Condemned?

[Admiral jimbob]

Heard a few good things about Condemned here and there, including on here. I have a thirst for a good first-person horror/action game, would anyone recommend these games?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Never played the sequel, since it wasn't made for the PC, but the first one is neat. It has some very, VERY batshit and disturbing scenes for the most of the game. Combat is a little iffy, though, since it all basically boils down to 'get the weapon with the fastest speed and FOR THE SAKE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, CLICK!!'. Also, it has a hilariously brutal final bossfight.

 

[Fat Dragon]

I've only played the first one and I thought it was pretty good.

Combat is fun, tough and brutal, usually done with whatever you can get your hands on (pipes, tool, paper cutters, axes, rebar with concrete, etc). All melee weapons feel powerful, giving a satisfying sound when you bash someone in the temple. You can also counter attack with them but it requires careful timing and the AI can still recover from them quite well and counter back. There are a few guns but they are incredibly rare and only have around 3-4 bullets in them.

Unfortunately, combat is the only way to progress through the levels. The game could have benefited from a good stealth system too, imo.

The collecting evidence minigame is pretty cool though, and can be tense when you want to hurry up in finish because you hear some psycho enemy wandering around the corner.

Levels are a bit on the short side and pretty straight forward, but they are well designed. I really liked the abandoned school, and the shopping mall level with all the mannequins and enemies dressed at mannequins. Couple that with the hallucinations the pc experiences from time to time, and you've got a game whose levels like to fuck with you.

Story is total shit though, I couldn't make any sense out of it. You have to complete all these boring collect-a-thon side-quests to unlock more pieces of the story to read. Meh, it'd have been fine if it was done like in SS2 or something, but here you just collect like 30 slabs of metal or dead birds and then it unlocks a new file in the main menu. It's really stupid, fuck that.

 

[I.C. Wiener]

It's not bad. It's got a very satisfyingly violent and painful-looking combat system and the atmosphere is very good, thanks to some good sound design. It is definitely a console game though, and it has that simplified, overly linear feeling gameplay which is antithetical to the harsh tone.

 

[lightbane]

Still, I recommend to take with care the 2nd game, is not as good, here you can succesfully fight the enemies with your bare fists (on the 1st game if you weapon broke you were pretty much screwed), you can dualweild firearms and know at every second how much ammo you still have (in Condemned 1 you did not, you had to press a key for the main character to manually "check" how many bullets were on the magazine, and you could not reload), and the plot of the 1st game is obviously expanded... But in the WORST, most retarded way possible.

 

[Gragt]

Not Monolith's best but definitely not their worst. The emphasis on melee is somewhat refreshing and feels brutal enough to be enjoyable, even if other games like Escape From Butcher Bay did it better. That said it's still fun to rip some piece of scenery to use it as an improvised weapon. You get a taser that might make things a bit too easier even if it needs time to recharge (by the way, disarming a stunned enemy makes them ridiculously more dangerous because they will tend to jump on you and inflict tons of damage, far more than if you left them their weapon).

Investigation is a bit of a let-down, because you are told when you should press the tool button and the game will automatically select the right tool for you. Then it's just a matter of finding the right spot in the investigation area (you'll know you went too far because the game will unselect the tool for you) and then pressing the tool button again to let the game select the appropriate tool for you once more. Some parts make better use of that system by having you follow a long trail visible only with a special tool, but equipping one of these means that you need to put your weapon away and there might be some crazies lurking around, but these sequences are unfortunately too rare.

Story is serviceable, and most bits have "wasted potential" written over them, yet it mostly works. Some elements really feel stupid and other are obviously left to be expended in the sequel. I haven't played that oine but from what I read most explaination sound very silly. The supernatural enemies, the Dark Watchers, work much better when shrouded in mystery, because their down-to-earth explaination of the sequel removes all of what made them awesome.

As others said the levels are very linear, with sometimes a few corners to explore. It can be annoying but they compensate with size and atmosphere. The latter is pretty well done by exploring the theme of urban decay, and most levels have their distinct personality, like the mall, the serial killer house, the library or the school (the abandonned school was actually reused in F.E.A.R. 2m but without the same impact).

A bit rough but very enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. Play.

 

[ecliptic]

Best hobo-killing simulator out there

 

[fizzelopeguss]

, and the plot of the 1st game is obviously expanded... But in the WORST, most retarded way possible.

It's monolith, so i'm guessing they go all ghouls 'n ghosts paranormal?

 

[Twinkle]

The first condemned game had pretty unnerving atmosphere. What's better, it was achieved not just with excessive gore and didn't have retarded "girl-with-long-hair" stuff from FEAR. First of all, psychos in C:CO were really disturbing and repulsive. Second, sound design was brilliant: from enemies' cries and groans to special effects during hallucinations. And level design: they managed to make even the most generic, overdone locations like school, mall, subway etc. interesting thanks to insane attention to detail and somewhat interactive environment. Sadly, the gameplay was dragged down by overpowered shocker and absolutely linear level progression. And there were no real investigation elements. Despite the flaws, worthy of one playthrough, IMO.

P.S. Just read Condemned 2's plot synopsis. Is it really that bad?

 

[Gragt]

The main character is actually some sort of Cleve Blakemore with his higher bone density.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Finished the first two chapters, and... meh. It's not bad. Likes to rely on a few rather cheap tricks for scares, the controls are pretty tank-like, and has an overall feeling of severe console rash.

This sort of thing didn't bother me until recently

Anyway, will persevere and see if it picks up, atmosphere is good on the whole and the detail put into the (suffocatingly linear) levels is pretty great.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I thought this was good for what it is: a beat-up-the-homeless simulator. Who knew hitting hobos with lead pipes could be this fun?

 

[CrimHead]

A paper cutter blade is one of the best weapons.

It's a good game.

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO I AGREE PART 2 PLOT WAS TOTALLY OVER THE TOP

NEVER PLAYED PART 1 BUT THE INVESTIGATION STUFF IS SORTA DECENT IN 2

 

[CrimHead]

I never played the second one, but the investigation parts are indeed some of the more interesting moments of the game. One of the most memorable segments for me was following a trail of scribblings drawn with some indeterminate bodily fluid through an abandoned house with a blacklight! I believe you can even read the stuff, and it's all very freaky.

The ending is quite weird though, and at a couple of points the plot completely jumps the shark. (ie. the final boss fight)

Game has zombies too.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Sheet I didn't know Jace owns all the rights. Does he also own the content rights? If yes he should seek out an indie dev to port Condemned 2 to PC. That would be a good start for a little revenue stream.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

First Condemned is great and satisfies my urge to hit people with a sledgehammer.
Second Condemned is ok, but really short (even compared to the first game). I would love to see it on PC, though, and give it another try.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

Just port Condemned 2 to PC and leave the "franchise" be.

 

[A user named cat]

Condemned was more repetitive and mundane than even F.E.A.R. with its formulaic design. Got boring not even halfway through. The sequel was just more of the same except consolized and worse. Shit series, let it rest.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

At least the encounter design was better and more unsettling than hordes of shitty FEAR clone soldiers over and over. Minus the Taser the overall difficulty was pretty good too. The best part is sound design - only Thief gets better than this.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Condemned 2 had better gameplay but the story was shit and they turned Ethan into a hobo, as requested by the stupid Focus group testers.

 

[UndetectedButthurt]

I only played for an hour or so and... He was a bit too edgy all of a sudden?

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Damn, I was thinking about replaying it for the 4th time. Jace is always a bro when it comes to making games so I hope he succeeds and bring another part of the series. Port of the sequel to pc would be nice too.

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

yeah good game

stalker-lite atmosphere for most of it

pretty brutal and nasty too good times were had by all

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Damn, I was thinking about replaying it for the 4th time. Jace is always a bro when it comes to making games so I hope he succeeds and bring another part of the series. Port of the sequel to pc would be nice too.

Jace is a bro when it comes to communities too, since he was planning to re-release Blood with enhancements to make it run nicely on modern hardware, but was buttplugged by Atari and their bancrupcy.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

I know.