Disclaimer
The thing is I am just not an FPS person, the only games I remember finishing our Doom (only the Dos based ones) and Duke Nukem 3D other than that I have a good experience with Unreal Tournament on the Dreamcast, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on it. Other than that I don’t remember finishing any other FPS game (for example I’ve spent several hours (spread out over weeks or months even) on Blood but I don’t remember the ending leading me to believe I didn’t finish it).
Prologue
I bought this game last summer and I am not a fan of first person shooters, but I am sure some could relate with me that when we are in a video game store there is a irrational voice inside our heads which keeps echoing “MUST GIVE SEGA MONEY, MUST GIVE SEGA MONEYâ€, I have learned to silence it now and only buy Sega games that I would genuinely want to play or are developed in-house (I can’t seem to silence those voices when it comes to in-house games).
Unfortunately last summer the voice got the better of me and I bought a used disk on condemned and long story short the voice didn’t stop, I eventually returned that copy, went to a Best Buy in Dallas Texas (I originally bought the game from Plano) and bought both games Brand Spanking New.
I didn’t need to fear buying a game from a genre I barely engage in since the games was suppose to be an ultimate launch title for the 360 and I had read a few favorable previews and the overall ranking at Gamespot was solid as well. I also found out on my wiki adventures that this game is created by Monolith and on their wiki page I found they made a game called BLOOD, I can tell you that I really enjoyed Blood, I don’t remember the plot or anything of that game but the game had a lot of personality and it was fun.
A month later after returning home from my summer holidays, I popped Condemned in and well the main character looked dated (graphically but the environments were super), and I later realized the main guy isn’t poorly animated he’s just an unattractive man. So in my first play through (on my game testing offline xbox profile), I managed to get all the way till the end of Chapter 2 when I decided to stop playing and maintained a safe distance from that game for a whole year.
Hands On: One year later
I’ve spent my summer dedicated to finishing Max Payne duet before I buy Alan Wake, now that I am done with that mission I give you:
2 Nights of Condemnation
Graphics:
I start replaying condemned with the intent of finishing both games before my summer holidays end (which means 12 days), I started a New Game, and as soon as it started I realized the graphics are fabulous very well detailed but extremely dark impossible to navigate without a flash light (I realized my brightness settings needed to be adjusted and that helped a bit).
Sound:
The voice acting seems solid and the music and sound effects are very atmospheric and blend in very well with the direction the game is going in.
Gameplay:
In the 1st chapter you get to learn the game mechanics and after the whole in game story bit ended and I cocked my gun I thought the game play would change to a contemporary FPS one, instead I realized that the game is perhaps as good as gameplay (maybe not as good) as the Doom games I was so fond off, you can only run around and that is about it.
There are some things in the game that Doom didn’t have such as a Taser to stun enemies, a mighty boot (similar to Duke), and exciting combat which involves objects from the environment or you can even flip your guy and knock the person out with the back of a gun and if you beat them just to an inch of their life you are given an option to perform fatalities (Twist Neck, Smash, Punch or Head Butt) by pressing any one of the corresponding directional button.
You also have a wide range of forensic tools such as UV light, Digital Camera and much more technical stuff as well but the game automatically selects the right one at the right time and holds your hand throughout the investigation, so it isn’t like you’re playing Ace Attorney and examining your environments.
You can’t jump, duck, or play with the environments (Turn the light switch on, open a water tap etc), YOU CAN’T EVEN CARRY MORE THEN 1 WEAPON!!!!, While the main character can interact with the environment (open a closet, move an obstructing object), jump, climp and duck it is only when the game commands you to do it at a certain point in the game (if hints are turned on) you are allowed to move objects if you press A and this is a suffocating feeling, I want to jump to certain places so bad, and it is like a small 12 inch object blocking your way :S.
Environments:
The game also doesn’t offer you the opportunity to look at a map and that is EXTREMELY frustrating, I ended up missing a few areas and ran in circles, very often because the entire portion I played was very dark and surprisingly chapter 1 was set in the day, it is fun to see how creatively they managed to throw so much darkness at day time by setting the chapter in a broken down building with almost no electricity, while you travel the dark halls you come across windows and sun rays can illuminate corners of a room, and you look outside the windows and see day light it felt nice and looked beautiful, I thought to myself RE5 could’ve taken a few notes from this game but by the end of the 2 nights and 2 chapters I had enough of the dark.
Another thing that bothered me in my 1st play though and this one, is I can’t seem to find all 6 dead birts and 3 metal pieces and it drives me crazy cause I spent a hell of a lot of time dedicated to just inspecting areas for those things.
Conclusion
In conclusion I am very scared tha this game will probably ruin my overall Xbox game score which has been close to perfect in almost any game i've played courtosey of those damn birds and metal pieces, the suffocatingly limited game play options and the absence of a map leave me extremly frustrated and instead of playing Chapter 3 today, I decided to spent the time writing, and editing this hands on impression.
The biggest question is how you forget a fucking map, I mean I am comparing this game to games that are decades old and they still fare better than this.
Hopefully Chapter 3 will be more fun, I’ve also not been immersed into the story yet, so I am enjoying the game even less.
What baffles me the most is that Monolith made Blood, a game I thoroughly enjoyed, not for its dated visuals but the wonderful gameplay, assortment of weaspons, interaction with the environment etc and they seem to have forgotten all that for this game.
More Frustrated than Scared.
