Condemned 2: Bloodshot

There are also bosses in Condemned II. Some aren’t very threatening and are easy to waste – for example, the female freak with the serrated lollipop saw – others require a little more effort, like the steroid-ridden brute clad in a suit of medieval armour. Each boss (apart from the last one which is disappointingly easy to cripple) requires you to use your brains to best them, which, as is the case with the crime scene analysis, proves enjoyable.

Finally, towards the end of Condemned II, the player experiences one-off new modes on the fly, which, whilst vaguely enjoyable, can’t help but make everything seem a bit inconsistent, somewhat like the cult Mr. Bones title on the SEGA Saturn where every level was different. These new additions further confuse Condemned II – it can’t decide whether to stay true to its original ethos or progress into something different altogether. For example, the bit where you fall over and screw your leg, become immobile and have to fend off a swarm of murderous demons with your crosshairs. These sections are undoubtedly novel – some people will love them, others won’t.

So, what does Condemned II have in its locker to keep you coming back for more? The main game is relatively easy to complete on hard mode, so long as you have a stoical penchant for getting your head beaten open by a lead pipe. After you finish it, you’ll receive detailed stats on the tasks you need to polish off to harvest 1,000 gamer points. The levels in Condemned II are varied, so you’ll never feel significantly bored revisiting them to tackle these side quests. Returning to the nightmare can rank as a darkly addictive prospect.

As for the online mode, whilst many will pan it for lacking the chess-like balance of Halo 3, Gamer 2.0 refutes the claim that it’s a casual bolt on. It’s laugh-out loud funny, and quite unlike any other online game available. Imagine a room of eight weird-looking combatants, ice-skating around with clubs in their mitts, creating a cacophony of “URGHs”, “ARGHs” and “EEOWs” as they bludgeon each other with careless abandon. This novelty takes a long time to wear off. The other modes – for example – Crime Scene Mode, squares off bunches of tooled-up special operatives against Molotov cocktail-wielding misfits in desperate games of hide-and-seek. There is enjoyment to be derived from these game variations.

In conclusion, aside from a tough “FPS” difficulty mode, Condemned II boasts what’s known as the Fight Club – a series of mini-games set across the different environments in the game, where only after finishing the lead story can a full range be accessed. One sees you standing on a balcony hurling bricks at baddies whilst trying not to hit your police buddies below. It has a nice gladiatorial feel to it. Another sees you attempting to annihilate 100 possessed children’s dolls in a tight space whilst being pursued by rabid dogs.

Summing up, Condemned II has significant replay value.

Condemned II is a flawed but enjoyable experience. Not just flawed creatively, but technically – one or two levels feature glitches whereby they can’t be completed until you restart from a save point. Monolith, commendably, appear to have taken stock of the feedback levelled at the original, and reacted. But ironically, pandering to the masses results in a game that enforces the statement: “leave the ideas to the developers”.

Condemned II is a mishmash of notions: scares, violence, quick-time events, comedy and puzzles. If Monolith were to make up their minds, settle on which direction to take the Condemned series and decisively nail the result, you’d be looking at a rival to Resident Evil. As it is, Condemned II is a scary, clichéd, sometimes engrossing videogame, with good relay value, personality and, darkness permitting, an enjoyable single-player mode.

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