- 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
- 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
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
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
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
Advertisement
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.
