Review By

Brad Gallaway

I find Dan's characterization of Condemned: Criminal Origins a very interesting one—it's not often I hear a game accused of increasing sadness in the world. Although I can understand where he's coming from, I think my second opinion takes a slightly different tack. Stay tuned, dear readers, for another episode in the continuing saga of "Good Cop, Slightly Desensitized Cop"…

Kidding aside, I never would have imagined liking Condemned: Criminal Origins as much as I did. Before becoming immersed in its seedy, diseased persona, I imagined myself echoing Dan right on down the line. I'm not a big fan of first-person games and I don't enjoy being scared, so Condemned seemed like a jaunt I was predisposed to dislike. However, despite some issues with the combat and its focus, I found it to be unexpectedly worthwhile and engaging.

I suppose what I liked best about it was the premise. Very few games tackle crime investigation as subject matter, and Condemned: Criminal Origins takes a pretty good stab at it. It's true that the forensic procedures (fingerprinting, DNA matching, and so on) take advantage of fictitious technology and some ridiculously exaggerated shortcuts, but the approach was serious and made me feel as though I were really piecing together a crime, bit by gruesome bit. It made sense to be following a blood trail or combing a room for scratch marks rather than the usual arbitrary hunt for a switch or key. To be clear, it's not that Condemned completely foregoes the classic formula; it just does a better job of masking it and making the standard first-person procedure more palatable. (However, the game loses points for the silliness of weapons being needed to access specific areas. If I need a fire axe to get through a rickety wooden door, there's no reason a sledgehammer couldn't perform the same task.)

Complementing the investigations, the plot kept me hooked and surpassed my expectations. Although Dan felt the narrative was serviceable at best, I was intrigued and motivated. If it had been any less interesting, I doubt that I would have actually stuck around until the credits. Certain elements of the plot are quite enigmatic and beg for enlightenment, but I don't think that things were mishandled or done poorly. There was just enough to chew on, leaving me hungry for another installment. In this respect, Condemned: Criminal Origins reminded me of the storytelling found in the Silent Hill series; things are rarely laid out for the player, but there are enough bits and pieces to ensnare the curious and get them to puzzle out what's going on.

The disgusting, decrepit levels do an outstanding job of creating a tense and fearful environment. I loathed the frequency of which I was attacked from the side or from behind, but those cheap shots can be forgiven since save points are relatively frequent and the atmosphere in which the investigations take place is so encompassing.

Condemned: Criminal Origins is especially intense late in the game when featuring less mazelike, more realistic locales. In these times, it's able to step away from the standard sensation of patrolling hallways and communicates the kind of paranoia and immediate danger that can only be paralleled in the real world; something like being lost and alone in an unfamiliar place, or getting to your car in an empty parking lot, only to reach into your pocket and find that the keys aren't there. That's the kind of stomach-churning, cold sweat tension I felt when closing in on the killer in an abandoned farmhouse. Simply going from room to room in a place that could be real was deeply disturbing, and the sensation of looking out onto a dimly-lit yard from an upstairs window is something that won't be forgotten soon.

For a game so adept at creating unease and with a successful narrative to match, I have to admit that I was puzzled to see the developers so fascinated with the bludgeoning hand-to-hand combat Dan describes. I can understand increasing fear by reducing reliance on all-powerful firearms, but the technical aspects of wielding iron pipes or rusty locker doors are surprisingly unsatisfying. It was frustratingly difficult to block consistently, and the exact point where weapons impacted their targets was nebulously undefined. It's possible to compensate, but for a game so focused on one very specific type of action, it was strange that such a key element would be so unpolished and rough. I can only assume that the developers were aware of this and included the taser to help players compensate. It was a godsend.

Condemned: Criminal Origins was certainly frightening with a graphic approach towards violence and a proficiency for instilling fear, but I found it to be just as compelling in other areas— with a good balance between visceral reaction and logical intrigue, this particular trip through the dark, twisted entrails of a city in decay was one worth taking.

Kid Chaos says...

I have just completed Condemned, and I couldn't help but strongly disagree with this review.

I don't know much about the story being lifted from other texts, but whatever the case, the story served its purpose. I agree that it was weak, especially at the game's conclusion, but it still provided a few twists about the murder suspects, and it played its course adequately.

I disagree when you write that the game arouses sensations of disgust and revulsion rather than actual fear. Blood spattered items do not litter every recess of every level, as you have suggested - in fact, most of the blood and gore only appear in the final levels. I myself felt that Condemned's dank environments and surreal atmosphere made me feel quite afraid. In fact, I feel that you contradict yourself when you claim you did not experience genuine fear, because in your previous paragraph, you comment how the game featured a deviously well-created creepiness, or words to that effect.

I also take umbrage with your comments about the melee system. First of all, melee combat in the first person perspective can and does work - Condemned, the Thief series and Oblivion all prove this. I accept that there can be some confusion over judging distances, but it is not as clumsy as you make it out to be. Melee fighters do not always have to be in third person, with the character sprite's posterior pointing out at us, obstructing our view (something I find quite annoying). I found the combat in Condemned to be some of the most adrenaline-rushing first person action sequences I have ever witnessed, thanks to some unpredictable attacks that your enemies can deploy, the grittily realistic animations of your foes during battles, and once again, the fact that the first person view allows the experience to be more visceral and "in your face." Because I found the fights to be so exciting, I never felt that they were repetitive. And tell me, which FPS (or any action game, really) does not eventually become repetitive? Don't they all? They all become button mashers at one stage or another. I feel this was a weak point of your argument.

Finally, however, you seem to have fallen into a very prevalent trap that reviewers find themselves ensnared in when they review violent games, or games of a controversial nature. It sounds like you have written off Condemned, which I thought was a skillfully constructed and creative horror yarn, merely because it was violent. This is exactly what happened with the Mortal Kombat games (which I thought were some of the greatest fighters in beat em' up history), the Carmageddon series (which I felt were absurd, yet also absurdly entertaining), and more recently Manhunt (which I thought was a decent stealth and scare romp). This is akin disliking a certain painting because, despite its beauty, it prominently features a colour you don't like. I don't believe a creative work should be shot down because it was presented in a way that did not appeal to the reviewer - Condemned is a horror game, and it will logically work by the parameters set by the horror genre. If you don't like that, don't like the blood or tense environments or excess brutality, that's fine - we all have our quirks about what should and shouldn't be in the media, or in art. But you probably should have left this review up to someone else.

Your article strongly reminds me of the infamous Doom 3 review by a Christian website - just like them, you think that by playing this game, our souls shall be consumed by the minions of the underworld, and the earth shall be overturned into the fiery pits of hell. You may think this, but something tells me most gamers do not share this view.

RATING: 8.0
Published: August 23, 2006

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