"Holy savage beatings, Batman!"

A first-person survival horror game where you can beat raving lunatics to death with your fists? Sure, Sega and Monolith, I'll bite. Condemned 2: Bloodshot is the sequel to the Xbox 360-only original, and truth be told a game I really wanted to give a go. Luckily, Sega found it wise to release the sequel on the PS3 as well, and despite some technical issues it's a wholly original and appealing take on the first-person genre.

FACE-SMASHING STORY

Despite the fact I never played the original, I found it quite easy to get into and understand Bloodshot's story. You take the role of Ethan Thomas, a former investigator for the city's serial crime unit, and a full-blown alcoholic who looks like he hasn't slept in eight years. Really though, it's pretty hard to sleep in a city where almost every citizen is a violent psychopath. It also doesn't help that Mr. Thomas constantly has horrifying hallucinations where everything is covered in black tar and creatures are out to get him. I'd hit the bottle pretty heavily, myself. Anyway, a year ago (in what I'm assuming happened in the first game), Ethan tracked down and supposedly killed a serial killer known as SKX who was causing untold havoc in the city. At the beginning of Bloodshot, the city's crime unit has re-recruited Ethan to help find an old friend of his, Malcolm VanHorn, who's last message to Ethan warned him that “it's not over”. This starts Ethan's search for answers, including the true fate of SKX and what's causing the citizens of the city to lose their minds.

A pretty interesting story to say the least, full of interesting twists. Fans of movies like “Se7en” will definitely get a kick out of it. The only problem would be that once you see the games ending, you'll feel like you've just played the filler between parts one and three of a trilogy. Fine with me, I'd love to see a part three of this game, and here's why…

FACE-SMASHING GAMEPLAY

Bloodshot's story mode takes you through 11 twisted, atmospheric environments. From dark back allies to abandoned schools to isolated cabins in the woods, survival horror fans should get a kick out of them. Many shocking and scary moments that are set up nicely and executed very well await players willing to walk in Ethan's shoes. His pretty horrific hallucinations don't help matters, either. While not the scariest or even creepiest game I have played (Fatal Frame 3, you cheeky bastard), Monolith knows what it's doing here.

No customizable controls here, but for the type of first-person game Bloodshot is, I don't think it's much of a bother. While movement controls and the like are akin to what you see in a typical FPS, Bloodshot's combat is more focused on melee attacks. You see, Ethan doesn't keep his hands taped up 24/7 for no reason. As you make your way through the levels trying to solve the mystery of whatever is going on in the city, you'll constantly be attacked by the bums, gang members, and other citizens that have mysteriously become homicidal maniacs. Is it the drugs? The alcohol? The sonic sound emitters placed all over the city by some mysterious entity?

It must be the booze.

Anyhoo, Ethan will have to defend himself from these crazies by using a simple, yet deep combat system. Pressing L1 will cause Ethan to throw a straight left punch, while R1 causes him to throw a right. You can turn those punches into hook shots by clicking on L3 before throwing a punch. Pressing in R3 will make Ethan perform a kick that can stun an attacker for a short period of time, allowing for some free hits. Finally, Holding L1 and R1 will cause Ethan to block with his forearms. While that sound very simple to you, it probably won't after you open up the game's menu and see all the different combos Ethan can perform. Connecting a basic one-two combo on an enemy will cause a combo meter to appear in the upper center of the screen. Get another hit in before that meter runs out and that hit will become a devastating blow that causes major damage to your opponent. Ethan's repertoire includes many variations of combos that require the use of every move at his disposal, and coming up with the ones best suited to you is one of the strong points of Bloodshot. Beating an opponent enough can cause him to fall to their knees, which will allow Ethan to grab them by approaching and pressing R1 and L1. After grabbing them, you can break their necks with a press of the R1 button, or you can drag them to one of the many skull icons that may appear and initiate an environmental kill. These may include throwing them through a TV set, chucking them out a window, or curb-stomping them on the side of a washing machine. Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Doing these finishing moves also serves another purpose, as they fill a gauge in the top right corner of the screen that will allow you to do devastating chain attacks. You initiate them by double-tapping a punch button and then following the on-screen button prompts. If these are successful, they can lead to broken limbs, snapped necks, and instant kills.

Still, if you wanted to keep combat reeeeeeally simple, you could always just grab what's lying around the city to lodge into enemy's heads. Bloodshot allows you to pick up almost anything that isn't nailed down as a melee weapon, including pipes, bats, toilet seat covers, 2x4s, axes, swords, and many other instruments of death to help defeat the psychos. Nothing fancy here, just swing away with L1 and R1, block with the weapon by holding both those buttons, or chuck it at an enemy by pressing R2. Keep in mind though that EVERY weapon in the game degrades with use and eventually will evaporate (must have borrowed the metal melee weapons from Silent Hill: Origins), which may leave you helpless against enemies with weapons of their own. Let me tell ya: the AI controlling these psychos can be pretty ruthless. These guys really come at you with various combos of their own, and you'll have to block and look for openings if you want to defeat them. These guys will also search the environments and pick up any weapon they come across to use against you. All in all, the AI is pretty good and keeps the game exciting. Some pretty good boss battles thrown in as well, but I won't spoil those for anyone :)

Ethan's final combat option is the most generic and the least exciting: guns. Pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles are at Ethan's disposal in some of the levels, and truth be told they turn the game into an easy, boring, and generic FPS. R1 fires the gun while L1 aims down its sites. The AI that controls gun-toting enemies isn't as good as the melee fighters, as they will constantly stand out in the open not taking cover, basically asking Ethan to blow their heads off. The only cool thing about firing guns is that Ethan is so dependant on alcohol that he can't aim a gun steady without taking a swig of the old coughs medicine first. It's actually a pretty original game mechanic. Still though, gun fighting seems out of place in Bloodshot, but thankfully most of the game is still melee combat. Only a couple of levels (including the last) seem to be run and gun affairs, and it does kind of bring down the experience.

Finally, we come to Bloodshot's forensics system. While going through the levels, Ethan will come across potential crimes scenes that will require him to bust out his CSI skills that pay the bills. When you enter a crime scene, the game will automatically switch to forensics mode, using the L1 button to allow Ethan to zoom in on potential pieces of evidence. Ethan can also use his UV light to spot bloodstains and his digital camera to take photos. When evidence is spotted, you'll be given a question and a list of multiple-choice answers to pick from. You'll have to carefully observe the evidence and choose the best answers for the situation. For example, Ethan may spot a police badge on a murder victim, so obviously you would choose the “police officer” answer from your list of choices. Next, it may ask you for the badge number, but the badge is covered in dry blood, so you'll have to really look at it to make out the number. After you think you've answered the questions the best to your abilities, you sent all the data to fellow CSU member (and Ethan's only friend on the force) Rosa, and get a ranking (from poor to perfect) based on your answers. It's a very cool system that really immerses you in the game. My only problem is that their really isn't enough of them in the game, and they seem to disappear entirely when you get to the last four missions. Bummer.

Rounding out single player modes is the Bloodshot fight club, where you can participate in various contest against opponents. Examples include lockdown, where you have to kill as many opponents as possible in five minutes, or smoke em', where you have to kill three masked psychos as quickly as possible. The best mode, however, is the practice mode. Just like the name says, you can come here to practice hand-to-hand, melee, and gun combat to your hearts content, with rules and conditions you can customize. Finally, Bloodshot features an online multiplayer mode, but it's only for eight players, the modes aren't that good, and the games combat system doesn't really work for it at all. Still, you should at least take part in one deathmatch. I guarantee you'll laugh your ass off.

FACE-SMASHING GRAPHICS

Bloodshot graphics look pretty good, with greatly designed environments that are dark, twisted, atmospheric, and creepy. They really make the city look like the run down, horrifying place it has become. Character models are pretty detailed, especially some of the grotesque faces some of the psychos possess. Headshots from weapons cause heads to explode in a satisfying manner. The game runs quite smoothly, pausing only briefly when the game auto-saves. Cut-scenes are also pretty well done, although some people might not like the letter-boxed format they're presented in. I'm also quite fond of the motion blurring effect that occurs when Ethan turns. Thumbs up, Monolith.

FACE-SMASHING SOUND

First and foremost, Bloodshot has excellent sound design. The music is pretty good, the sound effects that come from fists flying and weapons swinging and guns firing all sound great, and various other environmental sounds really immerse you in the world. Voice acting is also good, especially the various terrifying battle screams your crazy enemies make. I would normally tell you to that this game makes great use of DD 5.1 surround sound, but unfortunately I can't do that.

Various audio bugs plague the PS3 version of Bloodshot, including crackle and pops throughout gameplay. But worst of all, the audio may constantly drop out on you if you play with DD 5.1 on. For most of the game, the audio drops didn't happen all that much and were tolerable, but during the last two levels it got really bad. You can get rid of these dropouts by disabling DD 5.1 sound on your PS3 and playing the game in Pro Logic 2, but the cracks and pops still remain (although truth be told, they didn't bother me that much). Hopefully Sega gets a patch out to fix this, because this is the type of game that needs proper surround sound.

Update: Good news! A patch was released that pretty much fixed all sound issues. Everything is now super cool. However, this doesn't effect my overall score of the game.

FACE-SMASHING…GOOD TIMES

You can tackle the 8-10 hour story mode in three different difficulties from the get go. At the end of each mission, your graded with a medal system that gives you a better medal depending on how well you preformed in the mission. You can increase the chance of getting a gold medal by getting perfect score in forensics and completing secondary and optional objectives. These include watching TV news reports, listening to radio news reports, and destroying those pesky sonic sound emitters hidden in every mission. The better your medal, the better the upgrade you get at the end of a mission, which include steel-toed boots, a gun holster, and other goodies. You can replay mission to try to get better scores. After beating the game, you unlock FPS mode, which lets you go through the game with infinite ammo and many firearms at your disposal. I guess it's worth at least one playthrough. I seriously doubt anyone will get into the multiplayer or play the bloodshot fight club modes more than once.

So despite some shortcomings and sound issues, Condemned 2: Bloodshot is a satisfying and original horror-FPS game that delivers on the game play and atmosphere front. Fans of either genre should definitely give it a shot. Come to think of it, it is kind of like a Batman game…if every citizen in Gotham City was psychotic and a drunken Batman had to beat them all to death.

KEWL
+Excellently designed and atmospheric settings and environments
+Deep and fun combat system
+Pretty good story
+Melee combat AI can be pretty brutal
+Loads of weapons to use
+Some genuine scares to be had
+Forensics system is impressive and fun
+Nice graphics
+Good sound for the most part

LAME
-This game didn't need guns…
-Throw away online multiplayer
-More forensics would have been nice
-Not a whole lot of replay value

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/08, Updated 06/29/08

Game Release: Condemned 2: Bloodshot (US, 03/18/08)