Condemned: Criminal Origins

"Worst FPS in many years"

This game is bad. Really, really bad. The sad part is, it could have been a great game, because it has so much potential, but it falls flat on its face due to one thing: The combat.

Story: The story is pretty basic. Cop gets framed, people are going insane, and you have to investigate the whole ordeal while running from the law and fighting crazy enemies wielding melee weapons and the occasional gun. You'll also have to find evidence to analyze, and the game tells you when you have to use the proper tools and so on.

Graphics: The graphics are good, but not great. It's got the standard next gen graphics and bump mapping, but most of the game is dark, so you're not going to see a lot of those effects. The design of the levels is also very angular, and lacks the high polycount and detail of, for example, Prey, Quake 4 or FarCry. In fact, it looks more like the rather bland graphics used in FEAR. The game features a strange, grainy hue which I think adds a bit to the atmosphere, and this somewhat makes up for the rather bland graphics.
The movement of the enemies in the game is pretty good though. It's obvious that motion capturing has been used, and it's seemlessly integrated and looks very realistic. In fact, I've never seen anything like it in a game before, and I hope more games implement it in the future.

Sound: The sound is overall pretty good. The background music is the standard "suspense" stuff and is easily ignored, but the enemies sound great. They grunt and huff and basically sound like they're insane, and when they come at you, they scream a variety of profanities I've never heard before in a game. It sounds very authentic and gives a feeling of realism. The weapons also sound like they should.

Gameplay: Here's where the game fails. In the reviews I've read, the combat has been praised, and this is the reason I got the game in the first place. Big mistake.
The combat is quite possibly the worst I've seen in any game. It's primarily melee, which sounded attractive at first, but the system is so bad that the combat makes you want to scream in frustration, due to the excessive cheating by the enemies. Forget whatever you've heard about the combat being rewarding and realistic; it's not. First of all, the range is screwed up. A guy can be standing several meters in front of you and swing his weapon, and it'll hit you. Even though it's nowhere near you, you'll be hit. On other occasions, the enemy will stand right next to you and swing at you, but the weapon will go right through you, and won't register as a hit. Furthermore, you can swing a huge, heavy axe at a guy, hit him, and he'll hit you back in a fraction of a second. Normally, you'd think the guy would be reeling back if he survives being hit with an axe, but most of the time, he'll continue attacking like nothing happened. This is a huge disadvantage in a game where you have to rely on melee weapons, especially when these rules don't apply to you. If you're hit, there's no way to immediately hit back. Blocking is also pretty useless and seems completely random, and you can only block for half a second (as opposed to Oblivion, where you can block as long as you want). To top it all off, you've got very little health, move slowly, and have little stamina. Even shooting a guy with the stun gun only buys you a second or two, and hitting a stunned enemy only results in being hit back, since the enemy will magically shrug off the effects of being hit with an axe or sledgehammer. This is the only PC FPS that I haven't played to end for as long as I can remember, and I've been playing since Wolfenstein 3D... it's just that frustrating. When I play it, all I want to do is throw the computer out the window in sheer frustration due to the fact that they've made the combat so terrible.

To sum up, the game had potential, but is ruined by the combat. In a game that relies on melee weapons, you can't have a system based on luck and not skill.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/06