Condemned 2: Bloodshot review (X360)

The original Condemned was released as a launch title for the Xbox 360. Unsurprisingly when starved of a wide choice of games they tend to hit a bigger percentage of consumers than they might if released in a more plentiful time for games. Being able to download a demo of the game was another feature that encouraged players to simply have a go, once they’d hooked up their 360 to the net, despite the rather less than stellar description of the game.

Essentially what we’ve got here is a first person shooter without the guns. I mean it’s got guns, but they’re really not the focus of the game, with close up hand to hand combat being refined by being able to pick up random objects from the environment and swing them at your foes. To compound matters, risking alienating even more fast action shooter fans, you’re a cop who has to investigate crimes, from following blood trails to scouring your environment with a UV light to figure out what kind of injury a victim sustained. But it’s really good.

Ah, the plot

If you’ve played the original, you’ll know what’s going on. Well, you won’t, but you’ll have seen it before. Your enemies consist of generally unsavoury looking characters (specifically the homeless) that inhabit these pretty condemned (aha!) looking buildings in the dead of night and unsurprisingly they enjoy jumping out at you. In the sequel however, any classy mystery surrounding the events and why these people seem to be going crazy is quickly explained. Sound emitters scattered throughout the levels are emitting frequencies that the human brain really doesn’t like, and tends to spontaneously make violent.

Of course a side mission for the game is to destroy the aforementioned emitters, but when replaying levels to make sure I had got rid of the lot of them (yes, I’m like that) I didn’t notice any change in the enemies. So, you’re Ethan Thomas, back from the first game, now (even more) down in the dumps having left his job, and still having nightmares about Serial Killer X, his nemesis from the first game. Unsurprisingly he’s apparently back, and causing more trouble for you and riots on the streets. It doesn’t take long before you’re re-integrated into the police unit and have friends to accompany you through certain areas, though for horror reasons normally you’ll get split up before long.

The horror reasons

No doubt stemming from the terror of enemies (sometimes gruesomely covered in crazy black goo) jumping out at you, the melee combat works very well to establish the atmosphere, enhanced by the various context sensitive actions available when you reach certain points. This could be squeezing through a tight space, ducking under an obstacle or even jumping down a hole. Rather than simply jumping down, you have to hit the ‘A’ button and Ethan will take over, still in first person view, safely lowering himself, as his hands and legs come into view. It’s very effective, not least because you are always expecting the camera to look up from the ground when you’ve landed to come face to face with a mutilated foe ready to do the same to you; taking control from you helps the developer guide exactly what you see at certain points.

Again, you end up expecting this kind of event, which adds to the sense of fear prevalent throughout the game. Sure, perhaps a gun sometimes makes you feel a little safer, when enemies appear in the distance but there isn’t a lot of ammo scattered around, while an achievement for finishing the game without firing a shot does exist. After each level/mission your performance is evaluated from how many emitters you destroyed and various secret objectives to how well you do in the investigations.

He uses a GPS indoors?

Championing the first game, these investigation segments take slightly more of a back seat this time, still with plenty to get your teeth in to but when you retroactively consider how many you actually did at the end of the game you’ll realise that it’s quite short. Quite logically designed, these ‘puzzles’ make you explore your environment and deduce information from what you see. Quite often there are various ways of finding the information, but each of different standards.

One area demands you let your team know where you are, having split off from the group earlier to survive. You’re located in a single room to find your information and there are a few clues around that can suggest your location. A map with a circled building gives you a name which your companion on the radio uses to pinpoint the street you are on, but you get the ‘perfect’ by checking a sign on the wall that mentions the exact name of the factory. Perfects increase your rating at the end of the level from Bronze to Gold, with each stage being rewarded by an accessory of different standards. One lets you holster a weapon while another might net you some new shoes to help you walk quietly and evade enemies.

It’s hardly Street Fighter

Standard fist fighting (which you’ll rarely perform if there’s anything else handy) is quite quick, allowing you to throw a punch with each trigger button (can you guess which hand each one controls?) Throw a one-two punch and your next attack will be tripled in damage, assuming you can get it off quickly enough without taking damage yourself. If you’ve killed enough enemies or performed enough interesting attacks your combo bar will fill up and you’ll have the opportunity to hammer one trigger button to start a Quick Time Event style attack that does a lot more damage and is inescapable.

Do enough of these combos and an extra bar is added (twice) to improve your combos and unlock another achievement. Finally, if you’ve knocked an enemy to the floor, and he’s staggering to get up, you can grab hold of him and drag him to a skull symbol that will appear and dispose of him in an effective manner. Some of these are simple, such as throwing an enemy off a balcony, some more gruesome, especially the ones available for the occasional ‘boss’ battle.

Scare someone else

Your standard DeathMatch and Team DeathMatch allows you to beat/shoot the crap out of everyone much like you’d imagine, and to be honest doesn’t shine particularly well. Bum Rush however seems a little more interesting. The host of the game starts as the member of ‘SCU’, with a gun and decent health bar. The rest of the (up to 8) participants take the role of the ‘influenced’ and must hunt you down with their hand to hand weapons. Whoever gets the largest score from the influenced becomes the SCU next round and on the best of days the mode tries to replicate the feeling of isolation and fear of your enemy from the single player game.

Unfortunately, super-powering the agent with a quick kill weapon and strong health bar means that the ‘bums’ become an annoyance and rarely the formidable foes you may have been expecting, chipping away at your bar until either the time runs out (and you get evacuated) or you inevitably fall. Crime Scene however takes the crown for me. With both an Influenced team and an SCU team in play, the objectives centre on the evidence (two crates). The influenced must defend the crates, while the SCU must find and scan them. The trick however is that there is a time limit and the influenced have an ‘emitter’ to disrupt the GPS of the SCU while they look for the crates and once you’re dead, that’s it. When configured right with fair teams the game remains a well designed strategic offspring of the single player game and certainly feels well placed within the product.

Reviews are generally there to help you decide whether or not to purchase the game in question, and while I can cover how well the first person immersion works, and the satisfying once mastered combat system, and the game gets a great rating, if the idea of scaring yourself silly in the dead of night with the lights turned down and the fantastically atmospheric sound turned up (buy a home theatre kit for it) doesn’t appeal, you might as well stop kidding yourself.

Condemned 2 won’t redefine the genre; rather explore an existing one very well, approaching the other big hitters in the pant-wetting pile (Resident Evil, Silent Hill) admirably. Even the fast turning speed with beautiful motion blur seems to add to the sometimes frantic feel of the game. Being brave enough to play it (I’m looking at our editor, Harry) is the first step, but if you’re a scare junkie, Condemned 2 is a well polished and engaging experience. And by the end of it you’ll be so thankful you have unlimited battery for your flashlight.