot of its horror conventions with health being limited and the levels being extremely claustrophobic. Similarly, most levels only have one or at most two firearms in, with only a couple of levels being really at all shooty. Second, when Ethan takes a hit (melee or shooting), the camera shakes, goes fuzzy and even blood spattered. This keeps the immersion and throws off your aim, keeping the shooting sections challenging. And finally, just as enemy AI is challenging in melee, so it is in shooting. Enemies use cover, fall back or advance as appropriate, or set ambushes. On top of this, Ethans aim for about three quarters of the game could be accurately labelled as "spastic", unless he has something to drink.
One of my favourite things about Condemned 2 is the pacing. The game switches things up every so often to keep things fresh and new, and exciting. After a little bit of brutal hobo-bashing, for instance, you find yourself in a factory full of exploding dolls, which forces you to keep your distance, and the second half of this level, you're forced to don a gas mask, which restricts your field of vision and makes everything much more tense and frightening. Basic stealth gameplay is also introduced. Soon, you find yourself in a fantastically pulse pounding chase from a grizzly bear thats trying to eat your face off. Shooting then becomes a larger part of the gameplay. It's a nice introduction to various different elements, but none that detract too much from the central melee and horror that make the game so worthwhile.
I remained entertained through out, enough to see it to the end and give the unlockable modes a go. One interesting unlockable is FPS mode, which gives you access to a gun and unlimited ammo. This isn't easy mode, however, as enemy damage is ramped way up, and most levels are very close quarters, to the point where the very first level consistently kicked my arse. Also available are multiplayer maps with a variety of challenges and online play is included.
As an expansion upon the first game, I found Condemned 2 left very little to be desired, and was an immensely enjoyable game. The story wasn't fantastic, with a fairly small cast of characters not telling you very much, but it was good enough to keep me interested, and a fairly central driving force to the gameplay to make sure you got the most of it. Like any good mystery, questions were answered while others were posed and some remained untouched. Character arcs haven't been closed, which would imply a third Condemned at some point in the future. Optional story peices could be picked up by listening in on radio broadcasts and televised news reports, such as following the exploits of a reporter as he follows the wave of carnage overcoming the city. It's a nice touch.
Now, I know being nice about games isn't funny, but honestly, I look back on the game and the only thing I can think of about it that irritated me was the occasional invulnerable enemy with bullshit armour and an arbitrary weak spot on the back that had to be exploited. It's old, hackneyed and something that's seen in a myriad of games before this one. I wasn't even upset with the whole "sonic shout" thing, since it only really shows up in the last level and you only HAVE to use it two or three times in the whole game.
Condemned 2 was an amazing game, one that consistently entertained me and kept me on the edge of my seat. It's gritty, immersive and wonderfully violent. A terrifying look at the dark side of humanity, and what comes after humanity. The enemy AI kept me on my toes and the levels were consistently frightening, with more than enough pulse pounding action thrown in to satisfy twitchy kill-crazy Halo players. It sacrifices some of the implicit claustrophobic horror which will probably alienate some of the more hardcore horror fanatics among you, but if you're that far up your own arse that you can't have fun on a video game this sphincter-clenchingly fantastic, I recommend you eat a heaping spoonful of AIDS. Good day, sir!
But I was ratified to find Condemned: Criminal Origins to be among the most brutally terrifying and terrifyingly brutal games I had ever played, blowing all other contenders out of the water in one sweary, rust covered swoop. The realistic setting, the deprivation of guns and the first person perspective all put me in a uniquely frightening position that I've never quite been able to replicate. And now I got my grubby little tramp-murdering hands on Condemned 2: Bloodshot which, in case you're thick, is the sequel to which Yahtzee attached a fairly nasty review.
Now, I'm probably going to earn some ire here, but this review is partially going to be a rebuttal, or at least counter argument, to Yahtzees points. Fanboys, stop reading here and instead work out how many cocks I must suck to end up so brain addled that I don't agree with you on every single point in existence. If it helps, I don't like Brawl or MGS4. Go and rage in a corner and let the grown ups talk for a while.
Condemned 2, like the original, finds you in the shoes of Ethan Thomas, who's seen better days. He's lost a finger to a serial killer, his job as a criminal investigator, his self respect, at least some of his marbles, and the city around him is disintegrating into a giant gibbering pile of crazy. It's up to him to curb stomp his way to the truth, using weapons prised off of the nicely interactive enviroment, and use criminal investigation techniques to unravel a conspiracy that appears to be at the root of his various problems.
The game dedicates the majority of combat to melee, with fists being your stand by weapon, as well as a "boot to the nadgers" button that comes in handy every now and then. However, the enviroment is littered with improvised weapons, ranging from bricks to prosthetic arms. It's all very brutal and realistic, allowing you to block enemy attacks, throw your weapon and use the enviroment to finish off stunned enemies. Weapons get damaged over sustained use and can break. Condemned 2 has built on the original games combat system by integrating a rudimentary combo system and "Chain Attacks" which involve Quick Time Events that involve pummeling the mental out of whatever hobo you're fighting at the time. Advanced Chain Attacks even allow you to break limbs. It's all very Fight Club, brutal, bone crunching and nasty as hell. The additions made to the original are really excellent, and the Condemned series really stand out as the best melee systems in first person games. The tazer from the first game also makes an appearance, but now has limited batteries instead of recharging after every use, making it much more of a commodity to be saved.
Criminal investigations in the original were very crude and really nothing more than just scouring the area for the right item. Condemned 2 builds this up remarkably, giving you much more intelligent and challenging tasks to complete. You're rated on your performance in these and how well you do reflects the overall rating of the level (whereas in the original, you were really rated on how many dead birds you found). After hooking back up with his buddies at SCU, Ethan is equipped with an awesome PDA, which gives him a UV light to pick up blood spatter, a digital camera, a GPS and a device that can detect the presence of sonic emitters. It also allows him to keep in touch with his mostly lab-bound partner Rosa, who will process the evidence he collects.
Guns. An FPS wouldn't be an FPS without them. And the Condemned games are no exception. However, to keep a stronger basis in reality, guns in Condemned and Condemned 2 are very powerful and quite rare, making them valuables to be respected, and ammo has to be made to count since it is quite limited. Condemned 2 is more trigger happy than the first, which is where Yahtzee and I come into conflict. Yes, guns become a larger part of gameplay, but this isn't really a bad thing, since they are so well done. You are given a little more free reign with your guns than before (you can earn the ability to holster a single firearm to use a second, and you can also take ammo from a gun of the same type), but nothing that turns Condemned 2 into a conventional FPS by any stretch of the imagination. First of all, it retains a lot of its horror conventions with health being limited and the levels being extremely claustrophobic. Similarly, most levels only have one or at most two firearms in, with only a couple of levels being really at all shooty. Second, when Ethan takes a hit (melee or shooting), the camera shakes, goes fuzzy and even blood spattered. This keeps the immersion and throws off your aim, keeping the shooting sections challenging. And finally, just as enemy AI is challenging in melee, so it is in shooting. Enemies use cover, fall back or advance as appropriate, or set ambushes. On top of this, Ethans aim for about three quarters of the game could be accurately labelled as "spastic", unless he has something to drink.
One of my favourite things about Condemned 2 is the pacing. The game switches things up every so often to keep things fresh and new, and exciting. After a little bit of brutal hobo-bashing, for instance, you find yourself in a factory full of exploding dolls, which forces you to keep your distance, and the second half of this level, you're forced to don a gas mask, which restricts your field of vision and makes everything much more tense and frightening. Basic stealth gameplay is also introduced. Soon, you find yourself in a fantastically pulse pounding chase from a grizzly bear thats trying to eat your face off. Shooting then becomes a larger part of the gameplay. It's a nice introduction to various different elements, but none that detract too much from the central melee and horror that make the game so worthwhile.
I remained entertained through out, enough to see it to the end and give the unlockable modes a go. One interesting unlockable is FPS mode, which gives you access to a gun and unlimited ammo. This isn't easy mode, however, as enemy damage is ramped way up, and most levels are very close quarters, to the point where the very first level consistently kicked my arse. Also available are multiplayer maps with a variety of challenges and online play is included.
As an expansion upon the first game, I found Condemned 2 left very little to be desired, and was an immensely enjoyable game. The story wasn't fantastic, with a fairly small cast of characters not telling you very much, but it was good enough to keep me interested, and a fairly central driving force to the gameplay to make sure you got the most of it. Like any good mystery, questions were answered while others were posed and some remained untouched. Character arcs haven't been closed, which would imply a third Condemned at some point in the future. Optional story peices could be picked up by listening in on radio broadcasts and televised news reports, such as following the exploits of a reporter as he follows the wave of carnage overcoming the city. It's a nice touch.
Now, I know being nice about games isn't funny, but honestly, I look back on the game and the only thing I can think of about it that irritated me was the occasional invulnerable enemy with bullshit armour and an arbitrary weak spot on the back that had to be exploited. It's old, hackneyed and something that's seen in a myriad of games before this one. I wasn't even upset with the whole "sonic shout" thing, since it only really shows up in the last level and you only HAVE to use it two or three times in the whole game.
Condemned 2 was an amazing game, one that consistently entertained me and kept me on the edge of my seat. It's gritty, immersive and wonderfully violent. A terrifying look at the dark side of humanity, and what comes after humanity. The enemy AI kept me on my toes and the levels were consistently frightening, with more than enough pulse pounding action thrown in to satisfy twitchy kill-crazy Halo players. It sacrifices some of the implicit claustrophobic horror which will probably alienate some of the more hardcore horror fanatics among you, but if you're that far up your own arse that you can't have fun on a video game this sphincter-clenchingly fantastic, I recommend you eat a heaping spoonful of AIDS. Good day, sir!
