Condemmed 2

poop.. Utter poop..

for a melee based FPS game, the actual melee combat fails to a degree that is shocking.

At one point a decent distance connects with a punch, yet equally it also fails to make that same connection with another opponent. Equally, the ability to combo attacks together means little when the game states you cant take damage between hits.. that largely includes guard damage... Not that the end result of the combo attack makes much difference to the state of your opponent.

The 'AI' on opponents causes them to stagger backwards after a successful punch... just out of range of your follow up punch (which makes you have to push forward to attack).. to which said AI based opponent will punch at you, so you can then dodge (a badly timed RT & LT combination, that likely results in you swinging a punch), or throw a punch or a combo punch.. the latter two of the three will result in you receiving damage from the enemy as a result.

OK, so melee in a FPS is crap, so what about the guns? well, you dont get many, and what you do get is limited in bullet supply.. Fine its a survival horror type game so youd expect that.. do you also expect that your character cant actually aim straight and so from firing from distance is akin to wiping your arse when you have no arms..

the story "oddly" continues from the first condemmed, a game which actually did have reasonable melee combat, as well as a rather strange storyline.. this time, its like picking the arse of the original story and then making a nonsensical ploy from the arse nuggets that where found..
It tries to make sense in its own little world, but really doesnt. first of all is how as a copper who tracked down & beat the serial killer SKX (serial killer 10, he killed 9 other serial killers in the 1st one - yes its that bad).. you now find out you didnt kill him, and you end up teamed up with him in the later part of the story.. to bring down the police unit you where once in.. WHAT?

so you play the levels, each one rendered in perfect darkness, seriously, Ive altered my TV and its still black, cant see where the feck anything is, to the point where the equally black 'slime monsters' (yes) kill you and you cant see them...
often.
the only "saving" point to it is the checkpoint system, which is so schizophrenic in its own part I really dont know if its good or bad.. sure at times, itll save just before a nasty encounter with some 'slime monsters'.. but at others its like its gorged itself on KFC and forgets to save for the smaller fighters who jump out of nowhere and take that single last remaining health that you escaped with from the big boss fight.. end result... back before the big fight & hope you make it through that & the resulting small fights

Equally bizarre is the level decisions.. there's a level where it ends with you having jumped from a height resulting a damaged leg, and so your lying there with a nail gun shooting hoards of these slime things... to which the level blacks out when you've killed x amount of them.. no explanation of how you escaped, or why the remaining hoards didn't kill you.. its like watching an American sitcom where the characters all die at the end of an episode and yet are all present and correct for the next weeks one...

equally as bad, complete the game and it then makes you play it through again but with a gun.. so what exactly is the point of this???? Have confidence that your melee works, or have it as an FPS..

In short.. avoid the game. it is utter, utter dire.. unsurprisingly (and one I shall be paying much attention to).. the developers for this aren't the same as the developers of the first one.. - in much the same way that Treyarch butchered COD 3 & 5 and should be avoided. (Treyarch didnt make this, I dont know who did, I cant be arsed finding out)

what other bad things are? :

How about the achievement to beat people with a set of antlers.. except they dont exist in the game.. you can only get them in the 'fight club' thing.. where enemies will hit you with an invisible object!!! (that is the anters, you can then pick up this non existent object and hit people with it)

seriously, If I could hunt down the business manager(s) who signed off the release for this poop, I would kill them

OK, so I was told as a kid that If I cant say anything good about somebody, I shouldn't say anything at all (not that I follow that logic but what the hell)
heres the positives :

the dvd it came on was round.

the 360 version worked on the 360.

Wow, I am really shocked.
I was going to get this game as it got 80 on metacritic.

Kent Hammer wrote:Wow, I am really shocked.
I was going to get this game as it got 80 on metacritic.

seriously don't.. I think it is the worst game I have ever had the misfortune to play..

On another topic. treyarch didn't really butcher COD:W@W it is a great title. What they did butcher in it was veteran mode in single player but otherwise it is quite good and very enjoyable especially online after they patched early issues.