14 DAY TRIAL // 
Monolith is without any doubt the sickest and grittiest game producer I know. I'm not counting the Japanese producers because they operate on a different level of sickness. We all know the rap sheet of Monolith and what they've been doing in the last years. What I admire is their ability to stick with one genre and the conservationism they proved over and over again.
Let me remind to all gamers who Monolith is: Captain Claw (don't laugh, this one of the best arcade adventures ever made), Get Medieval, Septerra Core, Gruntz, Contract J.A.C.K, Blood, Blood II: The Chosen, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, No One Lives Forever, Aliens vs. Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 2, Tron 2.0 (which was a very highly underestimated FPS), F.E.A.R. and Condemned: Criminal Origins.
The last one and the subject of this review, is just like all the others I presented, a small revolution in its category. As you might cleverly observe, most of the games are first person shooters that have influenced in some way the later development of the market. These are the kind of games used for points of reference whenever a shooter appears to have the same characteristics or even share some feature. Everything they touch turns to gold or like in our case to money; lots of money for whoever distributes the game.
Condemned: Criminal Origins certainly fells in this pattern because it's nothing you have ever seen before and yet is based on the old concepts we have known for years. It's dark, bloody and corruptive. It's so well designed that you can easily confound it with a nightmare you are unable to wake up from. Why? Let's split it!
Story: An unnatural wave of serial murders terrorizes the city. As a member of the Serial Crimes Unit, you will rely on sharp instincts and sophisticated forensic tools to investigate crime scenes, collect evidence, and find clues that will lead you to the killers. With danger lurking in every shadow, you'll need whatever weapons you can find to stay alive.
The city is in disarray but there is a constant feeling that the part we're seeing in the game is a place all the rich and powerful choose to ignore. I could almost imagine the beautiful alleys that wait just around the corner. This is the mark of a great game; it makes your imagination fill in the blanks by fooling your mind that you're just a part of some greater plan which couldn't work without you.
Playing Agent Thomas is easy but staying alive as Agent Thomas it's a totally different story. Like any other man placed under the accusation of gunning down two of his colleagues, he runs trying to stay alive and find the real killer. The things are a little more complicated than he would expect and he finds out that there is someone who hunts and kills serial killers. God forbid we could have such a character on the loose! He must be caught! The whole game does nothing more than pushing you more and more in the brown stuff you are already in.
Concept: The genre of FPS is not entirely new and psychological thrillers have been seen before, but in the magical hands of Monolith any combination can only be a total success. The strong point and the focus of this game is the hand to hand combat, or should I say the crowbar to teeth combat. Blood and guts, broken necks and the occasional imprint of a guy's face in the sidewalk makes the core of a very unusual title. Do we like it and applaud it? Is this the kind of games we enjoy in a quiet Sunday afternoon? Apparently yes.
Gameplay: The job of a soldier is best described by George S. Patton: "Don't be a fool and die for your country. Let the other son of a bitch die for his". I truly believe this is the main motif of Condemned: Criminal Origins. "Don't be a fool and die for something you haven't done, make all the other sons of bitches die painfully."
Pain is the reason I liked it, because everything hurts. The guys that thought this game through imagined that a 12 inch pipe over the head will probably kill you and they were right. The most shocking feature is the impact animation of the model. Everyone can remember that in any game we have played so far, the kinetic impact of a weapon, either gun or handheld, had only an effect on the character's health and not on the actual physics (or if it had any it was barely visible).
Now, such an impact is devastating and the enemy behaves almost like in real life. Right after the hit they can fall down or even retaliate in a split second, but you have the constant feeling of damage being dealt. The skeletal animations are the best I have ever seen and believe me when I tell you they can only be surpassed by a Monolith game. Of course any blow can be blocked but? there is a but; you can only raise the block for a second or so, you can't just walk trough the levels blocking all the time. If you manage to block an incoming blow it can be linked with a next one and so on.
Sure there are weapons like guns, pistols and shotguns but they aren't much fun; like playing Jedy Academy with the blaster and the repeating rifle, it make no sense. I wouldn't be much of a gamer if I wouldn't notice here, like everyone else, the absurd choice of weapon storage. Apparently, Agent Thomas (who happened to be carrying a huge bag loaded with forensic materials) is unable to store a couple of clips in the back pockets and even more he doesn't even use the bullets he finds on the way. He just replaces the gun with the one found. I understood the need of balance, this being a bonk game, but this is way too much.
Also, many have complained that Condemned: Criminal Origins is too repetitive, but personally I don't think is the case here. The levels are much more detailed and varied than F.E.A.R. and they had certainly a more talented designer so there shouldn't be a problem in this matter.
Another cool feature introduced is the possibility of performing fatalities. There are four of them and believe they worth every dollar you paid for that game.
Monolith also tried to implement some sort of forensic work, hence the forensic tool. Thomas can use a high resolution camera that can also take samples, a special lamp that sees patterns of blood and different substances and a cell phone with more than 3G technology. Unfortunately, they are just for the show and they can be used only when the script allows it. It would have been much more of a challenge if you could use them all the time, even just for the fun of it.
Video: I hate consoles. It doesn't mean I hate the games made for consoles but I despise what games become after a porting. This title was developed for Xbox 360 and even if it's supposed to be a next generation console, the limitations found in all the others that came before this one are the same. From linear level design to limited controls, everything is messed up after going from console to PC.
I'm not saying that Condemned: Criminal Origins is a bad port, but it could have been much better. We can find the influence in the linearity of the levels and the small number of keys you have to press in order to make this game work. Putting all this aside, the engine looks great just because it's based on F.E.A.R. You can see this right away from the high resolution of the textures and the post processing that's killing your PC, reminding you'll have to wait at least a year until PCs will have the computing power similar with the Xbox 360.
Strangely enough, all the characters in the game are very well defined except for your agent Thomas who looks like he's borrowed from a two year old game. Luckily for us we won't have to see him too often, as he shows up in only 3 or 4 scenes.
Sound: I can only say that Condemned is by far one of the scariest game I have ever played. This is done especially through the sounds in the game and less through the graphics. I never had to get up from the chair and take a few steps because a psychological thriller but this one is much more different.
This terrible atmosphere is done just by placing sounds and voices that doesn't necessarily belong to someone you could interact with. Sometimes you might hear coughing and screams and go through an entire section without meeting anyone, but you may have heard a cough that belongs to someone hiding with a bolted plank just around the corner. You never know?
Multiplayer: It has none, although it would have been nice. Oh, wait, it's a console port?
Conclusion: Monolith is making them better and better all time. This is the most visceral game I have ever played and I would match the sensation of the teeth flying through the air after a boot in the face with any competitor. Come to think of it, there isn't such a competitor out there. Condemned is all alone on the market just like Thomas in the game.
