Surreal took one step forward with The Suffering, and two steps back with Ties That Bind... (contains spoilers)
The gameplay is exactly like the first game, except with two differences. You run around in either first person or third person view, jumping, crawling, and using a wide array of weapons to destroy the masses of monsters (and human military forces) you will undoubtley face. What seperates this game from the last saga is the fact that now you can duel wild weapons - such as two sawed off shotguns or revolvers, and the fact that your monster forms has three different versions to it. Just like the endings, you can have an evil monster, a good monster, or a neutral monster - each with it's own moves. I had the good monster, so my weapons were some chains and some guns.
Sadly, in Ties That Bind, you will come (and be forced really..) to use your monster more than you would like. Why is this? Because certain monsters can't be hurt by bullts but can only be killed in your other form. At first this may not seem like such a bad thing, but when you have no insanity in your meter and your face with a bunch of these things that cant be killed..it becomes a problem...a very big problem.
Even more sadly, to me atleast, is the fact that this game focuses more on mindless run-n-gunning, like a basic third person shooter, instead of building up anxiety and focusing on horror - a factor that the original The Suffering game managed to blend and perfect. I mean, it goes as far as to pit you against a heavily armed private human military run by a guy named Blackmoore.
Also, in this title, Surreal & Midway tried to take some of our old favorite monsters that had a backstory strictly for Carnate and give them a different backstory to fit a made up history behind Baltimore. For example - The Mainliner, who is this little annoying pest who throws syringes at you, was (in the first game) supposed to represent Carnates horrific scientific testing on the inmates... in this game it is supposed to represent an aggresive drug dealer. Thats pretty lame in my opinion.
There are three endings in this game, just like the last game. Depending on who you help, kill, or just leave alone - it will earn you a good, evil, or neutral ending. The good ending wasn't all that good.. Blackmoore admits defeat and tells Torque that his men got out of hand when he ordered them to storm Torques house. After that, Blackmoore blurs in a few rays of light... and thats it... pathetic.
One more thing - this game is PLAUGED with bugs, glitches, and freeze-ups. In the later parts of the game where the action really gets crazy, Torque's legs will stop moving and he will be gliding, the game will literally lock up and force you to reset your PS2, Torques yell of pain as he transforms just stops, in fact almost all the sound effects muddle together in the last fight. It's pretty bad, and if the developers worked harder on that maybe this would have gotten a higher score.
The graphics are still pretty decent, and definitley bloody. Everything looks pretty good & realistic, but doesn't seem to quite nail it down...its not an eyesore, but its not eyecandy either.
The music, sound effects, and voice acting are awesome like always. The guns sound (and feel) like they are truley packing a punch (except the handgun..pathetic). Heck, even the fire axe when it hits a monster produces a beautiful & satisfying sound.. Like I said the voice acting is really good, but near the end of the game it starts to get tiresome. Blackmoore CONSTANTLY repeats himself as being a "Playa" and that he "Does whatever it takes to play the game"... yeah.
To me, Ties That Bind feels pretty rushed and seems to be a more mindless actiony rehash of the original game, with a much weaker storyline and less horror. Sad thing too, because The Suffering 1 was one of the best games I played. I suggest a mere rental... so sad.