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GAME REVIEWS |
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The Suffering
Reviewed By LessonNo5
It's like someone took Max Payne and ran it through a meat-grinder. This game looks like Payne, plays like Payne, and smells like Payne... But Max Payne this game is NOT. What can I say about this game that hasn't been said by a million other people? Nothing. This game is AWESOME.
You play as Torque, a convict on death-row whose been convicted of killing your wife and children. Your new home while awaiting death is a facility on Carnate Island. A name you won't soon be forgetting, as the storyline of this game just sucks you right in. It's got everything. The game begins immediately in an unforgettable fashion. I'll try not to spoil it too much, because you really need to play this game, and finding out what's going on is half the fun.
You begin the game in the death-row cellblock. At every
turn you catch a glimpse of a monster, but never early enough
to tell what it is. You soon find out something about yourself,
something that threw me off at first when I picked up the
box and read the back. It mentioned something about "transforming
into a beast." That kind of put me off, but the way it's
presented into the game, it's really cool. Like I said,
you chase this monster... You soon find out from some of
the Island's more celebrity ghosts that the monster is you.
I'll leave the metaphysical significance of that aside and
just say that when you transform is when your character
"blacks out." You lose control. Does that mean Torque really
killed his family? You have to figure that out for yourself.
The game's got the main character, but you'll come across
some downright disturbing members of the supporting class.
There are three main characters... The good doctor of a
previously inhabited mental asylum on the island, a former
executioner that got WAY too into his work, and a murderer
with a tragic and disturbing story. In addition, you have
a slew of enemies, all of which are embodiments of different
forms of execution.
What I like most about this game is how it completely takes you into the world of the game. It's just engrossing. I also enjoyed the ability to make choices. How you play determines the endings. Do you become the monster and kill for the Island's spirits, or do you choose to side with the spirit of your late-wife, or do you choose still another path? Most of the credit to the atmosphere that makes this game so great goes to the sound and music. It's perfect. It's glitchy at times, but the sound is perfect for the game. The music and sound are seamless, the music being more of an extension to the ambient noise in the game.
The entire game takes place on Carnate Island, but you soon find out you won't be spending all of your time in a labyrinth of hallways... In fact, you quickly find out that Carnate been home too many nefarious dealings dating back hundreds of years. You get to explore deep into all of the homes of these tortured spirits as you tour the island. There was never even a second of my time playing this when I was bored. Never even an instant when the thought crossed my mind to take a break.
A lot of the game is combat driven, but you get so many
weapons to choose from, and none of them are really much
better than the next one, so you have more of a toolbox
of weapons than and eternal search for better firepower.
This game also features a lot of unnerving "out of body"
experiences. Your character hears voices, sees things, and
general goes out of his mind. The influences of the Islands
evil and his own tortured mind often come to the surface
of consciousness and blur the line between fantasy and reality...
Just then, you realize you're playing a game, and none of
it's reality.
The makers of the game purposely made Torque as racial-neutral as possible. It's easy to identify to him that way. If they made him racial-neutral, they definitely didn't try to make him bad ass-neutral. Where Max Payne was a little unbelievable as a gun-fighting detective, Torque is 100% buyable as a gun-wielding savage. The fighting in this game is BRUTAL. The blood-splatter technique is the best I've ever seen it. It's just projected onto everything, including Torque.
I could go on about this game for pages. It simply wouldn't do it justice. You just need to play it to appreciate all of the subtle nuances in it. All I can say is, this game is WELL worth the $49.95 price tag, and given it's popularity I wouldn't hold out until it gets knocked down to $20. Chances are, with this game; you'll never get your chance.
| THE BEST
PART |
| This game has everything, so one could say that
if you’re not scared at some point during this
game, then you don’t have a soul. However, with
all of the philosophical questions this game inadvertently
raises, by the time you get done with the game you
may have concluded that you don’t. |
THE WORST
ENEMY |
| The goddamn Burrowers... Any enemy that only presents
a target a millisecond before it attacks is bad news. |
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| RELEASE DATES |
Q1 2005 - PC/XB/PS2
Zombies
TBA - RPG
CHOMP!
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