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Condemned: Criminal Origins

Elusion — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:21:12 +0000

I was browsing the displays at Best Buy looking for an interesting title just two days before I plunked down my hard earned cash for an XBOX 360. It had to be something fun, original, and most of all look the part of a next-gen high definition game. Condemned ended up catching my eye. After reading the synopsis on the back of the box and checking out the graphics, I thought this game would knock my socks off. After playing the game, it ended up scaring the socks off my feet.

As I look back through the years of my gaming life, the games that stick with me the most are the ones that were innovative. The ability for a game to completely immerse the player in its environment however implausible is crucial. Condemned fits the bill.

In Condemned, you take on the role of Special Agent Ethan Thomas. He is a big, burly, badass cop that takes on assignments to hunt down Serial killers. He has all kinds of fun CSI gadgets to investigate disgusting crime scenes with. He also has the ability to wield a wild arsenal of melee weaponry, and the occasional firearm for shits and giggles. Occasionally he has psychic visions that are startling and informative. He’s not afraid of bad neighborhoods or cracking skulls of the people that live in them. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?

The very first chapter starts you out investigating a crime scene in a slummy run down building that looks like it’s in the first stages of renovation. As you look around, you notice everything is wonderfully filthy. The game is visually and spiritually dark and your only solace is your cheapo flashlight that flickers and wanes just like a real one. You discover a grisly scene that is setup by a serial killer known as the matchmaker. After this, the games plot twists and turns are very interesting. I won’t go into detail for fear of spoiling anything.

The graphics are truly something to behold, but the true beauty lies in the graphic designers eye for detail. In this first building you can see sheets of drywall hanging on the wall with swaths of plaster over screw holes. Everything is in proportion. This kind of attention to fine detail is present throughout the game. Plastic paint buckets look like real plastic. Kicking them around makes a sound that a real plastic bucket would make when kicked. Textures never seem to repeat and the environments are very dynamic.

The sound engineers did a stellar job on the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. You can hear addicts and vagrants breathing heavily as they wait around a corner to strike at you. There is also nothing like hearing a heavy piece of iron rebar fly through the air and connect with a drug addled lunatics face with a satisfying crack.

The motion of the enemies in the game while fighting is disturbingly realistic. They will hide behind corners, take out lights, and try ganging up with their buddies to kill you. They will take swings at you with a 2×4 then backup and hide. And sometimes, they just plain scare the hell out of you.

The game is by far the scariest/most disturbing game I’ve ever played. It is the current reigning champion of the survival-horror genre. Overall, I can only fault the game on two points. First off, the game is too short. I finished the game in about 4 days (or 10 hours). Secondly, using the CSI gadgets gets a bit repetitive. Neither one of these points would keep me from highly recommending this title.

Dark Water Leaves a Bitter Taste

Elusion — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 09:34:13 +0000

Dark Water was one of the movies this summer I was looking
forward to. I really should have known
something was up immediately when we realized that the movie had only been out
for a few weeks and it was already shoved
into one of the smallest screens in the 30-Screen Cineplex. However, my anticipation may have been my
downfall, as is usually the case. Going
in with expectations is always a bad idea, and I expected something on par with
The Ring. I wanted a movie that would
shock the hell out of me and make me jump out of my seat. I got something else entirely.

The
story is about a mother and daughter and their water
stained ceiling. The role of mom goes to
the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly who effortlessly plays her role as a
woman going
through a painful divorce, and dealing with her past baggage. The
child is played by Ariel Gade, a girl
with jet black hair and an aura of creepiness (yawn). The two
find themselves moving into a grungy
apartment just outside of New York City (Roosevelt Island), so they can
start a new life for themselves. The apartment they decide to
move into is run
by a shady landlord (John C. Reilly) and a creepy caretaker of sorts
played by
Pete Postlethwaite. Pan the camera up to
the water tower that looms on the roof of the apartment building and
you can
start spinning your thinking gears as to what might unravel in the
plot. I did appreciate the artistic direction they
took with the apartment and the surrounding buildings. The entire
movie is filmed in such a way that
not only the people, but the environment is very depressing and almost
desperate. The city itself seems to be stuck in perpetual monsoon
season, as
it’s raining all the time, which added to the mood.

The movie really does set it up well, and in such a way that
you believe somewhere in the course of the movie, something is going to
happen. Unfortunately when it does
happen (what seems like many many hours later), it falls flat on its
face. I believe the writers feared copying too much off the
success of The Ring; they really
wanted Dark Water to be something different.
In a way, they achieved this.

In the end I found the movie to be wildly predictable (which
is not entirely unforgivable for a horror flick… but still annoying) and drew
on too many of the artistic merits of The Ring.

Uncanny Resemblances or How Smashy Stole My Boomer

Elusion — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:26:46 +0000

Hurley from TV’s "Lost"and Maeby from "Arrested Development"

Separated at birth? Government conspiracy? Cloning? You decide…