This continues the dark and grisly theme of the first game, but some less-than-devious gameplay elements mar the overall
Sequel games always seem to be fighting against themselves. On the one hand, you certainly want to continue your story in the same tone as the previous chapter. On the other, you expect certain game elements to change. Unfortunately, all the elements Ties That Bind has changed haven’t changed for the better. The game still plays out with its third-person perspective (which really works for this game), with the option to switch into a first-person mode for careful aiming. Although you’re in the city instead of a cramped prison facility, you’ll still be navigating through tight alleyways and tight corridors and dark basement areas as you battle back the strange manifestations of crime. You’ll have access to a wide variety of weapons, but you’ll quickly notice that these weapons don’t pack nearly the same punch as they did in the first game. It gets pretty frustrating to empty an entire clip into a Slayer’s head, only to have them slice you up while you’re trying to reload. What’s even worse is that this takes place on the easiest setting. Add to that the fact that ammo is hard to find in most locations, and you’ve got yourself a pretty frustrating piece of gameplay. Hey, on the bright side, at least this isn’t one of those game that focuses intently on combat action . . . oh, wait, that’s wrong. This IS that type of game. Well now, the fact that your firearms can’t adequately protect you doesn’t make any sense, does it?
You may remember that during the first game, you could occasionally change into a raving lunatic of a monster with devastating melee attacks. Relying on this monster to an unhealthy degree earned you a bit of a slap on the wrist when it came to the ending you received, but using the monster was the only way you could beat certain bosses, including the final manifestation. Apparently, the designers of this game loved the little beast man so much that they decided to make him a big part of the sequel. As a result, there are a number of enemies that can only be beaten by the psychotic part of Torque, and a number of walls that can only be broken through by the beast, and – oh yes – the end fight also requires the use of the darker side of Torque. Of course, all the major weaknesses of the beast are still present, such as the weak defense, the inability to heal, the fact that you lose a big chunk of your health if you don’t change back before your insanity meter runs out. This can make all the monster sequences a bit grating on the nerves and patience.
Graphically, the game is still dark and bloody, which again works in The Suffering’s favor. Some of the neatest graphics effects (from a truly grisly point of view) is that when you kill a monster up close and personally, their blood splatters all over Torque and his weapons. Unfortuately, the more imaginative elements of the game’s design team must have taken a vacation, because you’re facing off against the same monsters – with a few exceptions – that you faced on Carnate. Where in the first game these monsters represented the various types of deaths the inmates were punished with, here the monsters represent various types of street crime. This is kind of weak.
The sound is pretty gripping throughout the game, at least in relation to weapon sounds and monster pursuits. You don’t hear a lot of music, and what’s there is suitably in the background and unnoticeable. A major problem with the spoken dialogue is that a lot of it will cut off abruptly if you’re moving around too much while someone is speaking, so you wind up missing large chunks of the game’s script. On top of that, the major villain of the piece – Blackmore – sounds so ridiculously cheesy that it’s hard to really take him seriously. In fact, his diatribes get a little repetitive and boring. The other two notorious faces that appear as you navigate through the city are far creepier.
While the game allows you to choose a beginning based on your ending from the first game, there’s not really a lot of differences as you make your way through the actual game. In fact, your morality really only changes your beginning and ending, and grants you a few special monster attacks based on how good or evil you are. While you may be interested in playing through these games again to experience the different morality shifts, once you’ve seen this game play out once . . . well, the gameplay may keep you from coming back to it.
The story is certainly interesting enough the first time, I still get creeped out by the various phone calls Torque receives, and the flashbacks he receives of previous crimes in the area are interesting to a point, but this game is more deserving of a rental than a purchase.