The lowest form of horror in my opinion is one that relies on the sense of self-preservation, startlement and shock value. And that's precisely the type of horror presented in Condemned. Some of it was true for F.E.A.R. too, but due to the outstanding gameplay you kinda wanted to forgive that. At first I thought Condemned has a F.E.A.R. complex of "great combat, bad horror", but within 70 minutes I realized that this wasn't the case.
The combat starts off very impressive. It's difficult to pull-off a good melee combat in first-person, and Condemned is probably one of the better examples of it. And the enemy AI seems very advanced at first, almost like it's playing mind-games with you. But soon you realize that the combat doesn't really have any more tricks up its sleeve, and gets boring very quickly. Plus some issues with it become apparent. For example, it's clear that head-shots deal more damage, but it's almost impossible to have any precision in a fight. You aim at the head and end up hitting air above it. It's almost a happy coincidence when they do happen.
As for the AI, it becomes obvious that the perceived "mind-games" are all scripted, while the real AI is extremely dumb. They like hiding behind corners, and that's basically their only tactic. Which is very annoying because sometimes you KNOW the enemy is hiding there, but there's pretty much no way to avoid being hit. One time an enemy ambushed me, and after I took a couple of steps back, he decided to hide behind that same corner again like I didn't see him.
Furthermore the level design reveals itself to be extremely linear. Sometimes there's like two paths to the same room, but they usually only differ in what pointless items they're gonna have, and it's usually conduits. And these diversions are so brief that you end up exploring both paths anyway. Then there are these special doors that require a special weapon to open, and it's always somewhere around the corner. So there's basically no consequence for picking one weapon over the other, because you're always gonna find the one weapon you need when the situation arises.
Needless to say, guns are almost useless here. Most times you find them with about 3 bullets inside, which isn't worth trading an axe or a sledgehammer for them. I don't really mind having less ammo in a game like this, but what really bugs me is the in-game reason (or lack thereof) for why you can't carry extra clips. Because you carry an entire forensics lab worth of tools on you, but there's no place for an extra clip?
Speaking of the forensics, they're just busywork here. They're not some fun gameplay mechanic. They're usually just "pull out a tool, point it at something and left-click". Most games that feature forensics have this problem, but here there's so much emphasis on it that it becomes really annoying really fast.
And the final nail in the coffin for me is the movement speed. It's very slow, and you wanna hold down the sprint button the entire time, but then you keep running out of stamina. I dunno why they decided this was a good idea. Being slow does not add to horror or suspense. It just makes you feel handicapped. If the goal of the game was to make you feel handicapped, I'd understand, but you're supposed to beat the shit out of hundreds of junkies, so I don't really get it.
All that being said, the core combat is really well-done. I think, if they made it a bit more complex and let you move faster, this could really develop into a fun first-person brawler. The potential is definitely there.
The combat starts off very impressive. It's difficult to pull-off a good melee combat in first-person, and Condemned is probably one of the better examples of it. And the enemy AI seems very advanced at first, almost like it's playing mind-games with you. But soon you realize that the combat doesn't really have any more tricks up its sleeve, and gets boring very quickly. Plus some issues with it become apparent. For example, it's clear that head-shots deal more damage, but it's almost impossible to have any precision in a fight. You aim at the head and end up hitting air above it. It's almost a happy coincidence when they do happen.
As for the AI, it becomes obvious that the perceived "mind-games" are all scripted, while the real AI is extremely dumb. They like hiding behind corners, and that's basically their only tactic. Which is very annoying because sometimes you KNOW the enemy is hiding there, but there's pretty much no way to avoid being hit. One time an enemy ambushed me, and after I took a couple of steps back, he decided to hide behind that same corner again like I didn't see him.
Furthermore the level design reveals itself to be extremely linear. Sometimes there's like two paths to the same room, but they usually only differ in what pointless items they're gonna have, and it's usually conduits. And these diversions are so brief that you end up exploring both paths anyway. Then there are these special doors that require a special weapon to open, and it's always somewhere around the corner. So there's basically no consequence for picking one weapon over the other, because you're always gonna find the one weapon you need when the situation arises.
Needless to say, guns are almost useless here. Most times you find them with about 3 bullets inside, which isn't worth trading an axe or a sledgehammer for them. I don't really mind having less ammo in a game like this, but what really bugs me is the in-game reason (or lack thereof) for why you can't carry extra clips. Because you carry an entire forensics lab worth of tools on you, but there's no place for an extra clip?
Speaking of the forensics, they're just busywork here. They're not some fun gameplay mechanic. They're usually just "pull out a tool, point it at something and left-click". Most games that feature forensics have this problem, but here there's so much emphasis on it that it becomes really annoying really fast.
And the final nail in the coffin for me is the movement speed. It's very slow, and you wanna hold down the sprint button the entire time, but then you keep running out of stamina. I dunno why they decided this was a good idea. Being slow does not add to horror or suspense. It just makes you feel handicapped. If the goal of the game was to make you feel handicapped, I'd understand, but you're supposed to beat the shit out of hundreds of junkies, so I don't really get it.
All that being said, the core combat is really well-done. I think, if they made it a bit more complex and let you move faster, this could really develop into a fun first-person brawler. The potential is definitely there.