Fun... While it lasts...
posted by The13thMan (GLENWOOD, MN) Aug 5, 2009
Member since Sep 2008
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You'll be wondering the same thing as I was once you've completed Condemned 2: Bloodshot; Why is this game so incredibly short? For a time, you'll be wondering how you played so late into the night, jumping along the way, until suddenly the experience starts to turn extremely cheap and then abruptly ends. The entire game spans probably 8 hours, (depending on difficulty,) and most of those hours are pure gaming bliss. As ex-Serial Crime Unit agent Ethan Thomas, a sudden new complication brings you back into the life you hoped to have left behind. After a somewhat strange tutorial, (which is hard to knock because it teaches you the mechanics it's just... weird...,) you are thrown into a world of black goo, murderous vagrants, and blood.
Now, if you come into this expecting straight first person shooting, straight up brawling, or even a superb horror experience, you'll walk away disappointed. It seems to try to be a jack of all trades, yet a master of none. The shooting is flawed at best, downright terrible at worst, the brawling could be called clumsy and broken, and the so-called "scares" are few and far between (although the level "Doll Factory" messes with your head in quite a few places.) And after the first few levels, the scares disappear to be replaced with superfluous "supernatural" shindigs, which I found incredulous and a huge copout. Heck, you even fight Ethan's alcoholism "Demon!"
Although there are several things to hate, there is even more to love. Where some might say the fighting mechanics are clunky, I found the depth that the system offers, which rewards timing and instinctual play over random button spamming. The gunplay is decent, although the main draw is melee. And the investigative segments are genius, grading you on how well you pay attention! Oh joy! And while the story does deteriorate, the beginning levels are excellent!
Overall, don't expect too much, but Condemned delivers a great game.
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