Condemned 2: Bloodshot - Xbox 360 (360), Playstation 3 (PS3) Previews


	Platform Playstation 3, Xbox 360 Genre First-Person Shooter Publisher Sega Developer Monolith Productions ETA Q2 2008
Newsletter
Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly. Enter E-Mail Address Below: Subscribe \| Unsubscribe

Condemned 2: Bloodshot

The first I saw of Condemned: Criminal Origins it was at E3 showing off the Xbox 360 hardware and the protagonist was wielding a door ripped off a sports locker to beat some screaming maniacs. After watching for a bit and summing it up a Breakdown-type first-person shooter I moved on. Later I played the demo but the setting creeped me out enough that I knew my adrenal gland wouldn't be able to take so much -- psychos leaping from dark corners and realistic gun play (single shots were often enough to fell an enemy) alongside very scarce ammo resources put Condemned: Criminal Origins on my short list of games to play if a really wanted to be scared.

And now, Ethan Thomas, the original protagonist and presumably a complete psychological mess after the events in the first game, is back; this time to track down his missing partner in the same kind of grim and gritty environments of the first game.

Monolith Productions, responsible for the first Condemned, is behind the controls here and they obviously listened to fans because the two most significant additions

Advertisement

to the Condemned 2: Bloodshot are "defensive and offensive combo chains, as well as grapples and holds" and "online multiplayer modes, including deathmatch." Details on each are light. In fact, what you've just read is what has been officially released so far. (Heck, there haven't even been official screenshots released yet.)

Based on the previous game and other

Advertisement

first-person "immersion" titles -- Breakdown springs to mind again -- I can imagine how the combo chains will work. I'm just hoping that they won't induce motion sickness. (Some of the more complicated fisticuffs in Breakdown were actually disorientating -- Namco had billed it as a "first-person fighter.") I can also take a guess as to what the multiplayer might look like. Aside from Deathmatch, it would make sense to include something along the lines of a "Serial Killer Hunt" where one person is It and the rest have to track him down, with use of the "all-new set of high-tech forensic tools." Or something like "Collection" where each player (or team) is tasked with grabbing specific items and bringing them back to their part of the map, like some kind of scavenger hunt since the environments are full of items that can be picked up and used. The danger, of course, is that the multiplayer modes could be tacked-on to an otherwise solid (and no doubt psychologically damaging) single-player experience.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot is scheduled to ship sometime in early 2008.

- Omni

(June 21, 2007)