Condemned - Criminal Origins Pc

[Herbert1405241469 0]

I've been looking for a good survival horror game for a couple weeks now, having beaten the ones I already own... I was out with a friend and picked up "Condemned - Criminal Origins" for the PC for $14.99 on his recommendation. I've been playing it for about 4 hours now, and so far, it's all I've wanted with a new survival horror / psychological thriller, but it's not without its flaws.First impressions:Well I have a 2.4 ghz P4, and a Radeon x800 pro, and the game performs well enough on the high to maximum graphics settings. There is some frame rate shuddering at checkpoints and really large open areas. The game letterboxes the screen, even at 1024x768, so there are black bars above and below, but you don't notice it after an hour or so of playing. Sound quality is good, with good atmospheric sounds, and voice acting is extremely well done.The plot so far is progressing, but I heard the ending is rather unbelievable, but I'll let you all know it once I get it.This game was ported from the xbox360, and I must say that it is one of the best ports I'd ever played on a PC. There is no major graphical problems, and the controls all work fluidly. I was going to buy Resident Evil 4 for the PC, which is supposed to be a good game, but I heard that they ported it horribly and it doesn't even support a mouse... I don't like console game shooters just for that reason... I prefer aiming with a mouse.Back to Condemned, the levels are very large, but somewhat linear. When the level isn't linear, it's easy to get lost and wander around in circles. There are certain doors that require a specific weapon to open them, such as a fire ax. This sort of ruins the realism for the simple fact that the game forces you to scour the level for a sledgehammer, when you could just as easily shoot the padlock off, or pull it with a crowbar... Though this is somewhat unrealistic in effect, it's a heck of a lot better than the old "Find the key to unlock the door" bit they used for all these years.The "puzzles" are all environmental like that. Using weapons to break doors down (using the fire ax, you almost feel like Jack in "The Shining" )During the game, a very intrusive popup comes up when you are near "evidence" that you need to pull out CSI-type equipment for... this furthers the plot by finding clues about the serial killer involved in the overall scheme of things.One of the weird things for me as a PC player is the Achievements you can get when playing the level. I'd had a Xbox360 for awhile, so I know somewhat about them, but really I see no point in it other than the possibility for replay value. The achievements for this game involve finding dead birds and pieces of metal throughout the level. To my knowledge, these don't unlock any bonus content, so I don't know why they included it in the PC version...The AI is somewhat dumber than I'm used to... I'll see one scuttling across the end of a hallway, and I'll see his elbow sticking out from behind a pilar, and he'll cough and make tons of noise, so it's not as "jump out at you" scary like Doom III would be (where they come out of nowhere and jump you) but there are moments where you'll look over a ledge and a random guy will yell out "**** YOU!" and you'll have to have quick fingers to whap him.That leads to combat... The melee system people were complaining about isn't too bad. You can only carry one weapon at a time, so you'll often find yourself having to choose between the compact revolver which doesn't do as much melee damage (You can pistol whip) but has 4-6 rounds left, or a shotgun with 1-2 rounds left that you can have a great reach with if you need it for melee. Guns you find in the levels are usually not fill of ammo. You never find an extra clip anywhere, so if you kill 2 baddies, each with a .45, you will have to choose between the two .45's, whichever has more ammo, because I don't believe you can take the clip out of one and store it... The weapon inventory is somewhat realistic, in that you won't be toting around 4 shotguns, 6 handguns, and a shovel (which sometimes can happen in FPS games.) but it sucks, because you have a satchel you carry around with all your CSI equipment in, which in theory should at least have enough room for you to put in an extra pistol... or if you could put it in your belt or something, but you are forced to pick and choose between a gun with 1 bullet, or a sign to defeat your foes...You find yourself appreciating guns more in this game... You rely more on melee, and getting a gun is really a treat. One thing, that is good for playing, but bad for realism is the taser you get... One charge will shoot across a room and stun a baddie, but it takes awhile to recharge... while the bad guy is stunned, you can pull the weapon out of his hand, but that's usually a bad idea if you don't have a ranged weapon, because he'll just grab you and headbutt the crap out of you (which you get yourself out of by wiggling the mouse back and forth). The taser makes the game easier, but you tend to rely on it too much... One shot by the taser, and you can take your fire ax and whap the guy in the head, and he's dead (in most cases).You can kick, so if you manage to knock a guy down, you can kick him in the head to finish him... There are also "Finishing Moves" where if you get a guy on his knees, stunned from low health, you can press 1-4 on the keyboard to either snap his neck, bash him, etc... those are pretty cool, and add variety to the kills. There are a lot of variety to the kills.The fighting is violent, which makes it all the more real. The motion capture used by the bad guy models is flawless. The ragdoll physics once they fall, though, is sort of lacking. They can usually hit you closer than you'd expect, and blocking is really hard, because they can hesitate and when your block goes down, they bonk you like crazy.I'll post more once I get more to the story and whatnot (no spoilers).

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Ah, well I just beat the game. Not bad. I'm glad I got it, though I did run through it rather quickly. There's pretty much no real replay value except if you want to find all the birds and metal, but I have better things to do haha. Well, anyway, the whole bird and metal thing was never explained, but they do seem to unlock stuff through those achievements in some concept art. I still have a few I haven't been able to unlock, but really, the payoff isn't really all there for it. I could spend another 15 or so hours replaying this on other difficulties, but all I'm going to get is concept art, which really isn't all that exciting. Ebay has the game cheap, and it's worth the buy, but retail price is too much.The gameplay was pretty intense, though not perfect. Psychologically, it was very effective. The game was creepy as hell, and the environments were dark and spooky. Every level took place in some destroyed building, which made the game rather linear, but exploration is rewarded with finding birds and metal and weapons and medkits. Some of the levels, though, were just odd. One level took place in a school (where I got to die for the first time at the hand of a 400 pound angry kitchen lady with a cleaver...) but it was in such disarray, I couldn't really say it was a school until half way through the level I saw some desks and a chalkboard... All places stereotyped as creepy are included, so if you have any fears of going into a basement, attic, or burned-out library, this game will amplify your fears...The last level was by far the hardest, though not impossible. The final boss is tough, and I kept having to reload my last save because he beat the crap out of me... I found his patterns though, and figured out how to avoid his hits, since there are set patterns of his motion capture...*minor spoilers*----------------------------------------They never explain the plot, unfortunately... Why everyone went nuts, and what the conspiracy is... Just some hinting, but nothing directly. The whole game reminded me of Twin Peaks, if you are familiar with the TV series at all... Same thing... there's some Evil personified, and it's possessing people... and once you get to confront the Evil at the end, it still exists in the hearts of men (and your character, who seems to be going insane the whole time).*end spoilers*----------------------------------------Overall, I say get it if you liked F.E.A.R. (though I've never played F.E.A.R, I heard it runs off the F.E.A.R. engine and performs at a better framerate. It's really creepy, and it'll leave you with maybe not nightmares, but truly bizarre dreams, that's for sure!

[iGuest 3]

condemned is a bad game, gimmicksdont make it good.Condemned - Criminal Origins PcI am only part (most) way thru this game and I cant stand it.-before I go ne further I must let u know this, I consider myself a hardened veteran of survival horror fps, and fps in general having played all FEAR DOOM, quake, hl cod,pretty much every fps that exists and they were all great (fear and doom I considered scary also dead space AWESOME game and the scariest imo)The combat is innovative yes, but terrible, it boring not satisfying and I ACTUALLY found it repettitive, and I didnt even find fear quake and doom repetitive (which are considered to be repetitave), its just block hit, block hit. And unlike in OTHER fps games I don't get that satisfaction when I kill guys, in quake and even fear there was gibbing and the guys looked like they took a hit and it didnt take that long to kill guys the challenge to kill them was FUN with higher difficulty its hard to describe the satisfaction lvl. Needless to say I dislike the combat- boring repetitave and non satisfying (WHICH I SHUGE FOR FPS!).And the so called "horror" in this game, all just cheap scares, EVERYONE does the flash back stuff, its old. And there was one part wher u see this line up of manikins and then when u pass then your screen does that flash blak and white thing then u look back and they have circled u, THATS NOT SCARY, the scares in C:CO seem as tho they have no weight, in DS and Doom3 the scares had something to do with YOU made feel like"**** I cant go thru THAT DOOR ITS GONNA ****ING KILL ME, BUT ITS THE ONLY WAY Ah!" ind CCO its like " o that moved, o cool I can walk thru there now"CCO just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me desperately want something more out of it. 35/100-reply by matthew