Horror films have traditionally focused on suspense, but recently, a new breed of horror movie has emerged. The likes of the Saw series and Hostel are visceral in the extreme, pandering to a generation who’s seen it all before with some of the most shockingly prolonged, violent torture scenes and unrelenting cruelty. These movies aren’t so much about when the protagonist will meet his or her maker, but what it’ll look like close-up and what kind of weapon will be used. If you were to draw a comparison to the game world, Sega’s Condemned: Criminal Origins is the new breed of horror game, beating down the likes of Resident Evil and Silent Hill with its bloodied crowbar. This is a next-generation game through and through, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
You assume the role of Ethan Thomas, an FBI agent who arrives at a seemingly routine crime scene to investigate a murder. A serial killer dubbed the ‘matchmaker’ is on the loose, killing young women and posing them with disfigured department store mannequins. Poking around the crime scene, you and your coworkers discover that the killer is still in the building; from here on in, things begin to go awry. Ethan narrowly escapes with his life, sans his gun, and heads into the darkness to find his assailant with nothing more than his forensic tools, a flashlight and a taser.
ondemned is played from a first person perspective, but don’t call it a first person shooter. The game focuses primarily on melee combat. As you move through the dank run-down environments, you’ll come across a wide variety of objects you can use as makeshift weapons, from crowbars to two-by-fours complete with protruding nails. Fancy a rebar with a chunk of concrete still attached to the end? Simply rip it out from the wall. Then there’re the more obvious weapons – fire axes and sledgehammers, for example – which you’ll need to make use of to get through locked or padlocked doors. You can only carry one weapon at a time, so you’ll have to choose wisely.
The game’s narrative starts out strong – the idea of using forensic tools is really very interesting, and the way Ethan becomes embroiled in the serial killer’s world holds a great deal of promise. Unfortunately, things never become as interesting as you’d hope. Following in the serial killer’s footsteps, you’ll run into hordes of insane people intent on cracking open your skull. These encounters can be genuinely terrifying, but you’ll never really understand why these people are behaving in this way (save for a few short, disjointed explanations on loading screens). As the story twists and turns, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems, but then the credits roll. If you think around it for long enough, it’s possible to draw one’s own conclusions about exactly what happened, but the lack of closure is frustrating, particularly when the game leads you to believe that a curve ball is just around the corner.
The controls are very simple. You move about as you would in any first person game, with the right trigger functioning as attack and the left as block. The left bumper fires your Taser gun (which temporarily incapacitates your enemies), and the A button allows you to interact with your environment. The mechanics of the hand-to-hand fighting are Condemned’s greatest achievement. It would be fair to say that no game has ever achieved this degree of realism and intensity when it comes to first person combat. You aren’t able to string together combination attacks or fancy moves; it’s just a case of slugging your opponent over the head with whatever’s in your hand. You’ll need to time your swings carefully though, as the game’s stunning A.I. keeps you on your toes. Your enemies will take dummy swings at you to make you move forward, and they’ll often smash you over the head, then run away into the shadows before you can retaliate. Blocking isn’t just a case of holding the left trigger down; you’ll have to time your blocks to avoid being clobbered, which makes the combat even more intense.
Mechanically it works very well, but what really brings it to life is the way it looks. Your enemies are ferocious and aren’t afraid to fight each other in their bloody rage – one look at these guys is enough to tell they’re beyond help. As you drive your sledgehammer into a maniac’s face you’ll see him spit blood and teeth before he falls to the ground. If you didn’t hit him hard enough, he’ll fall to his knees, at which point you can select one of four ways to execute him. It’s nasty stuff.
Unfortunately, it does get a little repetitive. The developers at Monolith (F.E.A.R, Tron 2.0) obviously worked tirelessly to perfect the combat, but in doing so, they forgot to flesh out other aspects of the gameplay. It would have been nice if the enemies had approached you in a few different ways, jumping down from above or grabbing your leg from behind a desk, for example. As it is, towards the end of the ten or so hour story, you’ll be fairly good at anticipating your foes attack patterns, which takes some of the scare factor away. It’s also a shame that the forensic element of the game isn’t more developed. It’s still interesting to see a trail of violence appear under your UV light, especially considering that these sequences almost always tie into the story, but the game selects the right forensic tool for the job every time, and you’re really held by the hand.
My other complaint concerns the environments. The developers did a lot of research to design the perfect locations and hired a Hollywood scout to find suitable locals to model, but despite this, they just look too similar. With a few notable exceptions (a department store and the game’s final level), the environments look bland and claustrophobic. Obviously these run down environments aren’t meant to look open and inviting (“Why do they always have to kill in these maggot-infested dumps?” asks your coworker as the game begins), but its way too easy to become lost and inadvertently backtrack; a map would come in handy. It’s also worth noting that, if you’re playing the game on a standard definition television, it’s nearly impossible to make out some areas unless you crank up your screen brightness. On high definition televisions you’ll see much more detail, which makes navigating considerably easier.
Whether you’re playing on an SD or HD TV, there’s no doubt that Condemned looks like a next generation game. Navigation issues aside, the environments do look stunning. Normal mapping is used to great effect, giving bricks and tiles a lifelike, three dimensional look. The melee weapons are spectacularly well modeled (better modeled than the three or four guns you’ll very occasionally pick up) and the characters look terrific. Many of the game’s narrative moments occur from the first person perspective, and being thrown down an escalator or falling through floorboards never felt so real. You’ll notice plenty of terrific effects, like the way your weapons become bloody after continued use, and some truly spectacular lighting and shadowing.
Of course, the game wouldn’t be half as scary were it not for the chilling screams of your assailants. You’ll feel genuinely scared as a man determined to land a deathblow screams an obscenity at you, hurls an office chair your way and charges at you with gas pipe held above his head. The sounds of combat are disturbing – never before has a metal pipe connecting with flesh and bone sounded so real. To get the most out of this game, you’ll really need a surround sound setup, as hearing someone’s footsteps behind you when the atmosphere is this thick has to be experienced to be believed.
Ultimately, Condemned: Criminal Origins isn’t perfect, but if you can handle the subject matter, it shouldn’t be missed. There’s not a great deal of replay value beyond unlocking a few achievements by completing the game with a number of different restrictions, but for the ten or so hours it lasts, it’s one hell of a ride. I look forward to playing the sequel now given the potential here, but for the moment, you won’t find another game that nails first person combat and gritty atmosphere so well. That’s saying something.
Graphics | Audio | Gameplay | Replay | Genre | Final |
