Usually when I ask people about Condemned: Criminal Origins they tell me something like: “yeah, pretty nice game; a little boring but the mannequins were cool”. Well, the mannequins are back and this time they’re just the beginning of this fickle and elusive thing called FUN!
“That’s a whole... That’s a whole new bunch of crazy shit... That’s... You’ll hate that shit...” – Prichett
If I were to describe Bloodshot in one phrase, I’d say “Criminal Origins in space” (hence the title). Why? Let’s begin with the protagonist. Agent Thomas was everything you would expect a criminal investigator to be. A nice clean suit, big eyes constantly widening from the horrors their owner experienced, a somewhat fragile personality. One thing that didn’t really match was the face you wouldn’t quite call handsome; to me, he looked like mixture of Tommy Lee Jones and a gorilla. For Bloodshot, the creators apparently took that very mixture and removed the Tommy Lee Jones element (and maybe added some more hair, while at it). Mister Thomas – and don’t you dare to call him “agent” anymore – is someone I’d be afraid of meeting in a dark alley. He’s alcohol addicted, he constantly swears (makes Edward Carnby look like an altar boy) and if you so much as look at him the wrong way, you risk some very close, fatal encounters with his giant fists. Jeez, is he a joy to play... What’s more, the evil forces have recently started gathering around him, so every now and then he hallucinates, which is an even greater joy to play... I’ll come back to that in a moment.
Combat. The greatest one which I’ve ever experienced in an FPS. All it took was to assign both triggers as fists: left and right. Play with that idea a little and you get combos, play a little more and you get fatalities. What more could I possibly ask for? The truth is, beating someone in Condemned 2 is pure fun: they scream, they curse at you, they run around, grab random things and throw at you. And after some skull-rattling rendez-vous with Ethan’s knuckles (or boots, as you can kick people as well) they drop down to their knees, at which point you can grab them and use something to end their lives with. Just take them to the nearest skull icon and enjoy the scene. Otherwise, you can just break their necks. There’s also the trusty stun gun for emergency use, and a lot of firearms. In fact, some purists might say Bloodshot features too much shooting, especially during the second half of the game. Even if that’s true (you can’t argue with purists), the ammo depletes very rapidly so you have to make every (head)shot count. If you get carried away with bursts, then whoops! Wait a second, mister bad guy, I have to go get some more bullets... Speaking about the guns, there’s one fun element attached to it: the booze. As you may remember, Ethan is an alcoholic, so his hands tend to get rather shaky when it comes to aiming. Fortunately, most levels feature dozens of scotch bottles which you can deplete with a few deep gulps to steady yourself.
Sometimes it’s really hard to tell if the creators actually did sit down to discuss how Bloodshot should be developed or if they just had a couple of shots of booze themselves and said “ah, to hell with it, let’s take the players for a ride!” Do you remember the coolest weapon in Criminal Origins: the paper cutter? Well, it’s back alright, but just in one level in the game where the secondary objective is NOT to kill anyone. Fortunately, there are many more fun things to use, imagine beating someone to death with a metal foosball table rod with plastic players still attached to it...
Okay, let’s come back to the supernatural. A lot of games tried to use vision distortion to enhance the horror effect, but none of them, not even Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, comes even close to Condemned 2. The effects are plentiful and beautiful as well: blurs, noise, TV screen flickering, desaturation, contrast manipulation, the “there was something there last time I looked” effect... All working seamlessly with sound effects to make you experience the limbo Thomas is undergoing. Cutscenes also make use of these tricks, especially the appearances of the masked guy, whom I really got to like.
“It! The thing! The evil! The thing that’s the rotten core at the bottom of this place! The thing that’s gonna kill us all! Death by corrosion! That thing!” - Pritchett
Let’s talk about the gameplay a little. All levels feature some secondary objectives which grant you rewards at the end of the level. Aside from specific tasks like “don’t kill any guard” or “photograph every torture device”, there are also constant elements, a reminiscent of Criminal Origins’ dead birds collection. Scattered around the stages are sound emitters which you must destroy (you equipment reacts to sound waves they produce, so it’s not that hard to pinpoint them) and TV’s and radios which you must adjust to hear the latest news (mostly just for fun, as they don’t seem to provide any crucial information, maybe except the first level of the game). One more element adding up to your rank is the forensic investigation. In the first game all you had to do is find glowing pieces of evidence and photograph them. Here, you have to use your brains a little, as well as some tools you possess, like the UV light. One of the first analyses covers a body with a gunshot wound. You have to determine what kind of wound is this (exit or entry?), if the victim was shot there on the spot, or if the body has been moved, etc. Moreover, sometimes people give you information and your task is to ask the most relevant questions or draw the most correct conclusions, or on the contrary, answer someone’s questions as accurately as possible. The system works pretty well, despite some minor inconsistencies: At one point I found one incredibly vicious looking torture table, smeared with blood and with some strange machines attached to it. I was told to take o photo of the torture device, so I did my best to capture it time after time, only to receive a “try again” message. Aggravated and ready to abandon the assignment, I noticed a small unremarkable electrified cage with a homeless locked inside. And THAT was the thing I was supposed to photograph. Oh well... A question of interpretation...
Speaking of inconsistencies, let’s move to the practical side of the game. The sound quality is impeccable: the effects are full and juicy, while the music is a curious mixture of casual horror soundtrack, Valvish resonating guitars and... oh, there’s even that weird noise from Not Tomorrow 2 during the museum boss-fight. The violin stingers during some punches are also a very clever idea, which, to my knowledge, has not been used in any game so far. Yet, I guess the graphics might be just a teeny bit better. Overall it’s a great-looking game (the shiny black goo...) but some levels look noticeably worse than others and some specific objects or location might have been polished. I guess the fall of the final boss might be a good example – I know the shaft is dark, but the scene (an important scene at that) looks just like a bunch of gray squares with a silhouette of a man flying somewhere in the middle. A similar thing happened with cutscenes directing. Some are perfect, some are just painfully American, like the ending itself, not really fitting into Condemned atmosphere.
“Pritchett? Are you currently under the care of a physician?“ – Doctor Blackburn
We come to the “in space” part, probably the most controversial aspect of Bloodshot: the story. In the first game, the concept was simple: one cop versus one psycho killer, chasing each other through a city filled with unnaturally hostile criminal elements. There was hardly any supernatural, except for the mannequins (obviously) and the end of the game, where we learn that there might be some sentient force behind what’s been going on. Here, the force is revealed to be some very evil organization making not exactly legal use of human hearing sense and vocal chords of all things. Oh yes, and our booze-loving, everything-else-hating Mister Thomas is imbued with the greatest vocal power of all, supposedly able to make or break empires, if properly tuned. Does that sound silly? You bet. And this time, the crusade is not about chasing a psycho-killer, it’s visiting the most fucked-up places the City has to offer in search for some cryptic clues. The bottom-line is: with Bloodshot, Condemned switched from "cop vs. killer" into something like "superhero vs. evil almighty cult", but not that cheezy. Now you know what I meant by “Criminal Origins in space”? While in my case it didn’t spoil the mood, because the organization members are deformed (or modified) in a truly disturbing way and some monsters created by them are even more so (I think Clive Barker could learn from the hanging “guard-dogs” they’re perfect), some people will almost definitely get turned off by the plot. If you haven’t played the game and haven’t gotten turned off by now, I guess you’ll be fine.
“Bouga, bouga...” – Pritchett
The end of Bloodshot promises an epic battle between Ethan and his nemesis SKX (it stands for Serial Killer X, but it should be Shit-Kicking eXperience, if you ask me) and an introduction of some other, even greater sentient force in the future. So I guess, Condemned 3 will be something like “Criminal Origins in hyperspace”. Well, only time will tell if the series will evolve into a known and respected franchise, but, since Bloodshot is indeed far better than the first game, I guess it’s a thing to look forward to.
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