Conclusions

Let's put it simply. Condemned 2 is, without a doubt, one of the best games I’ve played on the Xbox 360 since BioShock and one of the first games in a long time I've sat down to play through in one sitting for the first run - something which took about 8 hours on normal difficulty.

All at once exciting, scary, bloody and beautiful, Condemned 2 is a eloquently paced story driven experience about all the types of things that aren’t at all eloquent or story driven.

The incredibly brutal and mature presentation – all flickering lights, blood spatters and obscenities – is used justifiably and without taking the game down to the level of something like Manhunt. Just because the subtitles are full of ****s and the gameplay is full of gruesome, head-squelching fatalities doesn’t mean that the game itself is sinking to those levels. There’s an intelligent and well written story here about a man on the brink of everything, surrounded by scum and villainy.

Admittedly though, Condemned 2 is far from perfect. The multiplayer is stilted and awkward, the Fight Club mode is on the verge of extinction and the lobby system for joining games isn’t the most clear and intuitive system we’ve ever used.


The singleplayer campaigns goes a long way toward making up for these faults and it’s great to see that Monolith is addressing the flaws of the first game by adding in more replayability and depth, but there are still problems. The game can be a tiny bit predictable at times and the early levels do make a bit too heavy use of the “It’s sooo scary, but it was all just a dream – oh no, now it’s becoming real” vibe.

Just as with Monolith’s other horror FPS, F.E.A.R the levels are often starkly divided and occasionally samey too. This is mostly true in the early stages of the game where Ethan is fleeing riots, but the pace of the game means that you don’t really notice this until the second playthrough – the game is so fast-flowing that you’ll breeze through these bits quickly and move straight into the more interesting levels.

Be warned though, the last two levels of the game also end up straying from the formula of the early game and start focusing more on gunfights – it isn’t something which we found a huge problem, but if you’re a die hard fan of the Condemned series then you may be a little put-off.


When you get right down to it though, these are all minor concerns at best and Condemned 2: Bloodshot really is an excellent game that flies in the face of common game design and thrives off what makes it different. At a time when everyone else is making open-ended, sandbox games all about huge gunfights and so on, Monolith has made a fantastically scary and enthralling game which makes a point out of being linear and claustrophobic.

The level of blood and guts is sure to scare many people away, but there’s an audience for that stuff too and it’s that gore-loving crowd which will perhaps love Condemned 2 the most, though beneath the surface there’s actually something for everyone.

At times puzzling and at others utterly pant-filling, Condemned 2: Bloodshot will shred your nerves, baffle your brain and exercise your sweat glands all in turn, making it clearly one of the most accomplished survival horror games we’ve ever played despite the uncomfortable multiplayer. Forget the flaws, dim the lights and up the volume for something that we can, unfortunately, only describe as 'pant-cackingly scary'.