Condemned

Those of you who know me, or at least know me well enough - know that when i'm downtrodden or sad or disenchanted with anything fairly serious i like to wallow in it. Nothing severe - i don't recycle my own excrement or burn eyeholes in photographs with cigarettes - i go quiet, off my food, sleep a lot and dig out my MillenniuM Box sets. Nothing new this time round, apart from i watched all three seasons of MillenniuM about three months ago. So i'm not so eager to dive into The Big Yellow House just yet. Whilst browsing my shelves i came across this:

Condemned: Criminal Origins

This is about as close to ripping something off as a video game can get. It reeks of Se7en, from the opening titles to the opening section of the game - with Frank Black (MillenniuM, X-Files) Themed premonitions that give you an incite into a serial killer's mind. I think i picked this up from GAME when i first got my xbox (2007), so already it was two years into the bargain bin. For the last four years it's been sat on my shelf - unplayed aside from the first level.

I think what put me off Condemned initially was that it wasn't scary. It was forboding, somber and nasty. Granted it had tension, and on occasion bricks were shat - but it was never scary. Let me give you a run down of video game horror in easy to follow pictures and captions:

Doom 3. Enemies are spaced out between lengths of corridor and the story is delivered via retrospective - audio logs and diaries etc. Games like this enjoy setting up a foundation for you to become comfortable - and then to take it away. This can be anything from taking your weapons or to adding monsters to previously safe areas. The horror generally stems from surprises and you overcoming the enemies' advantage it gained from the surprise. See also Aliens Vs. Predator, Prey, FEAR, Metro 2033.

Silent Hill. Enemies are infrequent and often challenging to deal with - either from their strengths or your weaknesses. Story is often delivered via Cutscenes which move the story through different chapters, all centered around a hub-location. Horror is a mixture of subversions - playing nightmares with the American Dream and Mid-west idealism, as well as hideous beauty and body horror. Enemies often don't CARE about you, which is one of the games defining high points. A lot of times enemies are walking around, raping each other, eating vomit or just screaming in agony. See also: STALKER, Amnesia: Dark Descent, Call of Cthulhu.

Gears of War. Yes, while billed as an action game, it makes genuine attempts are horror and is very comparable to the likes of Dead Space and Resistance. Enemies are frequent and obvious, exposition is delivered by men growling at each other between killing. Enemy is never really a threat. Your guns are huge.

So you get the idea - prizes for who guesses which is most popular. And the reason Condemned is now growing on me is because it comes close to types one and two, but at the same time never neatly sits into any of them. And it doesn't apologise for this. Ever.

At the core it's a first person shooter with some crime scene investigation and some fucking nasty domestic violence. You're Ethan Thomas, a detective on the trail of The Match Maker - a Kevin Spacey by way of Hugh Jackman serial killer - was that him... or was that The Torturer... Anyway... Things go bad, two FBI agents get shot and you're to blame. So far so yawn. The set up is very ho-hum. Within ten minutes you've lost your gun and maniacs are taking an interest in you - it is alluded to early on that these maniacs are under some sort of sonic manipulation or are the result of an accident. Which makes what follows even worse.

This guy was posing as a shop dummy only seconds before he came at me. (Bro)

I can use pipes, wrenches, hammers, axes, rebars, crowbars, curtain rails, signs and even bits of wood with nails in to absolutely fuck someone's day up. The most amazing part for me was when i hit a guy with a taser and then bashed him over the head with an iron bar. He dropped his weapon a metre or two away and i watched as he, dazed and confused, scuttled across the floor to retrieve it. To make sure he didn't get up again, fully armed i had to bash his head in with a locker door... Single encounters quickly turn into brutal fights for survival - and more often than not you come out very much worse for wear.

Say i've got a metal pipe, if i swing at my enemy he's going to feel it, but unless he drops his weapon he's capable of spinning around and hitting me in the face. There's a block mechanic but it's touch and go and frequently these bait and chase battles turn into outright facial obliteration. For every hit you land, you'll be made aware of how it feels. Each time you take a hit there's an appropriate impact noise depending on the weapon and force behind it. Your vision is smeared with blood and you even go a little off-axis. There's a painfully convincing scene where you fall, in first person, down an escalator and then land in the middle of a Subway Maniac fight. This goes on to more dilapidated locations - a department store playing creepy christmas music, worryingly abandoned subway stations and unfinished office buildings. The locations are fairly by the by, misery-injected haunted houses where all the spring-mounted cut outs also have nails and used syringes attached to them.

So let's talk about sound - really... i start off with that in mind and just go off on one. The sound's pretty special. Unfortunately i don't have my 5.1 Surround set up - which as most reviewers will tell you, is this game's most amazing aspect. Since you can see very little, and even then, only what your light is shining on sound is vital - and Monolith haven't played this down at all - shuffling feet, grunts, whispers - any sounds that these maniacs make when trying to flee or remain hidden from are pinpointable - even in stereo. If i hear a guy panting i can stop and work out of which of the eight pillars he's hiding behind. I've not seen anything to top that since. Although it may not sound like it, but this is also pretty impressive - FEAR and Doom3 had this right - objects that are knocked over by enemies (and are then entirely at the mercy of physics) MAKE A NOISE WHEN THEY LAND. Doesn't sound like much - but how many games can be listed that have done this convincingly? There's one scene in kind of an office lunch room where a maniac was running up behind me, and i only heard him because he knocked over a paint can and bumped into the microwave door - it's remarkable to think that Condemned's AI Bad Guys can make mistakes and interact with the environment as you do.

Listening to the soundtrack by itself now, it feels a little standard - and a little slapdash in places. I suppose the nature of the sound and music is edgy and agressive - people who listen to the Jaws theme for relaxation will probably enjoy it as a standalone element. Regardless of how enjoyable it is, by itself - it can't be denied that the game would be an utter failure without it. Especially the department store level - with that creepy rendition of 'Deck The Halls' performed on chimes and then played back using a rather out of place reverb - but not so much so the immersion is ruined. It's quite clever that the game focusses heavily on subjective sounds in its design - sounds that don't really exist but are added to give an emotion. The department store music is treated with a reverb that doesn't suit the environment, immediately creating a slightly warped and unsettled experience. Most of the time spent roaming is often very quiet - considering how many complex noises are swirling around in the mix it's quite surprising they managed to keep it so somber.

I recommend it, purely for the sound work alone. Keep your expectations otherwise simple. You can pick up a copy of Condemned for as little as £1... i bought the sequel for £2 yesterday. I'll leave you with this piece - a mix up of a lot of the different textures and the music from the department store.