Condemned: Criminal Origins

Posted Feb 10, 2006 by TBO.com

Updated Sep 20, 2007 at 03:45 PM

System: Microsoft Xbox 360

Publisher: Sega

Reviewer’s rating: B

ESRB rating: Mature

Game type: Action/adventure

Kind of like: “Resident Evil”

Best feature: Truly frightening moments will have your heart pounding.

Worst feature: The gameplay gets pretty repetitive.

The bottom line: Many of the Xbox 360’s launch titles were games we’d seen before on other consoles, repurposed for the industry’s Next Big Thing. That’s weak.

Among the small handful of original fare, “Condemned” lurked in the shadows of bigger titles with louder buzz.

It’s not weak.

This first-person adventure puts the player in the role of a crime scene investigator on the trail of a serial killer. There’s a weird, supernatural element thrown in, too, just to keep you guessing.

The game’s finest moments borrow their fear factor from the survival-horror genre (think “Resident Evil”). As you wander through dark, abandoned buildings plucking evidence from the squalor, you never know when a depraved sociopath will come skulking around the corner, bearing a lead pipe with your name on it.

There are guns (and very limited ammo), but most of the action involves melee weapons—bats, axes, sledgehammers and the ever-popular 2-by-4 with a nail in it.

Groundbreaking? Hardly. But the hair-raising hostilities and eerie atmospherics make for a fun ride. Beats paying good money for “Quake” all over again, anyway.