Condemned,Condemned: Criminal Origins Condemned: Criminal Origins FAQ/Walkthrough

Condemned : Criminal Origins

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1.1 Introduction:
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Well hell, my first Faq/walkthrough/Game Guide. This one covers pretty much 
every important aspect of the Xbox 360 game "Condemned: Criminal Origins",
including a detailed walkthrough, bird/metal pieces/TV locations and 
requirements for all Achievment Awards. Please note that this walkthrough is
kept spoiler-free, thus I'm not going to explain story-sequences or the like.
A detailed explanation on how to use the walkthrough can be found under point
2.1.

Most recent versions of this Gameguide can be found on www.gamefaqs.com and 
www.achieve360points.com


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1.2 Table of Contents
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..1.1  Introduction
..1.2  Table of Contents
..1.3  Useful Techniques and Should-knows
..1.4  Enemy List
..1.5  Weapons Guide
..2.1  How to use this walkthrough
..2.2  Walkthrough
..3.1  Achievments
..4.1  Gameplay Bugs
..5.1  Legal stuff and Credits


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1.3 Useful Techniques and Should-knows
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Flashlight: 
~~~~~~~~~~~
Those of you who played DOOM3 will certainly feel like a fool when they
finally realize that you can have the flashlight ALWAYS turned on. That's all
there is to say: Keep it on all the time. Enemies won't notice you earlier and
your batteries won't run dry, so no worries there.

Running:
~~~~~~~~
By pressing the left analog stick you will be able to run for a short time.
A yellow-colored Staminameter will appear and rapidly go down for the time
you are running. And it takes like 2 eternities to replenish again.

The Taser:
~~~~~~~~~~
In the course of the first chapter your taser will be unlocked. By pressing
the LB button the Taser will go off and shot 2 wires out of the front. When 
you aimed, more or less, in the direction of an enemy, the wires will hit and
stun your opponent for a short time. While he's stunned you can disarm your
opponent of his weapon by closing in on him and pressing A. This is especially
useful against foes with ranged weapons and guns. If you don't plan on
disarming the opponent or simply don't have the time, tasering him is useful
nonetheless, since it gives you a "free hit" on him. After you fired the taser,
it will need some time to recharge, be aware of this fact when facing multiple
opponents. Later on, you will acquire an upgraded version of the Taser which
will have the enemy dropping to the ground stunned. In this condition, one hit
with any weapon will finish him off. Even with a kick. 

Weapons:
~~~~~~~~
Weapons of all sorts are scattered throughout the chapters or can be grabbed 
off the enemies hands. Without a weapon you are as good as defenseless, the 
kick and the taser won't save lives. So keep out for any or a better weapon at
any time. Personally I prefer long range Melee Weapons like the Large Pipe, the
Fireplace Poker and the Fireaxe. They greatly support my Out-Of-Reach Technique
, too. Choose from whatever category YOU like though.
About Guns: First things first. You cannot reload guns. You find them or take 
them off the opponents hands and shoot till they're empty. A Shotgun with 2 
Shells in it ain't of no good use, so try grabbing them from the enemy when 
he has just been reloading(yeah...the enemy CAN reload) or when he hasn't got 
the time to shoot yet. Hitting with Guns is quite difficult and the low ammount
of Ammo does the rest. Be sure to set the Crosshair-setting to smart. Hitting 
the head isn't always lethal(except for the rifle) and the enemies are just to
agile for you to get a lot of headshots, so don't waste your ammo and aim for 
the belly. I suggest picking up the Shotgun, the Rifle and the Submachinegun 
whenever you see them and check on the remaining ammunition. They rest ain't
worth dropping your beloved fireaxe...

Fatalities:
~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes close before death, your opponents will drop and come up again on 
their knees. When this happens, you will be able to use a fatality on them by
approaching and pressing one of the directional buttons. Looks stylish, hasn't
got any other use. The final boss needs to be "killed" in this manner though.

Investigate:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since you are playing an FBI Investigator with a supernatural instinct for 
evidence you will be carrying around tools that help you collect the evidence.
The Game will prompt you to press X when near evidence to ready your Finding
Tool. When you are closing in on the EXACT location of the evidence the message
will change and prompt you to ready your Collection Tool by pressing X again.
When you focused the evidence you can pull the right trigger(RT) to finally
collect it. Ususally the data is immediatly being transfered to Officer Rosa
who will be analayzing the data and discuss the results with you over your 
mobile phone.

Finding Metalpieces and Birds:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In order to find metalpieces you should look out for eyes drawn on walls and
the like, since the pieces are SURROUNDED by these eyes. 

Birds come in different conditions: Living(thus flapping), dead, and rotten. 
The living ones you can usually hear flapping around. The rotten ones sometimes
have flies surrounding them, so if you hear flies buzzing be sure to look
around. Other rotten birds can be found by using the gasspectrometer. The Game
will prompt you to use the tool though! You cannot select it. The plain dead
ones are hardest to find, so look around carefully the place I described in
the walkthrough.

Block:
~~~~~~
By pressing the Left Trigger (LT) you can do a temporary block with the weapon
you are actually carrying. In my opinion, blocking is not worth the effort: It 
takes up time, isn't 100% safe and is simply annoying. If you get hit to much
try using my cycling/out of reach technique.

Cycling/Out of reach technique:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Besides using your taser whenever possiple, efficient Meleeing goes like this:

1.Check out the enemies weapon
2.Stay out of range
3.Wait till his attack is over or nearly over
4.Start swinging
5.Close in and *BAM*
6.Get out of reach again

With single, strong enemies you should also try cycling around them and
hitting them from the side. This way the enemy will miss you and you can have
a free go at him. This works especially fine versus the slower BigBoys.

Turning enemies against each other:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In some situations the enemy will gang up on you. All you can do when this 
happens is having them hit one another. This shouldn't be a problem since they
are swinging their melee weapons recklessly around. When a foe gets hit he will
turn on the one who hit him. If you're lucky, they'll hit each other till one
drops dead.

Hitting the enemy off obstacles:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you hit an enemy while he's jumping or climbing over an obstacle(a fence 
or a bench etc...) he will die instantly. This comes in handy in Chapter06, 
where the Hobos will come in from every side. Please also note that when you 
taser an enemy while he is on a set of stairs he will most likely die instantly
too. There aren't many places to test this but I thought you should know 
anyways.


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1.4  Enemy List
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Hobos and Addicts:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The most popular enemies in "Condemned". And probably the most dangerous. 
They come in many different colors, but have one thing in common: they wanna
see you dead. They are quick and take up to 6(or more) hits with melee weapons 
to bring down, depending on what weapon you're swinging. With a fireaxe or 
equally massive weapon they drop dead after 2-3 hits. You should be extra
careful when engaging hobos/addicts with guns and massive weapons. If you let
them gang up on you, you're as good as dead. So be sure to use your Taser on
those with guns. Take their weapon when they are stunned and fill 'em up with
some lead.

Crawler:
~~~~~~~~
These are thin, rotting and damn quick freaks that tend to jump out of nowhere.
But easy as hell to kill. Usually a hit with the taser off's them. If not, it
will take from 1 to 2 hits to bring them down.

BigBoy:
~~~~~~~
The strongest of the regular enemies. They look like overweight Firemen and
are almost always swinging around heavy stuff like Shovels or Sledgehammers.
They are not so common though and usually don't come in pairs. Just taser and
hit 'em and keep an eye out for a health-kit ;)
In the last chapter of the game you will encounter another version of these,
that seems to be even stronger and WILL gang up on you. Be sure to let them hit
each other whenever possible or look out for a gun.

Ninjas:
~~~~~~~
Pardon the designation: Filippino-stick swinging bastards. They have a lot of 
different moves and deal a lot of damage with their sticks. They also tend to 
block a lot, so stay out of range, circle them and grab a gun or a melee weapon
with a good range. These guys are uncommon and till the last chapter of the 
game you will only encounter like 1 of them. However in the last chapter, they
are sure to be giving you a good smack and even come along with a group of 
BigBoys. In that case let them have eachother, and try staying out of range
till they're done.

Special:
~~~~~~~~
There are 2 special opponents. The Butcher and the Hate. The first one is the
most (and only) hilarious thing it this game. The second one is the final 
"boss" and a kick-ass version of a Ninja(allthough I found him easier than any 
ninja...). No special strategies here so I won't ruin any of this by going into
the details. The Butcher however can be offed without taking any damage. Please
read the walkthrough for this(Chapter 08).


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1.5 Weapons Guide:
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The game holds many different melee weapons and guns ready for you. I regrouped 
them into a few classes (see Achievements and Useful Techniques for more 
details):

Guns:
~~~~~
Available Weapons are:

0.45cal; Revolver; Shotgun; Sawed off(shotgun); Rifle; Submachinegun

I'll say it again: I suggest picking up the Shotgun, the Rifle and the 
Submachinegun whenever you see them and check on the remaining ammunition.

The Taser:
~~~~~~~~~~
Counts as a Melee Weapon towards statistics and Achievement Awards.

2*4:
~~~~
These are short pieces of wood with nails or bolts sticking out on one end.
Not particularly good, but they are quite fast. You should only pick these up
when you haven't got an alternative.

Metal bars and Pipes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ranging from short to long these are allround weapons. The shorter ones are
fast and the longer ones do some nice damage. Apart from the fireaxe the 
"Large Pipe" is my personal favourite. 

Massive Weapons:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sledgehammer, Shovel, Crowbar and Fireaxe. Slow but powerful. These weapons 
will be needed to open doors and boxes throughout the game. Crowbar ain't that
common and Sledgehammer and Shovel are just too slow to be used regularly. If 
you get a hold of the Fireaxe though, try sticking to it for some time. It's a
great weapon. 

Planks and Signs:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do a lot of Damage but got crappy range. Not suggested.

Others:
~~~~~~~
There are a few other melee weapons in the game like the Fireplace Poker or 
the Mannequin Arm. I'll enumerate them because of the "Melee Mayhem"-Award:
See the Achievement Section for details.


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2.1  How to use this Walkthrough:
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[[You will find birds, metal pieces and TV's throughout this game that will
[[unlock extras and give you achievements for your Xbox360 Gamerscore.
[[
[[Birds: 
[[~~~~~
[[There are 6 Birds in every one of the 10 Chapters, totaling 60 Birds for the
[[entire game. I covered all the locations in this walkthrough and highlighted
[[the locations like this: >>BIRD1206>METALPIECE1203>XYZTV>XYZDETECTIVEBADGE>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0101>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0101>BIRD0102>BIRD0103>METALPIECE0102>BIRD0104>BIRD0105>BRONZEDETECTIVEBADGE>BIRD0106>METALPIECE0103>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0201>METALPIECE0201>BIRD0202>BIRD0203>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0202>RIPPLETV>BIRD0204>BIRD0205>METALPIECE0203>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0206>BIRD0301>BIRD0302>BIRD0303>METALPIECE0301>BIRD0304>BIRD0305>METALPIECE0302>BIRD0306>METALPIECE0303>BIRD0401>STATICTV>METALPIECE0401>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0402>BIRD0403>BIRD0404>BIRD0405>METALPIECE0402>BIRD0406>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0403>BIRD0501>METALPIECE0501>BIRD0502>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0502>BIRD0503>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0503>BIRD0504>BIRD0505>BIRD0506>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0601>BIRD0602>BIRD0603>SILVERDETECTIVEBADGE>METALPIECE0601>BIRD0604>METALPIECE0602>BIRD0605>BIRD0606>METALPIECE0603>BIRD0701>BIRD0702>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0701>BIRD0703>BIRDBATHTV>BIRD0704>BIRD0705>METALPIECE0702>BIRD0706>METALPIECE0703>BIRD0801>METALPIECE0801>BIRD0802>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0803>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0802>TESTPATTERNTV>BIRD0804>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0805>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0803>BIRD0806>INVESTIGATE>BIRD0901>METALPIECE0901>BIRD0902>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0902>BIRD0903>INVESTIGATE>GOLDDETECTIVEBADGE>BIRD0904>INVESTIGATE>METALPIECE0903>BIRD0905>BIRD0906>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>INVESTIGATE>BIRD1001>METALPIECE1001>BIRD1002>BIRD1003>METALPIECE1002>BIRD1004>BIRD1005>METALPIECE1003>BIRD1006>INVESTIGATE