Platform: Xbox Genre: Survival Horror Publisher: Midway Developer: Surreal Software ESRB: M (Mature) Released: Q1 2004
Support
AE! Buy Games Here:
Be
notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice
weekly.
Enter
E-Mail Address Below:
The
Suffering
Score:
8.7 / 10
Pros: -
Perfectly creepy storyline draws you into the game and keeps you
transfixed there until the end
- Plenty of unexpected scares throughout the entire game combined with
accompanying deathly spine-chilling music create a frightening aura that
push this into the ranks of the horror game classics
Cons:
-
Whatever the unofficial record for most cusswords in a video game was
before, this game totally annihilates it
- Bucket upon bucket of blood and overall murderous mayhem not for the
weak of heart or stomach
- Controls can get difficult to handle efficiently when confronted by
enemies like Slayers that attack quickly and from all directions
"...The
Suffering is one downright frightening game..."
There
are many monsters locked away in the prisons of America. The crimes
these inmates have committed are so vile and so heinous, they have
become in the eyes of many as now less-than-human -- a monstrosity caged
away, never allowed to be free amongst the general population again.
After a while, it’s not hard to imagine that the very walls of the
frightening penitentiaries that contain these evil men become themselves
evil, giving solid form to an unseen entity: the inherent evil that lies
deep down within every man and woman, even if it never violently
surfaces in most of us.
This is what makes the setting of the Abbott State Penitentiary on
Carnate Island in the horror title, The Suffering, so fitting. But
it’s not the inmates who are the monsters here: there’s real
supernatural beasts rampaging through this penal complex, and they
don’t take prisoners. Instead, they’re hell-bent on explicit
bloody carnage, intent on killing until there’s no one left to kill.
These monsters aren’t choosy, either, wiping out both inmates and the guards and authorities that run the penitentiary.
You’ll be placed in the shoes of Torque, who has just been sent to
Abbott State for the crime of murdering his wife and two young sons.
Torque is the perfect anti-hero in the mold of Grand Theft Auto: Vice
City’s Tommy Vercetti. Torque’s apparently done the crime, so he’s
doing the time. Unfortunately, Torque’s has the bad luck of having his
the first five minutes of his arrival to Abbott State see the
arrival of complete murderous slaughter at the hands of supernatural
forces. The only chance Torque has to survive the onslaught is to escape
Abbott State, a seemingly impossible task considering how everybody else
in the joint is being systematically eliminated by increasingly
ghoulishly and gory means. Even worse, to start out the only weapon of
defense you have against these creatures is a shiv pulled from one of
the bodies of your would-be inmate companions. On top
of that Torque isn’t exactly in an emotionally and mentally stable
state.
Throughout the game, Torque never speaks one line of dialogue. But the
story of how Torque found himself a resident of Abbott State is told
through grisly flashbacks recollecting the death of his family. It’s
done well, too, because until the very end it is unclear if Torque is
really guilty or not.
And that was done purposely, because depending on how you interact with
non-playable characters you encounter during your escape attempt affects
the ending of the game. If you give in to the insanity of the situation
and off every NPC you meet you’ll get the “bad” ending.
Try to help the NPCs as much as possible, and you’ll get the
“good” ending. There’ also an in-between ending. In another
interesting twist you have sort of devil-on-one-shoulder,
angel-on-the-other voices in your head when you come across other
characters. The “devil” tells you to do evil, the “angel” (the
voice of your dead wife) tells you to do good. It’s up to you to
choose which voice to listen to, but take some advice: a few of the NPCs
absolutely must be followed and cooperated with to advance in the game.
If you kill them like the “devil” tells you to do, then you will be
forced to restart from a point prior to their death at your hands.
There are also plenty of bizarre, insane visions of bloody death and
mayhem, supernatural beings, and Doctor Killjoy, which is the ghostly
apparition responsible for the current evil state of affairs at Abbott
State.
The voice acting of Killjoy is done well, and so are the voices of
Torque’s deceased wife and children, who are just creepy enough to
give you more-than-occasional chills. But much of the other voice acting
in the game, especially the prison guards and inmates you run into, are
below average. Another warning here: this game isn’t for the virginal
ears of youngsters. Don’t let Senator Joe Lieberman in on this, but
The Suffering by far has got to hold the all-time record for most
cusswords ever heard in a video game. It almost seems that every single
line of dialogue has some sort of cussword in it. I’m talking about
the worst of the worst too. F-bombs explode all over The Suffering so
much so that it would even make George Carlin blush. Put it this way:
every single of Carlin’s infamous “seven dirty words” is heard in
The Suffering except the tamest one, which is a crass way of describing
a woman’s breast. A rough estimate is around 300 utterances of
cusswords that fall within the “dirty word” classification. The
Suffering is definitely not a game you want to be playing while young
ears are within hearing distance.
Even considering the sometimes-weak voice work, The Suffering does an
amazing job using sound to create a scary game. Hearing and then seeing
a huge, colossal beast running down a dark hallway, the
closer-and-closer scraping of the deadly metal appendages of the nasty
creatures filling the prison inside and out, and out-of-nowhere
flashbacks accompanied by appropriately frightening music means plenty
of sound-induced scares will be had by all.
There are those heartbeat-increasing frights that only the best games of
the horror genre have had. Remember the classic moment in the original
Resident Evil when the two mutated dogs jump through the window and
scare the hell out of you? The Suffering contains plenty of that,
especially while you are still trapped inside the prison. If you like
really scary games, you’ll unquestionably enjoy The Suffering in that
regard.
Visually, The Suffering has an unbelievable amount of gore and blood.
Decapitations, impalings, and practically any kind of overly-bloody
killing method possible occurs in the game. (The Suffering really does
earn its “M”-rating – keep out of reach of children!) The
character models of the inmates and prison employees are okay, but
it’s Torque and the supernatural evildoers that are done particularly
well. And that’s due in large part to the influence of famed Hollywood
creature designer Stan Winston, who uses his Tinseltown experience in
monster-making to breathe life into The Suffering’s creature roster,
including the impressively rendered vaporous deadly-gas boss character
and the final large and imposing Hell’s Gate-looking beast of deathly
burden. The creatures are unique from each other, and each is based on a
ghastly form of execution, from firing squad to lethal injection, to the
scorching apparitions that are the ethereal form of young girls burned
at the stake for being witches.
Another notable visual is the “monster” within Torque himself. The
game tracks a “rage” meter for Torque. If he gets sufficiently
enraged to fill the meter, then you can turn Torque into a hulking,
razor-clawed killing machine that not even the strongest of The
Suffering’s enemies can defeat. This is supposed to be an
only-in-Torque’s-mind transformation, so although you aren’t
actually that “monster” running around killing everything, you have
superhuman strength. But you have to be careful, because if Torque stays
in his “monster” state too long (when the rage meter runs out) then
you will die.
Also, the nine environments that comprise the saturated evil that is
Abbott State Penitentiary are ridiculously unnerving. The Suffering is
at its scary best while you are inside the prison and in the asylum
outside the prison grounds, and having everything dark and fog-covered
just adds more bloodcurdling drama to the overall mood of the game.
The mechanisms in place to control Torque are the most uneven aspect of
The Suffering. Although you can play the game in either first-person or
third-person perspective (the default setting is third-person), I played
the entire game in third-person because it was much easier to gauge the
placement of enemies, particularly when you where under attack from a
multitude of crazed killing creatures at once. Fortunately, you’re
given a full arsenal of weapons including double pistols, machine guns,
axes, shotguns and incendiary devices like Molotov cocktails to take out
the forces of evil. And there’s more than enough health restores and
ammo lying around that you never have to worry about not having the
necessary equipment in order to kill efficiently.
I really would have liked to see a control scheme that allowed you to
move in one direction while shooting in another a la Hunter: The
Reckoning, because it would have made battling those you are trying to
kill you a lot less stressful, especially considering how long-lasting
the gameplay hours add up in The Suffering. It will easily take you over
15-20 hours to finish the entire game. The only regret is that the last
few levels fizzle out on the scare meter until the last great boss
battle finally ends your quest for escape.
One last mention, concerning the extra features included on the game
disc. There is a mini-documentary detailing the supposedly
most-haunted former prison around, Eastern State Penitentiary in the
Philadelphia area. The documentary talks about many of the frightening
ghost sightings that have taken place since the prison was shut down
just a few decades ago. Even though there are tours of the facility to
this day, even the bravest of the brave tour guides wouldn’t be caught
dead in Eastern State Penitentiary after dark. What’s especially
unsettling to me is that I live just a mere 30 minutes away from this
sinister structure. I’m not ashamed to admit I haven’t dared toured
the place and, after watching the documentary on The Suffering, I don’t
plan to anytime soon.
Yes, The Suffering is one downright frightening game, taking you for a
long-lasting and not-for-the-weak-of-heart horror ride that is scarily
enjoyable right from the start until it regrettably loses steam in its
latter stages. The Suffering isn’t as good an action game as it is a
horror game, but despite some stumbles in its composition it still
provides some incredible horror and scare moments that only a rare few
games have been able to bestow to the horror genre.
