Wonderfully disturbing and well-written, The Suffering is conceptually brilliant and a solid action game.
games have long been with only Silent Hill and a few other isolated
titles that serve as interim entertainment. Horror games, in general,
lack true vision and artistic flair and the willingness, the eagerness,
to explore the darker places of human psychology. This was all true, that Silent Hill had been the only true horror title worth owning until The Suffering came to be. While some would argue that The Suffering does not qualify as a survival horror game because of the intense action that marks vast majority of it's game play, no game that features horrible, disturbing creatures that represent state sanctioned execution, disturbing hallucinations in which the hero's family, indeed, his two little boys, are brutalized and screaming for help, can be called anything but horror.
Either way, The Suffering is a masterpiece whose wonderful writing,
original concepts, and satisfying action are sure to capture the
imagination of any horror fan, and may even convince non-horror fans of
the error of their ways.
You play Torque, a quiet man accused of murdering his wife and two boys.
The game starts as Torque is first being brought to his cell. One hears
the guards talking about Torque's alleged crime. One also hears the
inmates surrounding Torque's new cell chatting about him. The voice
acting and the writing is superb and believable. Soon after Torque is
put into his cell, a cataclysm occurs and everyone around you is
butchered by as yet unidentified things. That's when the fun begins.
Overall, the action in the game is refreshingly simple. Torque can be
played in first person or third and he can jump and dive to the side to
avoid attacks. The weapons in the game range from a shiv that you find
in the beginning, to dynamite sticks, to a home made flamethrower. And
Torque uses them all to blast his way through hoards of well-done,
satisfyingly disturbing creatures.
The downside of the gameplay and the graphics is that the game can get a little tedious at times, and it features no more than a few trivial puzzles.
While the graphics are nothing special on a technical level, the whole
prison and island is very well done and immerses the player in the game
straight away. Moreover, the writers spent a lot of time writing a whole
history and flavor of the island and the prison. Torque will find little
tidbits about this history as well as experience some hallucinations
related to horrible things that have happened on the island in the past.
The hallucinations are an important part of the flavor of the game and
are genuinely troubling. The voice acting for all characters is very
good, surprisingly good for a video game, and only serves to ground the
disturbing nature of the things Torque sees. Furthermore, the game
features several ghosts that follow Torque around. Fortunately, these
aren't treated like typical ghosts at all. One such apparition is a
former executioner who loved his work a little bit too much at the
prison. He is an apparition made of green lethal gas and he will barrage
Torque with eloquent remembrance of his days as an executioner, how it
was such a sensuous experience for him. Another ghost is that of a
former prisoner who crackles with the very electricity that killed him
in the chair. Also, Torque is haunted by the ghost of a deceased
psychiatrist who enjoys analyzing Torque but clearly doesn't pay heed to
the Hippocratic Oath.
Horror fans will adore The Suffering for it's truly disturbing concepts,
imagery, and voice acting. The action is satisfyingly violent and yet
simple enough for game of the sort. The overall game concept is
brilliantly done and unique. And the entire world of Carnate Island is
well written and is sure to capture the imagination of many.