The Suffering: Ties That Bind (PC) Publisher: Midway Games Developer: Surreal Software Genre: Third
Now The Suffering: Ties That Bind continues Torque's saga, giving us more insight into his troubled life. While the engaging story moves the series forward, the gameplay usually feels stuck in the past, like a rerun of the first game. The main difference is just that there are fewer scares this time and more pure action.
Back Behind Bars
Ties That Bind opens with a flashback. Torque is in prison, where he's confronted by Blackmore, the man who played a pivotal role in putting him in the slammer. It seems Blackmore helped tear Torque's family apart, turning his wife and kids against him and making sure Torque would suffer for their deaths. Instead of spelling things out up front, The Ties That Bind wisely chooses to drop hints about Blackmore and Torque. Visions and journal entries keep you guessing at the details while slowly building intrigue, though at times the story can be a bit too cryptic for its own good.
After the short intro sequence, we move to the present. Torque is seen escaping the prison island of the first game and fleeing by boat to his hometown of Baltimore. Freedom isn't so easy, of course: awaiting him at the docks is The Foundation, a shadowy group of researchers, replete with private security force, intent on capturing and studying the creatures of island. It was there that Torque himself learned to become a ferocious monster when the demons in his head grew too strong to restrain. Now he's going to be a specimen for The Foundation's studies. Just as in the first game, things suddenly and mysteriously go to hell, letting Torque escape, this time out into the streets of Baltimore now overrun with living nightmares.
Once again you'll face creatures that are the embodiments of humanity's perversity, madness, and malice. When you first encounter these monsters, hallucinatory flashbacks illustrate the incidents that gave rise to them. So, when you run up against a hulking behemoth with a gaping maw, for example, you see the ghostly image of a preacher feeding the downtrodden of his impoverished neighborhood with human flesh. Other creatures bear limbs of blades, wreaths of flame, or backs impaled with junkies' needles. Unfortunately, some of these creatures are too similar (or identical) to those of the first game, and most of them seem uninspired. Overall, Ties That Bind feels less atmospheric and creepy than the first game, with a greater focus on blasting baddies instead of building atmosphere.
While they're not frightening or compelling, the monsters at least move and attack in different ways. To fight them, you get a typical assortment of shooter weapons: a lead pipe, dual pistols, shotgun, Tommy gun, Molotov cocktails, and so forth. You can only carry a few weapons at a time, so you have to make some decisions about what to wield. Then again, weapons are scattered around pretty liberally, so it's usually easy enough to swap out your current arsenal for something more to your liking.
Like the monsters, the weapons are nothing special: they get the job done but lack any flair that would make them particularly fun to use. On the bright side, the combat is visceral and bloody; Ties That Bind certainly doesn't suffer from any dearth of action. The shooter-style controls are comfortable and effective, and you can watch the action from first- or third-person viewpoints.
While the combat can pack a punch, it's also predictable and suffers from balancing issues. Too often the game traps you in a small area and throws wave after wave of monsters at you or pits you against overly tough bosses. Fortunately, you can save as often as you want to help you past the particularly brutal spots.
While the monsters can be overwhelming at times, the levels are strictly linear, keeping you on track and contributing to the game's swift pacing. You rarely have to worry about tedious backtracking as you search for some obscure exit. As in the original game, Ties That Bind throws in a few puzzles to spice the levels up a bit, but these are mostly simple matters of turning a crank or moving a crate.
The game also tries to spice things up with Insanity mode. As you kill creatures, a meter fills up. When it's topped off, you can temporarily transform into a fierce monster with strength far exceeding that of a normal man. This way you can rip enemies to shreds and bust through certain walls. Your moral choices in the game at certain junctions help shape your Insanity mode attacks.
Interesting People, Boring Places
Visually, Ties That Bind is pretty ho-hum. The gutted slums and prison cell blocks you travel through quickly start to blur together, as do the creature designs. When Torque turns into a monster in Insanity mode, it's a letdown; he looks pretty generic. At least the animations are solid, and the decapitations, dismemberments, and wild sprays of blood should satisfy fans of splatter flicks.
While the graphics are merely so-so, Ties That Bind still manages to draw you in with a colorful script that's more than ably acted. Blackmore is brought to life with the deep, resounding voice of Michael Clarke Duncan (Armageddon, The Green Mile). Oscar-nominated Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under) gives the chief Foundation scientist an air of authority. Most of the other actors also do fine jobs bringing characters to life, contributing to the story's emotional punch. Whether it's the ghost of Torque's distressed wife or a junkie desperate for a fix, most of the characters make a memorable impression. The sound effects, by contrast, are adequate at best: most weapons sound pitifully underpowered--a .45 shouldn't sound like a .22--and the monsters' clanks and groans usually don't create the requisite sense of dread.
Grinding to a Halt
The PC version of Ties That Bind, just like its predecessor, lacks technical polish. We encountered graphics glitches and had problems loading saved games. Sometimes events failed to trigger properly, leaving us stuck. The game also shipped with a debilitating bug that can cause your computer to lock up totally whenever you try to save your progress or make changes on the options pages. According to the developer, this is apparently caused by the game's StarForce copy protection interfering with the popular ZoneAlarm firewall software. If you encounter the bug, you'll need to completely uninstall ZoneAlarm or update your StarForce drivers. (Or you can simply avoid games with invasive copy protection schemes.)
It's a shame that The Suffering: Ties That Bind suffers from these serious problems. The gameplay and locales aren't particularly exciting, yet the pacing is taut, and the story and acting are above par for a game. Fans of the first game should enjoy learning more about Torque's clouded life, but if you're new to the series, you'll probably better off picking up the original.