After 17 years I finally played Condemned: Criminal Origins for the first time.

As you can probably tell from my star rating, I didn't think very highly of this game, which is a shame. I almost feel guilty for giving it such a low score because this game does some truly great things. Lets start with the good.

Atmosphere is (figuratively) the name of the game here. I wouldn't call this game scary, but it was definitely creepy. The environments consist of dirty, nasty buildings, abandoned schools, offices, back alleys, etc. Even 17 years after its release, the environments are still very easy to get immersed in.

Much of this immersion and spookiness comes from the game's sound. The weapon shots sound absolutely brutal. Throughout the game you hear your enemies walking around in different rooms, or on different floors. You really need to pay attention to the sound because not only does it add to the creep factor, but hearing which direction the steps of your enemies come from can really save your life. There were some instances where I freaked myself out because I was no longer sure if the steps I was hearing were my enemies, or my own. Please do yourself a huge favor and do this game justice by playing it in the dark with headphones on.

Now on to some of the things that really bothered me...

First of all, this may be an unpopular opinion but I did not like the combat. 99% of the combat in this game is based around melee weapons that you find all around you. Pipes, shovels, axes, sledge hammers, wrenches, etc. Maybe its just me, but throughout the entire game I was really struggling with depth perception. It was very hard for me to tell if my weapon swings were going to hit my enemy or not. Same thing with the weapon reach of my enemies. Time after time I felt that I was far enough back, and I could clearly SEE my enemies not connecting with me, but I was hit regardless. I also could never master blocking, or even get good at it. In this game you hit the "block" button and you do a brief blocking animation, with a second or two until you can do it again. Basically you don't actually block, but parry instead. I just couldn't get the timing right, which became extremely frustrating at the end of the game where you fight waves of enemies where good blocking is absolutely crucial.

I mentioned atmosphere earlier. This game really tries to go for immersion and realism, which more often than not it succeeds with. Unfortunately there are many simple things that break the immersion of this game over and over again.
As I mentioned earlier, melee weapons is the main way you do combat in this game, but you do have access to guns from time to time. Shotgun, pistol, rifle. I was walking around with a pipe and I found a pistol, figuring that although the ammo will likely be rare, a pistol will still come in handy at some point. So I picked up the pistol, only to drop my pipe. I thought that maybe I pressed the wrong button, so I picked the pipe back up, but dropped my pistol... In this game you can only have one weapon on you at any given time, no matter what it is. The game tries to put you in situations in which you grab wooden planks, water pipes off a wall, and locker doors off gym lockers in desperate attempts to defend yourself, but it immediately breaks that immersion by not allowing you to put a pistol in your pocket or in your waist. Also, why can't I have a pipe in each hand? Surely in real life I'd be able to carry them around.

Next example, I had a shotgun with 3 shells in it. I killed an enemy who also had a shotgun with 5 shells in it. In the next room there was another shotgun in a locker with 4 shells in it. In a real life situation you'd take all those shells and use your shotgun wisely, but in this game you can't do that. You must decided which ONE of the three identical shotguns you'd like to keep because for whatever reason you can't carry ammo, transfer ammo, or even reload any of the guns in this game. Silly.

Lastly, I finished a level by walking through a door with a sledge hammer in my hand. The next level began IMMEDIATLY in the room that I just walked into, but my sledgehammer was nowhere to be found. I needed to search for a new weapon. Also, when you carry your weapons, you're hold them in front of your face. So a shovel, which is one of the best and most useful weapons in the game, will block 1/3 of your view because you carry it in front of your face the entire time.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why the developers made these design choices. You carry the weapons in front of your face so that as the player I know at all times which weapon I have on me. I can't pile up a bunch of shotgun shells because 12 shells would easily clear out an entire level without a challenge. Not being able to carry multiple weapons around at a time or having a side arm keeps the game from being too easy. I get it, but it really broke the immersion and made me roll my eyes more than I'd like to.

I'm glad that I finally played this game, especially during this Halloween season, but its hard for me to recommend it to everyone. I almost feel like this game would be more fun to watch than to play.

Condemned, o não tão famoso primo de FEAR é definitivamente uma coisa interessante, mas não marcante.

Fica bem perceptível que a Monolith apesar dos problemas futuros, sabia muito bem o que estava fazendo e talvez essa seja uma das minhas maiores tristezas, tanto para NOLF, FEAR e agora Condmned.

Diferente de outros jogos da desenvolvedora, aqui temos um destaque maior para o combate corpo a corpo com uma variedade considerável, podendo utilizar pedaços de madeira, machados, pé de cabra, braços de manequins e muitas outras armas, mas não espere o mesmo para as armas de fogo que acabam se distribuindo em apenas 3-4 opções.

Um outro ponto é seu enredo fraco e a gameplay realista (como a demora para subir ou descer escadas) que podem ser um empecilho para alguns. Porém, acho que alguns aspectos acabam se relacionando muito bem com a ambientação tensa e um pouco assustadora.

O destaque de Condemned é definitivamente o terror que combinado com os diferentes locais criam momentos bem únicos. Infelizmente, diferente de FEAR, nesse jogo nós temos uma IA bem fraca e quando digo fraca é aquele tipo que caso você se distancie um pouco, o inimigo automaticamente volta para uma posição inicial.

Apesar desses problemas, penso que esse é um daqueles jogos que por ser pequeno (5-7 horas) vale a pena dar uma chance e analisar um pouco de como uma desenvolvedora consegue evoluir e utilizar alguns aspectos sem ter perda de identidade própria.

This is the game that got me into horror. I first played this game when I was younger at my mom's friends house. I got scared, nearly shat my pants and made the mistake of selling it when it was given to me. I later felt regret and decided to give this game another go and oh boy I loved it!! It was great, granted it's hard to get scared at things anymore but trust me. This game's great, the atmosphere was fantastic, the story is a bit mixed here and there but much better here than in the sequel, the music was great, the combat was tight, I loved it. I can't say too many bad things about the game, though I thought that the game would take a lot longer than 5 hours and that's with me taking a break to do something. I don't know but trust me, this game is tight. It's worth it, I love it. Excellent horror game though the scares might not be as scary.

From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/

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.

Monolith was really in their bag back in 2005. Between this and FEAR they released two of the best horror games on the Xbox 360. Although this is definitely the weaker of the two it’s a great launch title and it’s amazing how well it holds up today. Sometimes less is indeed more.

The biggest pro of this game is how incredibly immersive it is. The first person perspective is actually perfect for this game and the environments and lighting still look shockingly good today in 2023. The atmosphere is top notch all the way through with no weak points. You make your way through abandoned buildings, back alleys, a library and of course the stand out abandoned department store. Every single area is oppressively dark and grimy with each one feeling like it was once lived it before it went to shit.

The sound design also elevates the game with some incredible surround sound work where you’re constantly looking over your shoulder hearing footsteps surround you and cans and other debris roll across the ground. Murderous addicts mumbling to themselves and panting as they try to get the drop on you never stops being eerie giving high levels of tension as your character SLOWLY explores the environment.

The level design is linear with just enough exploring to keep it fresh. You can find collectibles, secret rooms and staches of health or guns to give you the upper hand.

The main gameplay loop is the brutal 1st person melee combat which is very simple but always feels meaty and deliberate. Everything in the environment can be used as a weapon with each having unique stats. Large items like desk tops and locker doors are slow but deal more damage and block more effectively. Smaller items like pipes and 2x4s swing quicker. You’re also equipped with a taser that recharges. This is a great tool for crowd control. It never stops being fun tasing a maniac and then grabbing his fire arm while he’s stunned and then blowing him away with it.
The AI is excellent as well as they will retreat when they are disarmed and seek out items in the environment to wield. They will also retreat when you get the upper hand and hide behind corners or pillars to get the jump on you. They will also fake like they are swinging to throw off your block timing. Really good stuff even if it’s simple it’s always satisfying. I’m glad the game doesn’t get too deep and bogged down in extra mechanics.

Last thing to touch on is the detective aspect of the game. All in all it’s pretty weak as it holds your hand for the most part. The correct forensic tool will be auto selected for you and there’s no real agency or way to mess up. There’s a few sections that you have to follow clues or trails with a UV light that are pretty good but overall the detective sections are bare bones and a missed opportunity albeit being nice at breaking up the pacing of the combat and making you feel pretty immersed.

I definitely love the simplicity of this game and the dark grungy atmosphere much like the movie se7en hunting down serial killers even if the plot kinda jumps the shark in the 3rd act. The gameplay is straightforward but fun and it wraps up at the perfect time just under 7 hours.
8/10

Condemned: Criminal Origins conta a história de Ethan Thomas, um investigador do FBI com um instinto aguçadamente "paranormal" em encontrar com facilidade as demais evidências nas cenas de crime que o faz ser possivelmente o mais relevante investigador policial de todo o departamento. Nessa trama, Ethan começa procurando um suposto Serial Killer que ao iniciar sua procura em uma de suas cenas de crime acaba perdendo sua arma para o próprio Assassino em Série que devido à isso seus colegas de trabalho morrem com sua própria arma no processo e faz com que Ethan seja o principal suspeito da morte dos seus parceiros, com isso, o jogo se desenvolve inicialmente entre tentar limpar o seu nome diante desse crime que você não cometeu, tentar pegar o tal assassino e também entender tudo que rodeia o lado paranormal do jogo e também do próprio protagonista.

Notavelmente, o enredo de Condemned: Criminal Origins se assemelha bastante ao do primeiro F.E.A.R, mas ainda sim, é um projeto que tem suas próprias características que instiga o jogador a querer ver e entender todo o desfecho de Ethan e de toda essa trama do jogo, ainda que pessoalmente eu estava adorando e preferindo toda a pegada realista que o jogo estava tendo antes de avançar para o lado paranormal do próprio jogo, por isso vale a pena dar uma conferida nele. (vai uma dica para quem tiver com problemas de otimização ao qual com alguns minutos de jogo o FPS trava entre 24~25 FPS, baixem um patch chamado: "DirectInput FPS Fix" que tem na internet feito por fãs do game que pelo menos no meu resolveu completamente o problema.)

This was pretty solid, but I had a few issues here and there. To start with the great, the atmosphere and combat are very well executed. It plays it's horror well, preferring to signal danger with quiet breathing, distant footsteps, or rubble clattering. It feels way more (I hate using this word but it applies) immersive when scares are signaled in a realistic way rather than some horror stinger. The sound design is very well done and adds to it a lot well. The combat is somewhat clunky, but in a way that adds to the tension. It's all about reading enemies as they try to fake you out, and playing aggressive is generally the only way through. Combat can be trivialized in many instances by spamming the taser, which is kinda lame. The guns are worked well into the gameplay well too, considering how limited they are. The story is okay. It feels very unfocused and doesn't fully execute it's concepts well. Environments are varied and decrepit, which works out quite well for upping the atmosphere. Exploring is fun and tense, although the 'detective' mechanics feel pretty undercooked and repetitive to actually use. The pace is pretty solid too. I will say, the game didn't scare me all too much, but it was certainly tense. Some parts feel somewhat tedious, and it can get a bit repetitive. Generally, the game's pretty cool. I wish it had some more variety and clever uses of the game's mechanics, but it's still a solid time.

Admittingly I wasn't vibing with Condemned: Criminal Origins during the first couple of hours, because I kept subconsciously making comparisons to the other Monolith Productions game I played earlier this year, F.E.A.R.. That said, once I got over my initial misgivings and let the game speak for itself, I started to really appreciate a lot more of the game's strengths. In a way, they're both brilliantly done to where you know it's Monolith behind the wheel; yet at the same time, it's interesting how the two games are almost antitheses in other regards.

Let's start with the similarities. Both games are incredible at creating these dismal and unsettling atmospheres thanks to how the game constantly manages to keep you on guard. It throws every trick in the book to show that something's up through swinging lights, film grain, fog, quick bursts of enemy movement in the corner of your vision, looming shadows, creaky doors, and so on so forth, painting terror in the environment without any cheap jumpscares. In particular, Condemned's often monotone and washed out condensed hallways and rooms are littered with few sources of light and plenty of signs of urban decay, giving credence to the backstory of the forsaken parts of the city that have since become shelter to those left behind by society, now vindictive and hungry to exact revenge upon anything that moves. The most impressive thing is that not one of these tactics are overused, and in fact the shifting environment when backtracking in certain locations due to altered lighting or displaced barriers further emphasizes the raw danger. The sound design is incredible too, as thanks to the rather intentionally poor lighting throughout the game, I often had to rely on echoing objects crashing to the floor or footsteps behind me to prep myself for incoming combat. To top it all off, Condemned slowly introduces more and more supernatural elements, starting subtly with the central mystery but unveiling more and more as you delve deeper into the rabbit hole, with certain paranormal elements unfolding before your eyes as a honestly pretty effective attempt to instill Thomas as an unreliable narrator and observer; as much as Thomas would love to rely on his lab evidence to pick out the perpetrator, he finds out that he was chosen for a reason, and this internal struggle slowly tears him apart from the inside until you as Thomas begin to question your own judgement. I think this is best represented by the sudden black and white flashbacks interspersed between the investigative elements and combat, putting you in a 3rd person perspective viewing the killer's past actions and leaving Thomas visibly panting as he struggles to make sense of why he's the one burdened with these starkly terrifying visions.

I'll admit it took me a bit to get used to the combat. F.E.A.R.'s combat is flashy and sporadic, just the way that I'd imagine chaotic firefights to be. However, Condemned focuses far less on firefights, and more on improvisational close quarters combat in tightly cramped and dimly lit rooms and corridors with melee weapons. In a way, it's actually more terrifying than F.E.A.R.; F.E.A.R. constantly gives you moments where you feel like a monster, as you can get the jump on enemies and tear them apart with bullet spray in slow-mo while your foes go "He's too fast!". Condemned, on the other hand, is raw and visceral street brawling with whatever weapons you've got on hand; you're constantly in the face of enemies just barely dodging and blocking their attacks while chipping away at them with kicks and swings of your own, and fighting multiple enemies in a horde is extremely difficult, so you're almost always constantly losing ground to even try and survive. If you try and play this like a traditional fighting game and simply wait for them to approach and block, that often doesn't work either, because the AI is a bit smarter than that; they'll often feint or mix up attacks and timing to catch you off guard. As a result, enemies in Condemned feel very real and alive; there's no cheeky quips or over the top weaponry to be found, just snarling and grunting twisted beings doing whatever they can to tear you down so they can survive another day.

I think in this sense, Condemned is great at shocking the player by constantly ripping away any semblance of safety and control. Scattered through the environments are a variety of clues that have to be analyzed and sent to Rosa to further unravel the mystery. But you're not immune to danger while doing so; you often have to be ready for enemy attacks and intrusions while using your tools so you can quickly switch back to weapons to defend yourself, and even if you try and take it upon yourself to clear out enemies before beginning detective work, you can never be too sure that an enemy hasn't already caught on and could be lurking around the corner if you stray too far from the path. Furthermore, the game introduces two elements as a sort of "balance" to help you out with more difficult parts of combat. You can occasionally pick up firearms from exploring or from defeating some enemies to more quickly dispatch foes, and you're also given a taser that can temporarily stun a single enemy and recharges over time. These absolutely have their limitations though; firearms have a limited amount of ammo and cannot be reloaded, turning into what is more or less an inferior blunt object with limited durability once emptied, and tasers can only stun one enemy at a time and may not even provide enough of a gap to effectively finish off the foe. So in a way, combat is this never-ending frenzy of scrambling to find new weapons and keeping a close eye on the taser's energy gauge, further accentuated by the need to pick up certain weapons that can clear overworld obstacles such as a fire axe to break down wooden doors, or a shovel to destroy powered locks. As a final wrinkle to all of this, the last chapter of the game takes away both your flashlight and taser for a truly terrifying conclusion; you must now suddenly adapt to making your way through the dark with your only main source of light a burning 4x4, and any weapons picked up to fend off enemies will rob you of your torch and must be sufficient enough to get past foes without your tried and true stun.

Now this game is not without its faults, many of which become more and more flagrant as the game progresses. There is a lot of classic 2000s jank to be found, as quite a few enemies walked through walls and windows to attack me or suddenly had very strange yardstick disjointed hitboxes, and there's the occasional break-dancing corpse falling through the floors or clipping into barriers that can break the otherwise solid and haunting immersion. There were also a few instances where enemies weren't affected by my bullets immediately after being stunned by the taser despite being shot point-blank by a shotgun, which led to some moments of frustration of my ammo being wasted and taking excess damage when the enemy retaliated. I will also admit that I have some gripes regarding the movement, particularly in how Thomas moves significantly more slowly on any incline or any set of stairs (and holding down sprint does nothing); while I get this is most likely an intentional artistic choice to make combat more deliberate and force players to take more time to soak in the surroundings, I think limiting the movement speed to this degree on every single set of stairs is a bit much and extremely noticeable in slowing the pace of the game down. And finally, I do think that the block active frames window is a bit too small, and lengthening the block window would help combat from feeling like I always had to go on the offensive to proc reactions from enemies. It's fortunately not as much of an issue against standard enemies, where you can often bait and punish, but it does become quite a challenge against the final boss, which provides far less room for error.

I think Condemned nails the grittier crime thriller tone of a harrowing supernatural murder mystery while feeling constantly oppressive in nature thanks to the prevalent sense of danger lurking around every corner and looming premonitions that there's something far bigger at stake and you're just a small piece of the puzzle with no control or grasp on anything. I think it's a tougher sell compared to its flashier and just as batshit crazy cousin F.E.A.R., but if you're willing to put in the time and the toil, it's one genuinely terrifying experience that you'll never forget.