Hands on Condemned 2 by IGN

[thibje]

January 18, 2008 - Admit it. You got a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when SEGA announced that Monolith's follow-up to the Xbox 360 launch title, Condemned, would have multiplayer modes. This is a game where beating possessed vagrants to death with a blunt object is the norm. With the online multiplayer in Condemned 2 you'll do the same, only this time that bum will be controlled by your friend.

Condemned 2 sports four different multiplayer modes that can be tackled with up to eight people. The first two are the ever present deathmatch and team deathmatch. The rule set is one we're all familiar with, but the gameplay certainly isn't. We started our session by hopping into a small arena free for all match in a map called Hangover. It takes place in a stage based on the opening moments of the game. You begin with just your hands to attack and defend with and in this map there were few weapons of opportunity to be had. A pile of bricks sat atop a staircase and a metal bat could be had, but we spent the majority of the time punching wildly.

The back alley brawl was pretty chaotic and gentleman's rules didn't apply in the least. If two others were boxing, anybody in the vicinity took that opportunity to smash a brick or a bat into the back of one of their heads. Staying alive was anything but easy and tactics were pretty much nonexistent. The good news, though, was that tooling around in this maelstrom gave us a good look at the new combat system.

Without a weapon, each fist is assigned to its own trigger. By holding down other buttons, you can modify your punch between a jab, hook or uppercut. Landing strings of various punches together completes special combos that deliver a serious hurting. Getting punched will stagger you, so it's a good idea to always be ready with a block which can be performed by holding down both triggers at the same time.

Nice mask.

In the campaign for Condemned 2, one of the new additions is context sensitive finishing moves. Once you stun an enemy, you can choose to snap their neck where they stand, knock them out, or look around for a more interesting way to finish them off. The multiplayer game was so wild that we didn't have a chance to check to see if the same is true. It appeared that the neck twist was the sole method of dispatch aside from continuing to beat them mercilessly. There is one nice touch to this, though. If you get staggered, you'll find yourself paralyzed as you sway to and fro. This only lasts a short time so if your enemy gets distracted, say because another player hit him in the kidney with a bat, then you have a chance to come back and get some revenge.

Weapons also have combos that require proper timing for maximum results. You can swing your pipe willy-nilly if you want, but the best results come from a practiced arm. There are guns in the multiplayer game as well but ammo is a rare commodity. A word of advice: Don't push the right bumper before you're done with a gun. That button throws your weapon as a projectile. It's a nice idea if you're carrying a brick. Not so nice when you throw your gun into a dark corner accidentally.

Another reason to be precise with your attacks is the stamina system. Punching and running tire you out and your stamina bar is rather short. A quick sprint is all you get and don't expect to throw any punches immediately after stopping. It does refill in short order, so you're never out of the action for more than a moment. Sometimes a moment is all that guy wearing a pig mask needs to take you down, though.

Once we'd had our fill of the free for all, we switched over to a team deathmatch on a map called Slaughterhouse. Each team aligns with either the influenced (crazy bums) or the SCU (police) so it's easy to tell who is on each team with a quick glance. In the map we found a few loose bricks alongside a meat hook and a taxidermy knife. Then we learned that a taxidermy knife to the back of the head is an instant kill. Good to know. Slaughterhouse was much bigger than the previous map, but it was largely comprised of long hallways and small nooks which made for big team fights when each side ran into each other as well as a few sneak attacks. 

Somebody is going to get hurt.

The third multiplayer mode is called Bum Rush. This is also a team based game, though one side is at a numbers disadvantage from the start. Two players are put on the SCU squad with machine guns. The other six are influenced with nothing but weapons of opportunity. The goal of the SCU members is to stay alive as long as possible. Once both have been killed once, the round ends. Influenced attackers, meanwhile, can die and respawn infinitely. This mode can be played over a number of rounds with players switching roles based on how well they do the previous round. Knowing the maps would be a big help. We did not have that luxury and quickly succumbed to the marauding influenced in short order.

Last, but certainly not least, is crime scene. We played this unique mode on a map that is modeled after the farm house location where the first Condemned ended. Here the eight players are split into two teams of four, again along the lines of influenced and SCU. The influenced are charged with hiding and defending two cases. The cases have heads in them. 

What's in the box?!?

So anyway, the influenced need to protect these two cases while the SCU search for them. The cool part is that the influenced can move the cases at any time. The dark halls of the farm house have a ton of great hiding places and we found it quite hard to locate a hidden box. The SCU have guns which gives them an offensive advantage, an important point to remember when everyone in the game only has a single life. They also have gas spectrometers that tell them how close they are to the cases. Unfortunately, they only work on the X axis so if the case is on the floor above or below you, you'd never know it by looking at the meter. You also can't use your weapons with the scanner out. Working in tandem with another teammate is a good idea. 

The influenced also have a few advantages. Rather than taking a weapon, they can choose to start the level with a scrambler that makes the gas spectrometer of the SCU useless when it gets close. There are plenty of weapons to find throughout the level, so quickly tossing one of these on the wall and then finding a weapon is a good idea.

The multiplayer modes in Condemned 2 are looking like a decent distraction, though the slow movement speed did make us a little impatient at times. Regardless, we're still more looking forward to getting our hands on the single player game and diving into the twisted world of Condemned once again.