Condemned Criminal Origins

by Sega

Product Features

• Weapons and ammunition are scarce, leaving the player vulnerable to the game's mentally deranged criminals
• Careful detective work and precision reflexes are your primary means of survival
• Intelligent enemies respond strategically to your offensive and defensive maneuvers
• High-level physics allow players to manipulate background items, which respond realistically when picked up, kicked, or bumped
• Tightly wound story, backed with strong character development and major plot twists

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009SQFHA
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches ; 4.5 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: June 15, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,171 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: Xbox 360

The hunt for a serial killer has never been soterrifyingly real.Product InformationWhat twists the mind of an ordinary human into a serial killer?Assigned to the Serial Crimes division Agent Ethan Thomas must answer thisquestion and bring the worst of society to justice.  His solve rate is thebest in the bureau...perhaps too good.  While investigating the growinglist of serial killers Agent Thomas concludes that something is twisting thebodies and souls of those that society has left behind.  The homelessaddicted and deranged are rising from the city's underbelly and committingmindless acts of violence.  Could there be an unseen connection between theincreasing brutality of the latest serial killings and the increasing crimerate?This question is pushed to the forefront after Agent Thomas is framed for themurder of two police officers.  Now he must solve the murders to stop thekillings and exonerate himself from the crimes of which he is accused.As FBI agent Ethan Thomas you rely on sharp instincts and sophisticatedforensic tools to investigate crime scenes collect evidence and find cluesthat will lead you to the killers.  With danger lurking in every shadowyou need whatever weapons you can find to stay alive.  If you run out ofbullets you will have to fight with a fire axe shovel pipe two-by-four orwhatever you can pry from the environment around you.  You will need tomake sure nothing stops you as you try to uncover exactly who...or what isbehind the grisly killings plaguing the city.Product Features Weapons and ammunition are scarce leaving the player vulnerable to the game's mentally deranged criminals. Careful detective work and precision reflexes are your primary means of survival. Intelligent enemies respond strategically to your offensive and defensive maneuvers. High-level physics allow players to manipulate background items which respond realistically when picked up kicked or bumped. Tightly woun

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Play At Night in a Silent House - Quite Scary, November 26, 2005

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Condemned Criminal Origins (Video Game)

Some games are mature because they have swearing. Others are mature because they are really scary and nasty. Condemned - Criminal Origins falls clearly into the latter category.

Condemned - Criminal Origins has you in the part of FBI Agent Ethan Thomas, tracking down a serial murder. Don't think that this is like Law & Order or Criminal Intent. This is about the nastiest, grittiest, scariest areas of a city that you can imagine.

Somehow it's as if a maximum security prison was turned into an area of town. You go walking through buildings that are covered with gang signs, crawling with addicts who kill police offers on sight. Most of these insane bad guys lurk in the dark and call out profanities before bashing you with 2x4s or other weapons of convenience.

Of course a wise police officer might call for backup. But in the first "situation", you're told backup will take 10 minutes to show up. Instead of hanging tight for 10 minutes, you go trekking through the building on your own with only a gun and a flashlight to keep you safe. It's not long before the gun is in the hands of the bad guy and it's you and your flashlight against numerous enemies. This is wise?? Where's your radio?

You have a helpful friend - Lt. Rosa - who helps to talk you through using your forensic equipment. However, she waits until a madman almost kills you before chiming in with some information about how all the madmen on the streets are insane and worthy of slaying. Thanks for the help, Rosa.

The game is definitely very scary. The screens are quite dark, the flashlight only lights up small areas, and there are a ton of corners for the madmen to hide out in. You see them run across the screen, take cover, lurk in the corners. You never know when they'll launch an assault. Again, it really makes me ask why a lone FBI guy is roaming around in here without any real weapons. I realize it's for plot reasons, but I want a better plot :) Surely if I was really tracking down a serial murderer, I'd have more backup and more weapons than this.

That being said, if you're looking for a scary game that isn't all-and-all out combat a la Quake 4, this might fit the bill exactly. It's you against the enemy - and the enemy is truly insane. It's not about tons of ammo here - you're lucky if you even have a gun sometimes. You have to find crowbars, planks of wood and whatever you can to stay alive. If you play this at night, with the house quiet around you, the HD TV showing you the full detail and the 5.1 surround sound tuning you in to the slightest noise, it really can get to you.

Well recommended for the mature set that enjoys being scared!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Criminal Origins one of the best launch titles, November 29, 2005

By 

C. Bakehorn (Bloomington, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Condemned Criminal Origins (Video Game)

Monolith Software flexed their thriller muscle with this year's hit PC shooter, F.E.A.R. That game featured disturbing scenes, incredibly intelligent A.I., and beautiful graphics that simply blew away the PC crowd. Their newest game, Condemned: Criminal Origins, looked to do the same thing to gamers on the new Xbox 360. After playing through Condemned, I'm starting to think that Monolith has this shooter-thriller genre mastered. Condemned is a hell of a good game, and an extremely thrilling one to boot.

You're thrown into the role of an FBI Agent sent into seedy, addict-infested environments in order to investigate the murders of a serial killer. After the events that take place during the first level, which I won't ruin for you, your investigation turns into an all-out manhunt for the killer (or killers) as well as a battle to uncover the mysterious abilities and secrets you possess. The story is very intense, and sometimes when you'd least expect it, your character will have a flashback or he'll black out and a dream sequence will give you a clue of what's going on. The ending is very abrubt, unfortunately, but I would be absolutely thrilled to see a sequel, and the ending hints towards a possibility of that.

The gameplay is unlike anything I've ever experienced in a game. Let's do some roleplaying. Completely unarmed, you walk into a dark room that is dripping with grime and muck, and there is trash and debris scattered all over the floor. As you slowly step around, you hear a crash. You look around, and your heartbeat steadily increases as your flashlight does a minimal job of helping you see the different nooks and crannies of the room. The only way forward is the door across the room, but it's heavily shadowed and deep down inside, you know there's something waiting nearby to kill you. To protect yourself, you rip a pipe from a wall and proceed forward, quickly glancing around and checking your rear for ambushes. Your character's breathing gets harder and naturally your senses react, as your heartbeat continues to raise and you continue forward. You approach the door, and you feel that sense of security and accomplishment--but WHACK, you flinch as you're clubbed by an enraged drug addict that is madly swinging a wooden plank at you, all the while loudly screaming obscenities. That increased heartbeat of yours turns into a pounding, and alongside flinching your reaction is to swing that pipe as quickly as possible. You've been hit, but you eventually overcome and finish off your attacker, who was a mere swing away from killing you. Taking a second to breathe, it hits you--you're safe for now, but you only went through a single room in the many levels of Condemned: Criminal Origins. You open the door and in front of you is a whole new room and a whole new experience.

That's how Condemned plays out. There is never a dull moment in the levels, and even when there aren't enemies trying to beat the hell out of you, you are completely unaware of what might be in the same room you're investigating. During some of the down-time, you do detective work and try to uncover different pieces of evidence that propel the story. You're given access to different tools, like a laser gun that detects chemicals and a blacklight that highlights biological leftovers. Unfortunately, the investigating is pretty straightforward, and unlike the combat, it isn't possible to be very creative with it. Still, it progresses the story, and serves as a nice breather from swinging at and blocking enemies. There isn't much else that fluctuates the gameplay experience, but it never got old for me.

The fighting in Condemned is best described as being "in your face". That's what made me flinch so much when I played it--it feels like the angry inhabitants of Condemned are breathing down your neck the entire time they're around. Fighting them feels very real due to this, and landing a solid blow to an enemy results in it recoiling, recovering, and counterattacking or running away from you. Once they're ready to attack again, you'll have to block and counterattack to stay alive. It's unwise to underestimate even an unarmed enemy, as the intelligent A.I. will tell the opponent to rip a board off of the nearest wall and continue attacking if they lose their weapon or it breaks. With all of this melee, some gamers might wonder where the guns went. Every once in a while, the game will treat you and you'll find a pistol or shotgun laying around. You'll never find ammo in the game, and with every gun, you get what you see. This changes up the experience a little and allows you to pick off your enemies from farther away, but once you've used up the ammo, it's back to clubbing enemies to death.

I've said that the environments in Condemned are dark and seedy, but I don't think words can truly capture the feeling that the graphics convey. Just as you don't know when to expect an enemy in a room, you'll rarely come across a room that doesn't have something to explore. The darkness of the game doesn't tarnish how great the graphics look, as the shiny, glossy effect makes everything look wet and grimy and the weapon models are nothing short of perfect. The flickering of light in some of the rooms makes everything much scarier. The graphical achievement that Condemned does best is creating an ambience that will scare you even when there's nothing going on. Visually, the only downfall is that the character models in cutscenes look blocky and the lip sync is a little off in some scenes. As you might expect by now, the music and sound effects make the game a lot scarier than anything else. It's the lack of music that sets the mood, and the intensity of the sound effects make the action feel even closer to you. When you're hit by an enemy and your character reacts, he doesn't just make a grunt noise or a yelp in pain--his agony is as perfectly recreated as the actual beating noise that came from being hit by the enemy's weapon. At the same time, landing a clear blow on an enemy sounds as gruesome as can be, and it intensifies the combat even more. I didn't get a chance to play this game in 5.1 Dolby Digital, but I'd say it would be one of the more thrilling games to play in surround sound.

In the end, the slow pacing might turn off gamers looking for a straightforward shooter. The game isn't very long, either. Including all of the deaths and retries that I had during the game, I finished the adventure in about eleven hours. There aren't any other gameplay modes, so once you've finished the single-player game, you've experienced everything Condemned has to offer. Does this make it a bad game? No. Is it still worth buying? I'd say so, especially if you're a fan of this type of game. If you like to breathe heavily and feel your heart pound, this is definitely the game for you. The story will captivate you and the ending will have you excited for more. The unique gameplay, thrilling story, and disturbing graphics make Monolith's Condemned: Criminal Origins worth playing, and as an Xbox 360 launch title, it's one of the top five in my book.


(NOTE: I also have this review posted on GameFreaks365.com, where I write reviews on a regular basis.)

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rezet's Xbox 360 Game Review: Condemned, December 20, 2005

By 

Dimitri Smirnov (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Condemned Criminal Origins (Video Game)

Condemned's creator, Monolith, has been a relatively obscure company in the past years. Known among some for its mediocre "No One Lives Forever" games, it had gained some reputation after a release of "Tron 2", - one of their better titles. Through the past years Monolith was best known for working on a `train wreck' project "The Matrix Online". Warner Bros. (Monolith's parent company) has dropped the MMO project after only a few months of game going live.

But in the fall of 2005, Monolith action team has proven that they didn't pick the name for the company as a form of sarcasm. And that their newest lineup of games indeed isn't "hollow". Striking the PC audience with "F.E.A.R" project has risen the companies name to the ranks of big hitters like Id Software and Raven Software. "F.E.A.R" has received rave reviews from the critics and was considered as a first psychologically twisted 3D action shooter.

For the Xbox 360, Monolith has decided to bring out a different type of horror game. (Perhaps fearing controls issues always haunting 3D shooters). The result: A well made game "Condemned: Criminal Origins". Although the game is not perfect, it's definitely one of the worthy titles to be considered for the Xbox 360.

The game places you in the eyes of an FBI agent investigating a spike of murders and other crimes around the city. When he gets framed for the murders of the police officers on a crime scene, the agent is forced to make a tough decision and to attempt not only to clear his name but also find out what's causing all the violence in the city. Being a solo ranger on the run, the agent no longer has the luxuries like supplies of the ammunition and calls for the back up.

The game is set from the "eye view" of the FBI agent (a usual camera placement for 3D shooters). Condemned, however, is not your regular 3D shooter. Although you can wield the fire arms, the game takes approach of "closer to real life" action over some other mindless shooters. Enemies die from one shot if you can aim well, and once the ammunition is out, it's unlikely you will find more just laying in the corner of an abandoned building. So without the bullets, the only thing that shotgun is good for is hitting enemies with its butt. You will be switching weapons quite a lot, but all of them can roughly be divided into 2 types: fire arms with a limited ammo, or melee swinging weapons like pipes, sticks, and hammers. Each of those swinging weapons has different statistics which reflect your ability to block, and attack effectively.

Let's get one thing straight. This isn't some twisted psychological nightmare game like "Silent Hill 2". And by 'them' saying the game is scary, they mean "your friends jumping at you from around the corner and scream 'BOO!'" - scary. It's a thriller, not so much horror.

Once the door opens, you can expect that there is a drug addict somewhere in the room hiding behind a desk with a metal pipe. Or maybe there is no one. That's the guessing game you play. Often times you get ambushed by them from around the corners, which keeps you jumpy for the most times. A direct hit to the head with a metal pipe is not pleasant and can cause a severe damage to you.

Dealing with enemies is still one of the more pleasant parts of the game. Although combat itself is very repetitive and redundant, NPCs' intelligence is quite impressive. Swinging the metal pipe itself isn't really that exciting, however when an NPC doesn't just charge you and tries to out-damage you, but rather tries to out-smart you - it's a very refreshing feeling. The NPCs will hide and try to ambush you if they have a chance. If you charge them, they may behave very differently. Some drug addicts will fight you to the death recklessly, while some will estimate their chances and may try to run away and get a better weapon and backstab you. In a fight, some of the smarter NPCs will actually be faking their hits and unloading a barrage of swings once your block goes down. Once hit, they may also pretend that they are falling down only to turn around and hit you with a metal pipe in a face.

["One of the more impressive situations I came across in the subway, where I was attacked by some crazy looking NPC with a wooden stick. Seeing an axe in my hands, he quickly turned around and started to run away in circles around the ticket booth. After chasing him around a few times without any luck to catch up to him. I decided to intercept him on by going the opposite direction to meet him on the other side. But unlike my expectation, NPC also turned around after peeking around the corner and seeing me change my running direction, he actually went after me and intercepted me from the behind, taking down half of my health bar. After being shocked with my shock pistol he turned around and ran away again only to come back with a sledge hammer. If it wasn't for my successful block afterwards, he would have been the winner in our encounter."]

While moments like those are certainly exciting, the combat itself gets boring after a while simply due to the lack of fighting tactics. Sure AI is smart, but you only have two buttons to work with: an attack and a bock. Different close combat weapons have different effects on how fast you can block or swing etc. So Monolith's idea of extending the fights is by making you take 3 hits from an NPC simply because block time on an axe is way different from a block time on a pipe. HINT: It's probably best to attempt to stick to one or two close combat weapons to learn their swing and block time.

One of the other things that bring down the value of the game is the lack realistic movement controls. You can't just jump whenever you want to. You can only do that when the game tells you can. That also affects other things in the game play such as moving objects. In some situations you are able to just push away an iron safe, while in others - a bunch of empty cardboard boxes create an obstacle you cannot pass.

A little disappointing is the lack of puzzles in the game. With practically no challenging ones, it brings all the emphasis to fighting (and fighting, as mentioned before gets pretty old after about 2 hours of play). The most complicated puzzles you will meet will probably be of this sort:

[To continue though the building, you need a fire axe to break the door. The fire axe you find near by in the locked cage is protected by a security device. To break the security device, you need a shovel. The shovel will probably be somewhere in the room with two crazy maniacs waiting to beat the crap out of you.]

It also is probably worth to note that the game is pretty linear. It's extremely rare when you will have a doubt of where to go or what to do in Condemned.

Another small issue is with the character models in the game. Although the environments in this game are extremely well made and can be considered pretty creepy most of the time, the character models could certainly use some work.

Overall this is the best thriller type game for Xbox 360 right now and is a worthy buy. Although [I, myself] prefer games in the genre of "Silent Hill", this game does a good job of keeping me on the edge of the seat at times as well. But it's not just the dark theme that makes this game stand out. It's the combination of a good story, realistic gameplay (although a bit repetitive), great voice acting, gorgeous environments, and most importantly - intelligent enemies that make this game an exciting experience.

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