Condemned: Criminal Origins Member Review for the Xbox360

The Good: One of the most amazing and rewarding fighting systems ever made, Down right creepy and terrifying, very interesting story, nice variety of melee weapons and enemies, great achievement system, can give you a nice challenge

The Bad: Even though the combat system is great it can be repetitive, story teases more then delivers, not enough weapons, story is way too short

One thing that I must mention here is what makes Condemned so much different from other horror games...and that's using realism to scare the living s**t out of you then made up monster and zombies. With such a freakishly scary and creepy atmosphere Condemned made me jump and had me nervously peeking around every corner. With the eerie bass driven music in the background and the creepy sound effects I just couldn't help but be really scared. You'll be walking through a locker room backwards to check what's behind you, then you'll run into an open locker door and it'll scare the CRAP out of you and you'll look around for enemies. The combat is SOOO incredibly real I have never seen melee combat done so well. On top of this the enemy AI is just phenomenal and you CANNOT predict what the enemy will do. ON TOP OF THAT the animations are just so real it scares the hell out of you. The violence is also so real and you wince with every blow you make. When you hit your enemy with say a paper cutter blade you can hear the slicing of the flesh and blood flying and if you hit him in the shoulder he'll grab his shoulder and yell in pain and run after you with his steam pipe. Hit him in the face with a 2X4 with nails and you'll see his teeth fly out and he'll spit blood out of his mouth. I played through this game twice and WANT to play through it again just because the combat is so wonderful and satisfying.

 The story here is also TOP NOTCH where Ethan (character you play) gets accused of killing two cops when it wasn't you. You run after the serial killer who's been following you your whole life and you also have to find out why the crime rate has sky rocketed and why every thing's going to hell. The story keeps you locked in throughout the whole game, and while it's kind of short you'll play through it a few times trust me on that.

The last thing I have to mention is how Monolith makes you beg for light. Throughout the whole game there is NO light everywhere you wind up going is condemned and just down right creepy. You do see a hole in a roof here and there and just soak up the light because it'll be the last you see for a few levels. No words can describe the beauty of Condemned JUST PLAY IT!