DAY 136 / GAME 136
Condemned: Criminal Origins
There were a lot of fantastic new games that came out shortly after the 7th generation consoles were released. As computing power became more than enough to manage what developers needed to match their imagination, there really seemed to be a lot less limitation on what could be produced.
Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of these great First Person Shooter games that was barely a shooter, delightfully scary and visually outstanding. It felt inventive and moody and made great use of the newer generation consoles. Condemned places you as Ethan Thomas, an SCU agent investigating a serial killer. One of the neat parts about this game is how you use various devices to investigate the crime scenes and dig up evidence necessary to progress.
Condemned was just crammed full of atmosphere. As you wandered around a dilapidated apartment, the only light streams in through cracks in boarded up windows creating volume in the dusty air. During one of the rare time you have a firearm, you eject the clip to briefly examine how many bullets remain, the ammo count staying on screen only for a moment. In the shadows, your culprit darts past, a serial killer bent on killing other serial killers. But instead it turns out to be another crazed junkie, gone mad like the rest of the city from some unknown cause. A cause that may even be affecting yourself.
Condemned portrayed such a solid mood that even though you weren't necessarily battling something monstrous, alien or supernatural, you still were just about ready to crap your pants with every blind corner and dark hallway. This is amplified by your Silent Hill-esque weapon limitation. In Condemned, you are very lucky if you have a gun. Even luckier if it has more than a couple bullets left. Most of the time you find yourself tearing a pipe off the wall, or a wood leg off a chair to improvise as a weapon. Running out of bullets means you leave the gun behind. Being shot at? Get to that gun as fast as you can, because if your attacker uses up most of the magazine, you're stuck with what's left. Like I said, there isn't much shooting going on in this first-person-shooter.
Condemned is easily one of the best of the most overlooked horror games. And yet, I have no idea why. It is extremely solid, both in controls and design. It offers a ton of unique design choices and is absolutely terrifying. I was super glad they made a sequel, albeit an undermarketed one. In fact, I think it's about time Monolith went back and revisited this property. Heck, even Warner Brothers got started on making a live-action movie based on this world.
Condemned is easy to find cheap, if you can find it at all. If you're a horror fan, be sure to go back and grab this one, you should have never missed it in the first place.
Condemned: Criminal Origins
Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of these great First Person Shooter games that was barely a shooter, delightfully scary and visually outstanding. It felt inventive and moody and made great use of the newer generation consoles. Condemned places you as Ethan Thomas, an SCU agent investigating a serial killer. One of the neat parts about this game is how you use various devices to investigate the crime scenes and dig up evidence necessary to progress.
Condemned was just crammed full of atmosphere. As you wandered around a dilapidated apartment, the only light streams in through cracks in boarded up windows creating volume in the dusty air. During one of the rare time you have a firearm, you eject the clip to briefly examine how many bullets remain, the ammo count staying on screen only for a moment. In the shadows, your culprit darts past, a serial killer bent on killing other serial killers. But instead it turns out to be another crazed junkie, gone mad like the rest of the city from some unknown cause. A cause that may even be affecting yourself.
Condemned portrayed such a solid mood that even though you weren't necessarily battling something monstrous, alien or supernatural, you still were just about ready to crap your pants with every blind corner and dark hallway. This is amplified by your Silent Hill-esque weapon limitation. In Condemned, you are very lucky if you have a gun. Even luckier if it has more than a couple bullets left. Most of the time you find yourself tearing a pipe off the wall, or a wood leg off a chair to improvise as a weapon. Running out of bullets means you leave the gun behind. Being shot at? Get to that gun as fast as you can, because if your attacker uses up most of the magazine, you're stuck with what's left. Like I said, there isn't much shooting going on in this first-person-shooter.
Condemned is easily one of the best of the most overlooked horror games. And yet, I have no idea why. It is extremely solid, both in controls and design. It offers a ton of unique design choices and is absolutely terrifying. I was super glad they made a sequel, albeit an undermarketed one. In fact, I think it's about time Monolith went back and revisited this property. Heck, even Warner Brothers got started on making a live-action movie based on this world.
Condemned is easy to find cheap, if you can find it at all. If you're a horror fan, be sure to go back and grab this one, you should have never missed it in the first place.
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