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| Reviewer | Platform | Publisher | Developer | Players |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Bailey | Xbox 360 | SEGA Europe | Monolith Productions | 1-8 (Xbox Live, System Link) |
| Requirements | Also on... | Buy from Amazon.co.uk | ||
| 316KB HDD/MU space, Xbox Live Gold subscription for online play | PlayStation 3 | Click here to buy Condemned 2. | ||
The original Condemned was a real gem; a game based around Ethan Thomas, an elite FBI agent framed for the murder of two of his colleagues who are killed by mysterious serial killer SKX while hunting for a completely different serial killer. As it turns out, SKX is in fact killing other serial killers. The original game played somewhere between mystery and survival horror, as you set out to find out the truth behind SKX and the flocks of psychotics roaming the street. Overall, the original game mixed a movie-like storyline with movie-like presentation.
What's good to know is that Condemned 2 continues with this, presenting a highly polished gameplay experience, focusing around the story of Ethan... Well, I say this for the first two thirds of the game, at least. As with the first game, it relies heavily on Ethan's psychological episodes and misdirection, which is very well done at first. Switching in and out of Ethan's mind, "real" and "unreal" become hard to distinguish, lights and shadows sway and run around in the background, creatures run over the ceiling and up walls. But none of it is actually in reality; they are just distractions designed to scare, misdirect and confuse you to the enemies' advantage. This is one of the key factors making Condemned 2's first sections a truly unique and great experience. It just happens that by the time you reach that two thirds of the way through mark you learn why everyone is psychotic and about the person behind it, and well it's kind of like taking the heart out of someone and replacing it with an apple... No, wait, that wouldn't work; maybe a banana... and then carrying on with life like there's nothing wrong. In more logical terms, the game just turns stupid.
I don't want to spoil anything for you because, don't get me wrong, the game is still good, but it just leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste from that moment. I suppose the other reason is that from this moment on you're probably going to be using a gun (or another stupid thing that you can read about on your own on another site) and the game becomes just that bit more generic, and more DOOM-like, which would be fine if Condemned 2 was trying to be DOOM, but it isn't. What the game's main gameplay forte is, is its melee weaponry system which, as you can imagine, you're using less and less of after that two thirds mark. Luckily, however, the the first part makes excellent use of the system, which is, as far as I'm aware, quite unique. Playing in the first person view allows you a unique perspective of the action compared to most third person 'fighters'. The controls are similar to what you'd expect on a first person game, with each of the triggers acting as each of your arms, putting you right into the middle of the fight and using each fist to its advantage. The game also utilises a range of items as melee weapons, such as planks of wood, bowling balls, bricks, sledge hammers, wrenches and many more. Each weapon has a different range, weight, condition, speed and damage, and choosing the right object for the task at hand is important. Luckily different melee weapons are scattered around each level. Once you've got your opponent to his or her knees, the game allows you to finish them by moving them to a number of environmental kills, such as slamming them into a wall. If they are your last enemy of a bunch, it can be quite satisfying.
The other main gameplay element in Condemned 2 revolves around your detective abilities, finding and deciphering evidence. Generally it's quite easy to find the evidence you need to investigate and what you're then usually asked to do is then provide descriptions and justifications of the evidence. You may for instance, be asked to determine whether a gunshot wound is an exit or entry wound. For the most case, I found most of these to be the right sort of level of difficulty, however, in some cases, especially on SDTVs (which I'll admit most of the game was played on) some of the evidence is just too small to distinguish. However, this is not my main criticism, again with the SDTVs, you're also going to just have a hard time initially reading the text. I know some of you may say, well it is game designed for HDTV, but there's still going to be a substantial amount of people who will play this on an SDTV and as such may be disappointed by the lack of text clarity. Overall, though, the graphics are a few steps above the original game, encompassing most of the features that many games of the current generations now have (bump mapping, reflections, normal mapping, bloom, etc.). Though some elements could be better, they are by no means bad.
The overall length of the game isn't too long, about 18 hours for the main story and there are a few extra missions which require you to fight it out in arenas. On top of this there's an option to replay the entire game with a gun in a first-person shooter mode, as well as multiple levels of difficulties to try. There's also a multiplayer mode, which is a strange addition for this style of game, but will add to the replayability. That said, if you're going to get Condemned 2 you're probably not doing so for the online battles, but for the game's story and single player action. Apart from a few minor points dropping the game a few notches towards the end of the game, chances are you're going to be left with a good impression of Monolith's title.
| Overall | If you were to rewrite the last two thirds of the game, and leave the mystery more intact this would have remained an 8 or 9. But at a 7 it is still a good game worth checking out. | 7/10 |
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