by: Steve Simons

March 27, 2008

One of the biggest complaints of about the original was the investigation aspect. You had forensic tools at your disposal but they were only used in certain areas and there was no guesswork. The answers were always given to you. Condemned 2 improves in this area by letting you use the tools anytime you want. They have also added more puzzle elements. Now you have to really look for evidence and use it to solve logic puzzles. These puzzles range from easy to complex and some can take a few minutes to solve. Depending on how you do answering questions about the evidence, you are given points that are totaled at the end of a level. Point totals are based on the puzzles and the combat and depending on how you do you will receive some type of upgrade.

The one thing Condemned did amazingly well, was immersing you into the game. The environments didn’t vary much, but all seemed like they could exist and they were damn creepy. Condemned 2 expands on this with better visuals in every regard. The texture work is more detailed and the lighting is more ominous. Animations have also been improved but not as drastically as the rest of the graphics. There isn’t anything in the game that will make you jaw hit the floor but the overall art direction is excellent. There are some frame rate hiccups. They don’t happen all that often and since the game is on the slow side in terms of pacing it won’t affect game play too much. The physics system is an oddity, a lot of objects can be knocked around but at the same time there are just as many that can’t. You will also notice things twitch about or float around and from time to time spinning as if it were in space.

The audio in the game is excellent. The developers make great use of 5.1 surround sound to get you to look in the right places at the right times. This is a far better tactic then forcing the camera or player into a different direction. The voice cast does a good job too but oddly the voice of Ethan is different from the original game. I guess Greg Grunberg was too busy on vacation from NBC’s Heroes to reprise his role.

There is multiplayer over Xbox Live for up to eight players. All the modes are passable but the basic mechanics of the game turn every match into a button mashing fest that can often be too confusing to be much fun. The best mode is easily Crime Scene. You either play an Agent of someone who belongs in a Mental Asylum. Agents must find a box and the Crazy people have to hide it. They can move it whenever they want but the Agents always have a trick or two up their sleeves to find it. It’s an interesting game type that may be fun for a couple of rounds but it won’t keep you away from Halo or COD4.

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If you were a fan of the original then this game is a must buy. The same holds true if you are a horror fan in general. The rest of the gaming crowd will probably find a lot to like but the game starts to fall apart near the end which is only about eight hours in. The visuals hodl it together, the audio is incredible and the game play is fun but can get stale after a while.

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