Condemned: Criminal Origins

This game serves as an impressive horror experience, yet it does come with its share of flaws.

The graphics in the game are decent for its time, although I personally find the art style rather off-putting. The characters' exaggeratedly muscular bodies, including the lone female character, don't quite resonate with me.

Turning to the horror aspect, while the game manages to deliver occasional scares, the environments you explore are intriguing and well-crafted. Nevertheless, I didn't find it particularly fear-inducing.

Regarding the gameplay, the controls feel cumbersome and weighty. Maneuvering often feels like handling a tank, with sluggish running speed and limited stamina. It's noteworthy that, despite disliking the PC port, the Xbox version oddly captivated me with its charm.

I'd suggest opting for the Xbox 360 version, as the game seems tailored to that platform. A cool feature is stumbling upon Xbox 360 units within secret areas in the levels – a clever touch.

The story is passable, not reaching masterpiece status but avoiding being outright bad. It holds intrigue, despite some drawbacks such as the protagonist's constant reliance on sending findings to the lab for analysis. This doesn't make sense for basic items like maps, which any average person could interpret.

The combat system bears resemblance to "The Culling," sans the shoving mechanic. Though it allows for blocking and attacking, there are instances where a block seemingly fails to prevent a hit. The death screen leaves much to be desired. The difficulty isn't notably high; while it ramps up towards the end, ample medkits generally keep things manageable.

Summing up, it's a commendable game. It's not without flaws but still offers an enjoyable experience.

In Condemned, you play as an FBI agent who was framed by a killer and now he is forced to hide from his colleagues and pursue the one who ruined his life in an attempt to punish the criminal and prove his own innocence. The gameplay of the game is equally diluted with enemies skirmishes, detective puzzles and light screamers. What Condemned can definitely be commended for is the overall madness atmosphere, the level design, and the rather enjoyable and uncluttered combat system. Some mechanics and gameplay features are made so creatively and innovatively for that time that you will not find this even in modern games. For example, instead of reloading a weapon with the R button, here you can only see how many loaded cartridges you have left, and after all the cartridges run out, the firearm turns into a regular melee. Opponents with firearms also behave differently and will shoot with limited ammunition, and then throw it away and go looking for better melee weapons. Some doors on the levels can only be opened with an ax, a sledgehammer or a shovel, and weapon cabinets can be opened with a crowbar, all this you have to look for wandering around the location. To solve detective puzzles, the protagonist has a whole arsenal of high-tech equipment: from a gas analyzer and a UV scanner to a device capable of taking biomaterial and sending its DNA remotely to the laboratory. Despite all this, Condemned is not at all ideal: all levels are visually monotonous and are by and large solid corridors, skirmishes with enemies get bored pretty quickly, detective puzzles are too one-button. Also here are the most absurd collectibles that I have seen in my entire gaming experience (skeletons of dead birds, half-dead crows and some iron tablets), for collecting which you will simply be praised at the end of the chapter and nothing more. The disadvantages are compensated only by a more or less interesting plot that motivates the player to continue playing the game.

If I were on death row, days away from my ultimate punishment, would I choose Condemned: Criminal Origins as my final game? In a word, no. But for those who are not yet knocking on death’s door, Condemned is absolutely worth a play. Even in 2022, nearly two decades after its original release, it holds up admirably.

Condemned is a gritty FPS game with a focus on melee combat. Guns are rare and legitimate weapons such as knives and swords are uncommon, meaning you’ll often be forced to fight crime with random objects like lead pipes and wooden table legs. It’s a rough-and-tumble approach to combat that was a refreshing change of pace back in 2005 and it remains one to this day.

One of the first things you’ll notice while playing Condemned is the slow movement speed. While I expected this would be an annoyance, the game’s environments are quite claustrophobic, making the protagonist’s plodding gait a natural fit. It also helps that the game is fairly linear with little need for backtracking, so you rarely feel like you’re wandering aimlessly. The action always propels the player forward and keeps the engagement level high; by the time I reached the conclusion I hardly would’ve guessed that seven hours had passed.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Condemned, however, relates to its development. In 2005, Monolith Productions released not only this game, but also The Matrix Online and F.E.A.R. These days, with game development growing ever more involving and complex, most studios can no longer even dream of pushing out products at this ludicrous rate (the only studio that perhaps comes close is Obsidian Entertainment). Please don’t tell me how many espressos, Red Bulls, and javaccinos the developers at Monolith chugged that year. I don’t want to know.

Condemned is also notable for being an Xbox 360 launch title. Despite being somewhat forgotten, it was easily one of the stronger games among a relatively weak launch lineup. Check it out sometime when you’re in the mood for horror and retro vibes – bonus points if you play in October.

god dammit the main problem is the movement speed. thomas walks like hes on a damn ice rink and runs completely out of breath after 2 seconds of moving at a normal pace. basically your SPRINT speed should be your normal move speed, and your SPRINT should be even faster like 25-50%. so with that out of the way, the general atmosphere and setting is awesome. the story is really cool about you being framed for a double murder and you trying to prove your innocence through an investigation. so thats cool. the main mechanic is finding melee weapons in the environment and learning the attack system, which i mostly found underwhelming to be really honest...the few times you find weapons its not worth picking them up because you only have 1 weapon and wasting your precious fireaxe for a 4 shot, shotgun is not worth it.

its really short and worth it for the experience but i did feel slightly overwhelmed and BORED by the tedious movement speed and the combat system. you just walk around, trying to do your investigation with your FBI devices, waiting until some fucker pops out from a corner screaming at you with whatever weapon hes got, so you exchange blows and move on...i felt like i needed more to keep me interested in it. level design at times can be incredibly frustrating, especially with how god damn slow you move..so the PLODDING pace of the whole game doesn't help one bit..oops...

6.5/10

Its a really divisive game.

You play as a detective, and you must solve several murder scenes and eventually hunt down the serial killer. The story is decent, but the atmospheric horror and psychological horror moments they manage to craft out of it are definitly the best parts of the game for me.

The first half of the game really drags around the same very similar areas, which caused me to drop the game for a while. Missions are really way too long and repetitive. They usually are just about getting from A to B, often requiring the player to turn some valves and levers to open a passage. In the mean time, the game throws a lot of hobos at you. The melee combat is really visceral, and damn hard when you got 2 or more people on you. There is quite a lot of weapon variety, but i always prefered the heavy hitters due to the stun locking and crowd control they often do.

Visually the game hasnt aged gracefully. The game is really blurry and dark, which really caused me headaches while playing. The grim and disturbing settings really do manage to convey a dark and opressive atmosphere.

Overal the well developed melee combat sytem and the heavy and opressive atmosphere are great enough to recommend it to horror fans, despite the flaws in this title.