Gamespot finally released their review of Condemned 2: Bloodshot today and the basic gist of it is, "If you don't mind gallons of blood, guts and gore and enjoy being scared until you wet your pants, then this is the game for you." I will almost certainly be getting this game, since it is a sequel to perhaps the best "launch title" game of the past fifteen years. For those of you who haven't played the first game, Condemned: Criminal Origins, I would advise you that to this point you've missed out on a game that is more intense and scary than F.E.A.R. ever was. The first game was a visceral thrill ride of emotions and I cannot wait to grab up the second game, lock myself in a dark room late at night after I've chased my wife out of the house so I won't be bothered, and give myself sleeping difficulties for a couple of weeks. You may be asking at this point, "what makes these games so much scarier than a creepy game like F.E.A.R.?"



First and foremost it is the the distance and atmosphere of combat. In a game like F.E.A.R, which was primarily a shooter title that just happened to have an excellent atmosphere, when combat actually began it usually was at gunshot range if you were playing the game well. If enemies managed to get close to you it was generally an indication that you'd messed up in some significant way. Contrast that to Condemned, where guns were extremely rare and you were fighting enemies with trashcan lids, wooden boards with nails, locker doors, sticks, fire axes, sledgehammers, chunks of concrete or whatever else is handy that you can grab up and swing about. When you actually hear and feel the sickening thud of impact every time you either hit someone else or get hit, it creates for a much more intense experience than when you see someone that you just headshot drop to the ground thirty feet away. Next there is the look and feel of the enemies involved. Much of F.E.A.R.'s spookiness was based upon things that happen before or after combat began. It was in the anticipation of combat. When you're actually in a firefight on the other hand, the game isn't that scary most of the time, because most (though not all) of the enemies look, feel and act fully human. Combine that with the fact that most of us have played many, many shooter titles and actual combat wasn't scary because it was familiar. Contrasting that experience with the ones in Condemned highlighted the difference between the two. In Condemned, the enemies looked...off.



The makers of the game made the perfect compromise in how they designed the characters by making them look human to some extent, but twisted enough to make them horrible parodies of humans. They were not so ugly and twisted that you could write them off as zombies and kill away, secure in the knowledge that it is just a game and these things aren't real. Rather, they were just human enough to be recognizable as such. That, combined with the up-close nature of the combat, made you feel twisted and a bit corrupted yourself by killing these things that may or may not be human underneath.



Beyond simply the combat, Condemned set the atmosphere beautifully. Any great horror writer will tell you that setting the mood is key to making something scary. It is the unknown that scares most people, the sense that, at any moment, something could leap out of nowhere and kill you. Once something is exposed to the light of day and we can meet it head-on, it just doesn't frighten us anymore. It is part of the reason that a dark room is more scary than a light room: we can't see danger coming. Both F.E.A.R. and Condemned did this well, adding the right touches to sound, shadow and mood that, when you combined them with what was going on in the paranormal storylines, always kept the pulse of the players racing. Another thing that both games did well was the isolation factor. Humans are social creatures. There is a reason why in prison it is considered to be a greater punishment to lock somebody up alone in the dark for a week than it is to lock someone up in the dark with a big "lifer" named "Bubba". We don't do well when we don't have other humans around us. Our minds start to play tricks on us. We get scared and jittery, because we depend on the safety in numbers that is a genetic legacy from our tribal days.



Death seems to pay much closer attention to us when nobody else is around and when we're in a dark and scary place than it would if we had five other team members toting shotguns in that dark and scary place with us. In both F.E.A.R. and Condemned, you pretty much on your own for the majority of the game. Last but definitely not least is the concept of rising tension. This is another thing that the games have in common. The key to good drama, and when you strip away everything else that's a pretty good definition of the horror genre, is to start small and build. In F.E.A.R., you slowly get further and further away from any known support. You get deeper and deeper into the heart of evil. It is the same in Condemned. Not only do you get into darker and scarier places, you're getting closer and closer to a serial killer and the enemies are looking gradually less and less recognizable as human. In both games, frantic action is broken up by prolonged periods of quiet and anticipation where you're left to wonder what direction the next attack will come from and what form it will take. I haven't yet decided if I will get Condemned for the 360 or the PS3. Gamespot didn't mention any major technical differences between the two games, but I may read a couple of other reviews to make sure. However, if it is anything like the first game, and it sure looks like it is, then I think it may be one of the best "sleeper" titles of the year.