Condemned 2: Bloodshot (PS3)

Drunkard hero Ethan Thomas has just been handed the key to the city. Welcome to Creepytown, USA, Ethan.
3/16/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 2

It's also quite unfortunate that Condemned 2, despite its supposed improvements, gleefully embraces some of videogaming's most awful traditions. After a series of successful strikes on a target, the game vomits up special quick-time-style combinations. Thomas can rattle off a series of bone-crushing hits if players ape the specific trigger combinations flashing on the screen. This kind of pedestrian gameplay has become fashionable after being popularized by dull adventure games such as Dragon's Lair and Shenmue. Inexplicably, developers have gotten it into their heads that the quick-time event is a fine mechanic. It is not. It is rote and tedious, and serves no function save to sap spontaneity. The quick-time combinations in Condemned 2 do a wonderful job of continuing this mechanic's fine tradition of mucking up games. Well done.

Condemned 2 also subscribes to the notion that every game should have some kind of multiplayer function attached to it. BioShock proved otherwise, but Condemned 2 will have none of that. The game halfheartedly includes a series of brawling modes that are mildly fun, but certainly not much of a draw (they're as jerky and disorienting as the ones in single-player mode, only players are sharing their misery with real people). Worse, the game contains an incredibly dull crime scene mode wherein one team has to hide a cooler full of, um, evidence while the opposition has to scan said evidence with its crime tools. Multiplayer here is very much an afterthought, and only serves as a cautionary tale. Not every game needs an online component. Oh, and if you do have an online component, it should at least point in the general direction of compelling.

Bloodshot doesn't go gently into that good night even despite its flaws, and a sequel is a sure bet. Thomas will return, and Sega and Monolith can sleep well knowing that they scared some pants off some people, and that, in the end, some bums got pummeled, too.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.