Condemned 2 PS3/X360 review.

12:41pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

Are you brave enough to play in the dark? Condemned returns!!!!

Condemned 2 picks up the story of special agent Ethan Thomas 11 months after the events of the original Condemned. Ethan has crawled to the bottom of a Whiskey bottle and has no intention of coming back out, but the Special Crime Unit needs its demon killer. The city is in deep trouble and only Thomas can save it. But Thomas' conflict with his former colleagues could prove to be as much of a problem as the rising tide of madness engulfing the city.

The Combat in Condemned 2 is different to any FPS I have played before as it centres around uber violent melee attacks rather than the conventional gunplay seen in most titles. You can always swing your left or right fist, kick, charge and throw an elbow, or string together combos. There are guns to be found but ammo is in very short supply and should be saved for times you are swarmed with enemies if possible. The melee weapons litter the enviroments and you are never far away from a lead pipe or some other bludgeoning equipment but to survive for long you are gonna need to master the left, right combos and the very efffective blocking system. The way you can pull weapons from the enviroments, for example being able to pull pipes from walls or pick up bowling balls from the alley, really add to the desperation its like "anything to survive" it is so subtle but has such a massive impact on the atmosphere.

The Forensic sections in Condemned 2 are outstanding they should have put a lot more of these in the game, they are far improved over the simple search puzzles from the first condemned and now have you doing some real C.S.I. work examining blodd splatter to determin its origin, examining ancient torture tools to see how they were used and much more.

The visuals are outstanding and the enviroments really add to the atmosphere also, all are dimly lit and very threatening they give you the feeling there is something around the corner or coming behind you at all times. The character models are also top quality and all are animated fluidly. The sound is probably the strongest attribute in the make up of the atmosphere and the sound team have done some of the best work on any console title to date, atmospheric noises, ambient sound, and combat "oofs" all add up to a soundscape that helps build the terror.

Overall Condemned 2 is a great title it takes everything the orginal did and improves on it quite significantly and the atmosphere it sets is the most tense of any title I've played. Play this late at night with the lights off and the sound turned up and you will be looking over your shoulder every two minutes. Great stuff.

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