Condemned: Criminal Origins

Story 6/10- SPOILERS

The premise for Condemned is really good. You are a policeman who is disgraced and framed by a serial killer and so you have to go on a revenge mission to stop him and clear your name. It’s kind of hard to describe this story for the things that pissed me off without spoiling it for others, hence my warning but here it is.

I’m down with the whole realism and gritty underworld full of drug addicts and violent criminals where a serial killer may take refuge. But once you reach a certain point, they add an additional sub plot and you are no longer just hunting a serial killer. It turns out that the whole thing is to do with some crazy evil demon which many online reviews and plot synopses refer to as 'The Hate.' I get the whole 'physical manifestation of evil, mainly because it is completely contrived and clichéd to be polite. It caused me to lose any vested interest I had in the story thus far.

I don’t understand why games and movies do this. They come up with a really good premise for scary real-life situations and then remove any kind of tension by introducing demons, poltergeists and other supernatural shit that is not generally scary to people other the age of 18; incidentally, the certificate rating for the game.

Even if it the basis for the serial killer was that he was being controlled by a demon, I wouldn’t mind if the game was trying to be fantasy based... but it’s not. It is caked in realism which works really well before being shat all over with the whole, ‘we can’t write a decent explanation so let’s have a demon. And a cult.’

Picture 5/10

It’s not very pretty. The graphics are more that of the Xbox/PS2 generation and the characters are very blocky and linear in the way they move.

The one good thing I will say is that the interactive weapons blend well with the environment. For example you can use two-by-fours and pipes as weapons which blend in with the scenery. That said, when Agent Thomas does pick up these weapons, they disappear from the environment and appear in his hand; a bit strange when you are interacting with a pipe attached to the wall.

Sound 8/10

The sound effects are easily the best thing about the game. They compliment the dark atmosphere and actions well, especially when an enemy jumps out at you when you least expect it. There is a point where enemies are climbing a wire fence and the clanking sound is scarily accurate. The only disappointment in that when you strike an enemy with a weapon repeatedly, the sound generated is more suited to a Batman comic.

Gameplay 4/10

I will start by saying that the combat is a pile of garbage. This is a little bit of a snag when your two gameplay elements are hitting someone in the face with a stick and investigating crime scenes using the ‘X’ button; and when you add in that eighty percent of these elements is weighted towards combat, that make the entire gameplay a pile of garbage.

On top of the basic principle of this 'combat', I found it ridiculously irritating that all you can do is swing at an enemy once when they can unleash flurries of three hits at the same. My irritation is enhanced by the fact that you are fighting crazed drug addicts and you are an FBI agent who must have had some kind of combat training.

I also took the liberty of looking at the critical reception. Quite a few people made a big deal about the game so I thought I would sample some of it. Gamespot said of the game, ‘it captures hand-to-hand combat with intense, lifelike brutality like no other game before it.’ There are several things in this sentence that make me believe that the reviewer didn’t actually play the game. The combat is broken and bitty. Unless you have managed to master the blocking, which I didn’t despite playing through the game twice, and even when you do block, it’s not as seamless as this sentence makes out. Also saying that it has 'lifelike brutality like no other game before it' doesn’t take Manhunt into account, a game that allowed you to choke a man to death with a plastic bag or hack of a man’s head with a machete. The only reason they are comparable is because they are both prohibited by German law.

Achievements – 970 Points – 50 Achievements

Now, I know it’s called the 1,000 point review but for some bizarre reason, Condemned: Criminal Origins only has 970 points and no downloadable content to make it up.

It’s not too stressful to get all the achievements here although there isn’t much variance. There are no real pain-in-the-ass achievements, but there are a lot of collection related ones which are all listed as secret for some bizarre reason.

The other cardinal sin for achievements is making you play the game through twice because of a moral choice ending. and while I’m ruining shit for everyone, this 'moral choice' makes no difference to the outcome of the story so it’s only there to make you play through the game twice, which makes the monotonous gameplay all the more unforgivable.

Downloadable Content – Not Applicable

Summary

I would definitely put this game into the easy and not too time consuming category however it is not the most fun you will have earning almost 1,000 points. I’ve also heard rumours that some of the collection achievements are glitched if you chose to replay chapters out of order but I never did that so never experienced it. If you are an achievement hunter and don’t mind being bored on a second play through, stick this one on the ‘to rent’ list. It is definitely not worth a GameSpot 8.0 rating but that’s just my opinion.