Like uncle Gary's night out, the horror let's up when you join the dead.

User Rating: 9 | The Suffering PS2
For too long have horror fans been wishing for a good ol' dark and bloody shoot em up with an implication of a heart, The Suffering delivers. Although dated, The Suffering doesn't lose it's unrelenting sense of reality, and horror. This mirrors other masterpieces such as Silent Hill and The Punisher, it combines these elements in the most perfect of ways, with a few glitches in there, that may stop you sometimes, but dont disable. The Suffering starts off with a bang, a stabbing, a crucifiction, a decaptition and a emasculation, all of which are necessary, just to represent the brutality of the prisons wide array of hellish creatures. The story goes like this, you play as thick-skinned bad-ass been through it all Torque (Last name remains unknown) who is accused of killing his family in cold blood, for no apparent reason, or did he? That's the ultimate question that you are in control. Wanna kill anything and everything that moves just for the hell of it? Go right ahead! Wanna help the men you come across? Wanna kill the bad men? Be my guest! Would you like to do a little bit of both? Help some, kill some, do whatever you choose, but be prepared to face your personal (And not so personal) demons when you're all done.

Slippery controls are a very rare, but terribly annoying problem that can and will get you killed, but only in the most demanding situations, such as boss fights and certain creature encounters. The gameplay is top-notch, a great blend of the survival, horror, and shooter genre, with just the right dose of story. This is the game the mam warned you about, and for good reason, its amazingly disturbing, twisted, disgusting, wrong, immoral, sacreligious, dark, violent, depressing, gory, bloody, profane, slightly sexual and... just plain awesome.

The graphics are gritty, but appropriately so for the content. Its a very interactive enviroment, you can flush toilets, listen to phone calls (Which are very disturbing, and horrific at times), turn lights on and off, kick open doors, move stuff, it gives the prison its own life. The prison after awhile is a living, breathing world with a wide array of characters that are all killed off fairly quickly (Which is possible to prevent). But many of these characters are the cruel prison guards who mess with you at the begining, just ask yourself "Do I want to save my captives?" If so, go right ahead.

The Suffering is veered towards a very mature audience, only the thickest-skinned, tough as nails, mental warriors can stand up to the noises, and disturbing imagery, anyone less than that, your discretion is advised. And at the end of the day, getting past all the dark and disturbing aspects, it's just plain fun.