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Categories: Review
Tags: condemned, fps, horror, xbox 360
Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Developer: Monolith Productions
Publisher: SEGA
Platform: Xbox 360
Released: 3/11/2008In the aftermath of the Serial Killer X case, Ethan Thomas is no longer an FBI agent. Homeless, drunk, and angry, he is tormented by hallucinations including the recurring manifestation of his personal demons. But with the city’s homeless population degenerating into monsters and the suspected murder of Thomas’ former mentor and SKX’s uncle Malcolm Vanhorn, Ethan Thomas is called back into action.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot, the follow up to 2005’s Condemned: Criminal Origins, continues the original game’s storyline expanding on a mysterious cult and filling out Thomas’ back story. It also ups the action and adventure, adding combos to the game’s melee system and deepening the game’s forensic investigations. If you’re new to the series, think CSI: Silent Hill with a bit of Fight Club thrown into the mix.
Most of the game’s action is set in Metro City – a crime-ridden, dilapidated place where only a brave or foolhardy city official would dare make a public appearance. The landscape is littered with old hotels where rooms are used as meth labs, decaying factories, and dark alleyways. Bloodshot is a game where even a bowling alley serves as an ominous deathtrap.
In a Condemned game anything can be used as a weapon – pipes, locker doors, toilet seats, bricks. But this entry finds Thomas adept at fisticuffs as well. With the left and right triggers corresponding to Thomas’ fists, players can stagger opponents with powerful punch combos. After landing enough hits, players enter a cinematic quicktime mode which is more visceral and devastating. Bloodshot also improves on Criminal Origins’ killing moves by opening up a whole world of environmental kills. Remember when THQ went soft on The Punisher? Monolith drenches victims in gore.
Forensic investigations have also been revamped. You’ll still follow UV-illuminated blood trails, but when you find the victim Thomas is called upon to observe and deduce. Using a multiple choice system, Thomas looks at clues and figures out which answers match the crime scene. Is hole in the torso an entrance or exit wound? Are you looking at a severed leg or something else? Do you need to cut the green wire or the red? Careful before you answer, you’re being graded on this.
Each of Bloodshot’s levels is nightmarish and gruesome, whether it’s an abandoned doll factory or remote lodge. However, some nausea is simply invoked by the Monolith’s commitment to motion-sickness. I don’t know if it’s the headbob combined with motion blur combined with Thomas’ visual distortion, but some maps are quease-inducing. Of course, plain old fear helps, too.
Bloodshot is scary. It’s atmospheric and knows how to use mounting suspense, but it’s also willing to resort to cheap, pants-staining measures like having someone pop-up behind you as you look in a mirror. But this entry falters by having too many guns – especially towards the end. Relying on a makeshift club is scary. Having an assault rifle isn’t.
Bloodshot makes one other misstep – a clunky save system. Bloodshot uses an autosave system which is player-friendly when it comes to checkpoints, but punishing when it comes to replaying earlier levels. Since there’s only one slot, you can’t revisit earlier levels without losing your current progress – especially annoying if you’re an achievement hunter, trying to track down every secret or improve your ranking on each level.
Aside from the single-player story mode, Bloodshot has online action where you can pummel other players or engage in (or thwart) a crime scene investigation. Back offline, there are some time challenge fights available in arenas you unlock during game play and once you’ve played through the game once, you can have another go at it in FPS mode.