Condemned 2

22.02.2008

Agent Ethan Thomas is back. He is still tired, and pissed off. And that’s not all. Our good man doesn’t seem to have seen the sun for months. Beaches and palms are only a hazy memory to him, and holidays a foreign word. Not two months ago, Ethan survived a traumatizing horror scenario and now he is once again about to get down and dirty. Because the horror is endless, and even if it doesn’t begrudge him a few minutes and a drink, it nevertheless plagues him with hallucinations. A rosy outlook is not on the cards for the poor guy, but rosiness means sod all anyway in Condemned 2.

Condemned 2 grips you from the very first minute. The impressive, sparsely light level areas, the realistic snowfall and the homeless guy scrabbling about in a rubbish bin close by, already give you a hint of the impending horror. After only a few steps, Ethan is confronted with a rather unpleasant acquaintance, whose very face already bodes ill. And then his henchmen already rush out at you. From all sides, ruthless thugs climb over the fencing which until then separated Ethan from evil personified. And the fists fall in a hail. The haggard agent is hit with a full-power uppercut. His field of vision turns red together with the cracking, crunching sound of the impact on marrow and bones. For an instant, Ethan must re-orient himself. Obviously he cannot forget to block the next attack. Then he begins a full-hearted counter-attack, beginning with a single footstep, followed by two extremely intense punches. The looks of our opponents speak volumes about the effectiveness of our attacks. Even now, I am conscious that I am receiving hard punches.

The light is Ethan’s friend. In this hopeless world, it seems to be the only foothold. Ethan seizes a nail-spiked board from a cupboard. A funny-looking transmitter on the wall catches his attention. The so-called 'Sonic Emitter' increases the aggression of our unknown enemies, and also even attracts it. Get rid of that thing! Our agent finds these transmitters continuously, to the emissions of which he is not completely immune. Unfortunately the transmitters have already done their job, as we hear and see someone rushing towards us together with the scurrying rats. It is high time to try out the board with its nails. After a few solid impacts, our wooden buddy is becoming worn out, and it is indeed time to get our hands on a steel pipe, a Taser or even a ratchet wrench. But Ethan has not managed to get his hands on too many of the latter, as weapons and munitions are scattered and hard to find.

Using UV light, Ethan searches through an abandoned office for a code that he needs. Our agent is equipped to the hilt with a spectrometer, GPS and a camera. Ethan falls back again and again on these tools, and is thus able to solve thrilling, yet mystifying riddles. A mysterious person gives a helping hand with the game play via standing TV equipment, giving him hints on his current situation and a few instructions. First of all, however, he must correctly align the TV antennae in order to receive this helpful information. But TV's are not only sources of information. Ethan can take advantage of the level’s inventory using so-called 'Enviromental Kills'. So the goggle-box is also great if you want to shove the heads of your opponents into the TV screen.