Customer Reviews

The Suffering

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Suffering is a decent game. It's not absolutely amazing or groundbreaking, but it is definitely more entertaining and worthwile than most crap-action titles being released right now. With dime a' dozen shooter games hitting the shelves en masse, The Suffering mixes things up a bit. It couples intense horror sequences with satisfying shoot em'up action, creating a well balanced blood soaked blend. And it is indeed well balanced. This game puts its best foot forward as a melting pot effort, combining massive amounts of gore and profanity with a decent story, and some good ol'fashion disturbing imagery. I felt that if ever the shooting and fighting grew a bit repetitive, the game's freaky/disturbing context prevailed and pulled the game through. As much as you run around chopping up demons and blowing them full of holes, the 'darker' backbone and theme of the game is always right there making itself known. Like I said, it's a mixture; You never feel too overwhelmed with the bulletfest or the brooding story elements. The graphics are run-of-the-mill PS2 quality. Nothing to boast about, but nothing to really gripe about either. The control interface is nicely done and the ability to switch between first and third person view at any time is excellent indeed. There are four difficulty settings - Easy (for your little sister)- Medium (for wusses like me)- Hard (for people who like to get aggravated and swear blood-vengeance on their PS2 - and Insane (for people who like getting splattered thoroughly and quite often.) The game's difficulty is balanced well, and the medium setting provides a challenge without overwhelming or enraging you. Also: weapons and provisions are well supplied throughout your adventure. - It isn't one of those action-horror titles where you have to be sparing with your loot. If anything, this game encourages you to hose down everything in sight, as there is always plenty more ammo to be found as you progress. My next topic of discussion is The Suffering's use of decision based story progression, and how it ultimately determines the ending of the game. Put simply: You run into people during the game (officers, inmates etc) and you are faced with choices - You can either choose to help them and follow the, dare I say 'light' path - or you can choose to be evil and cut them down and continue on your way. One nifty element the game designers have employed here is the use of voices that your character hears inside his head when faced with such decisions. One voice is his dead wife, urging him to do the right thing... the other voice is the voice of insanity, urging him to go Scarface on everyone. It is a neat little perk and one of the game's more memorable and fun features. And the choices you make regarding people who need your help will determine how the story ends for you, as the game features multiple endings. The demons/monsters you face in the game are pretty cool and some are definitely on par with the grotesque freaks found in Silent Hill. The voice acting is well done and very entertaining at points. On a similar note, if you play this game all the way through you're going to hear the F word about 300 times. - As well as some other choice phrases that helped The Suffering earn its well deserved M rating. So I guess that's either a boon or a disappointment depending on your tastes. In closing, I recommend this release. Fun if you like blazing guns action play, and fun/intriguing if you're a horror game fan. If you have the cash to spend, I'd say go for it. There's replay value and some great action/horror elements that make this title a satisfying stand-out. And let's not forget the blood... buckets and buckets of blood. ;)

This is the best horror game I have played since resident evil 2. I love to get spooked but most horror games are about scaring you by giving you no ammo and running as your tactic to survive. Now don't get me wrong that adds to the spook factor but it gets hard to pick up time after time. Well, for the past several months i have been looking into The Suffering as a possible rental on a dark weekend when it came out. Just recently I played the demo and it blew me away as one of the best horror games ever.

Let us get to the point that made the game fun. You could fight. Thats it, you could fight back and actually have a chance to survive without spending ever bullet with regret. On top of that you still feel as if you are still on the brink of death as the story and monsters surround you. Now that is awesome when it comes to horror games.

Now the gore factor is a little much, even for a 18 year old guy, and the language is ridiculous but I got past that and saw what the game was like underneath. This is no kids game at all and if you are a parent looking into this for a child 16 and younger forget the game. Anyone else have fun. It is well crafted and good for a night of peeing you pants.

I bought The Suffering while waiting for something I really wanted to come out, but I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of effort and detail that has gone into this game. Be warned though, it's dark and horrific, and the game seems to really revel in showing all the gruesome ways people can be sliced up, mutilated and tortured. You play Torque, a man imprisoned in one of the harshest prsions ever built, and it's up to you to make sense of what is happening when staff and inmates alike start getting mowed down by bloodthirsty supernatural monsters which appear seemingly from nowhere. The story hits the ground running in the first few minutes of play, when your character suddenly finds his cell door open and the prison in total chaos. Once out of your cell, it's a matter of making your way through the prison, and outside, hoprfully to freedom.

The thing that struck me while playing was the attention to detail present in the locations. Many of the rooms have working telephones, light switches, taps, lockers etc, and even though interacting with them sometimes proves to have no effect (flushing the toilet for example!) it's a great and realistic addition to the game world. Of course many of these things are important to the action, such as unlocking doors or finding supplies, so it pays to explore just what you can do in every new location. A word of warning also, be alert or else some parts of the game will pass you by. Some pathways and rooms containing supplies and even weapons can be completely bypassed if you are not thorough in exploring, so it pays to be cautious. This, of course, is only possible once you have cleared any areas completely of marauding monsters, and it's here that the meat of the game lies.

The creatures invading the prison are pretty gruesome and relentless in their attempts to kill you. Some very Silent Hill-esque creatures inhabit this world, including agile metallic creatures with blades instead of arms and legs that just love to leap at you from the ceiling, and crawling mutants who like to pull loaded hypodermic syringes out of their skin and throw them at you like darts. Early on in the game you will be hard pushed to come through fights unscathed, so it's a blessing that healing supplies are scattered liberally throughout each stage. However, just when you find the best (in my opinion ) firearm - the shotgun - and start cackling with joy as one or two close-range blasts send the creatures flying in a hail of body parts, the game ups the challenge and starts sending wave after wave of critters at you, some of which respawn endlessly. It sounds unfair, but it's not really, as in these cases the game is either telling you to get the hell out of there, or find a way to plug up the seemingly endless stream from it's source.
In several ways, the game reminds me a lot of the similar PS2 adventure "Ghosthunter", in that you have to run around whilst manually aiming, and things seem to be far more capable of dashing around the screen than you are. But, in a great additional aspect, you can also switch to first person view at any time, and still run around, attack and jump, etc. So that's almost two games in one, if you prefer to play it that way. Plus the weapons are a lot of fun...when I found the fire axe it was definitely playtime, heh heh...

As for the plot, it's very minimal, with escaping alive being about the only important issue here. There is a sub-plot involving Torque's memory of his wife and children and what has happened to them and him leading up to to the current situation, but it's very much a peripheral issue to the main action of the game. I found Torque's constant flashbacks and visions to be rather pointless after a while, as the script doesn't give Torque any personality whatsoever (he never speaks or changes his expression during the entire game), so it's impossible to feel any sympathy or even tell what emotions he's supposed to be experiencing!

The gameplay improves further once Torque gets outside of the actual prison, as the repetition of cells and offices gives way to a variety of forests, roads, rivers and cliffs, and the freedom to explore is pretty impressive (or maybe I should say that the disguising of the restraints the game uses to stop you going where it doesn't want you to go is pretty impressive!). Towards the end of the game, you'll also make it to a delapidated asylum/residence, a shoreline complete with shipwreck, and a clifftop lighthouse, and the graphics of these locations is wonderful, well worth waiting for.

So I recommend this game. It's challenging, although some of the killing can be avoided if you just want to run past everything. Still want more? Well, actions such as your willingness to help other survivors (even when they might be actively hostile towards you) will change the ending you receive, or open up extra goodies if you keep certain NPC's alive long enough - pretty tough to do in some cases. And there are several situations featuring puzzles and traps to test your problem-solving skills. There's also an "insanity" meter which, when full, allows Torque to transform into a super-strong monster himself and dish out insane damage....to find out how and why, you'll have to play the game. It's definitely worth a look

I'll be honest with you, I didn't think I would like it that much when I first played it, but then I put it in, and now I'm addicted to it! One of the things I like is that the creatures aren't all out to kill you. Don't get me wrong, they still want to kill you, but when you see 2 different kinds together and they don't see you, they attack each other instead of you. I also like the fact that the game reflects executions. For example:

1.Slayer - Decapitation (or dismemberment)
2.Marksman - Firing Squad (my personal favorite creature)
3.Mainliner - Lethal Injection
4.Nooseman - Hanging
5.Burrower - Buried Alive

other creatures include Fester, who are Slave Traders (it's a long story), Inferna (I hate them cause they're hard as hell to kill), and who can forget the 3 ghosts that help/don't help you

1. Dr.Killjoy (lousy name, but he's the doctor who ran the asylum and he appears via film projector)
2. Horace (haunts the prison and it was obvious he was electrocuted)

3.Hermes (I like this guy cause he has that stalker voice and he appears through gas used in the gas chamber, which is also the way he died)

You'll also have choices to make when you meet guards or inmates. You'll hear 2 voices everytime, a demon then your dead wife, but it's up to you who to believe.

Overall, it's a great game and I highly recommend it. But one other thing, play it in the dark!!

The Suffering is a game that would fall into the rather successful niche created by games like the Resident Evil and Fatal Frame series, but with one sick little twist. This game takes psychological horror gaming to a sick and rather twisted new level.

In the game you play as Torque, who has just been sent to Carnate Prison, one of the worst penitentaries in the world. Torque was sent there for the brutal murder of his wife and two children but has absolutely no memory of the crime. On the day Torque arrives at Carnate, an earthquake occurs that seemingly has opened the door to a hellish gateway that unleashes demonic creatures based on the various methods that were used to kill the prisoners of Carnate. Your task: kill whatever gets in your way (human, creature or otherwise) and learn the awful truth of Carnate while escaping the hellhole, figuring out why you have a mysterious ability to transform into a monster (more on that later), and learning if you really WERE responsible for your family's deaths.

Throughout the game you will encounter creatures that represent the various ways of dying in and/or escaping from prison, including creatures with blades for hands and feet (knife/shiv attack), beasts with needles in their backs and eyes (lethal injection) or guns on their backs (firing squad), creatures with half a body that drop from the ceiling with nooses around their neck (hanging), creatures that burrow underground (digging out) and one boss that has a particular affinity for-and is made nearly entirely of-poison gas (gas chamber).

SO how are you going to fight them? Luckily for you you will run into a nice little assortment of weapons to use like a shiv, shotguns, Tommy gun (machine gun used by gangsters in the 1930s), revolvers, a dual revolver set, grenades, TNT, Molotov cocktails, and more. But what if you're in a bit of a jam and your weapon's not helping?

Well you have a little something that is called an Insanity Meter that can help. For each monster that you kill your meter will grow. If you just happen to kill a lot of mosnters in any area, Torque and his weapon will be virtually splattered with blood from the attack. When the meter is flashing, press one button and Torque transforms into a monster that can tear through enemies and shake things up if you need to. Keep in mind that you will have to play in certain ways and do certain things to get one of the game's 3 possible endings.

This game is definitely not for kids since there is a lot of bloody violence, seriously disturbing imagery and a lot of swearing. The graphics are pretty good, even if it is a dark and slightly moody atmosphere for the game. But another fun aspect of the game is that the shooting allows you to switch at random from third-person (which you are in most of the game) to first-person at the touch of a button. Additionally as I was playing the game I couldn't help of think of a rather obvious pun while playing...(Hell in Carnate/Hell Incarnate)

All in all, this is a game that a lot of gamers slept on initially, but now that its available for $20 this is a good time if you're not too happy with how Resident Evil: Outbreak was (I know I wasn't) and have your reservations on Resident Evil: Outbreak File #2. So get set to (literally) raise a little hell and unleash The Suffering...

After I finished playing this game, i can honestly say it was one of the few games i've played that was truly scary. It has all of the perfect elements of a good horror game. A big part of the gameplay is just walking around the prison and hearing all the terrifying screams of other inmates and guards being killed off. The Suffering makes you use your imagination, rather than having endless monsters run right up to you, whitch i think is a must for any horror game. You'll turn corners and see a body being pulled up into a ventilation shaft by something you see only a glimpse of, stuff like that.

Once you get a ways into the game, it basically reverts to a regular third person shooter for the most part. You also have the option to make your character, who calls himself "Torque" into a good guy, or bad guy based on several decisions you make throughout the game. I think what really makes this game is the environment. While in the prison, the light are always on the verge of going out, and sometimes do, leaving you to make do with either your flashlight, or a low supply of flares. When this happens, the game is at it's best. This game is rated "M" for a reason, there is a ton of blood and gore, some language, and a plot that involes the brutal murder of his family. Anyone looking for a dark, twisted game that is bound to scare the hell out of you at least a couple of times, then this game is for you.

The Suffering, Midway's much hyped about survival horror game, is solid, horrific fun from beginning to end. Playing as death row inmate Torque, the newest resident of an island prison, he is one of the few survivors of an attack by some horrific monsters in the prison. From then on, you take on a horde of ghastly creatures, while finding a few surviving inmates and guards as well; your choices determine one of the game's three different endings depending on your actions. Torque has plenty of different weapons to his disposal, and as his insanity meter rises, he can transform into his monstrous alter-ego. Besides a bit of a sloppy frame rate and some minor control and camera issues, The Suffering is a fun game, and does offer some replay value with the three different endings. It offers less on puzzle elements and more on bloody action than other games in the genre, which can be both good and bad depending on the gamer. Besides it's third person perspective, the game can also be played in a first person perspective, but that is practically useless when you have to see if something is attacking you from behind. The monsters are varied, albeit repetitive, and are designed reasonably well, while the graphics are solid PS2 fare. The sound is where The Suffering shines; with plenty of shrieks, screams, and everything else that makes survival horror games enjoyable. Be warned however, the game earns it's Mature rating as it is exceptionally violent and contains some of the harshest language to ever be found in a game (then again, considering this is a game revolving around prison inmates, is that a surprise?), but despite it's shortcomings, The Suffering is worth checking out for fans of the genre.

The Suffering is another action game by Midway. It has great gameplay, good action and some really nice music but overall the game is just average. The Suffering has some really awesome game elements and some really creepy atmosphere. The games story is simple. You're sent to death row for a crime may have or may have not done and do not remember any of it except that you're heading to death row. Soon the character "makes some friends" but sadly they all get slaughterd by these unknown beings. To make matters worse once you are free from your cell cops, prison mates are getting slaughterd and torn apart by these things that you still have no clear are. Now the tables have turned and you must escape this prison and find the truth of what happend to your wife and kids. The game is great and has a great storyline too.

The game features some really cool weapons that you get through advancing in the game on your journey to find out what really happend to your wife and kids, you meet up with some prison gaurds and inmates. This is what is really cool about it. You have the choice on helping them out, leaving them there to die, OR killing them which will trigger what ending in the game you get. There are 3 endings in the game what the choices you make are the consiquences you get which triggers what ending you get. The game is chuck full of monsters and cool bosses which will give you hints on about you and your past. The game also features a meter inwhich all the things you inflict will cause the meter to go up and you can trigger a sequence in which you transform into a demon monster and you can slash and tear anything that gets in your way in a limited amount of time. It really doesn't do much for you I just killed anything that got in my way with my shotgun.

The Suffering has something that I really loved about this game...Creepy atmosphere. The game had some really awesome game atmosphere and the very first level in the prison is a perfect example. The game has a perfect creepy atmosphere and a really great music score. The game is really great on that. The game is also very, very, very Mature. It has extreame profanity and lot and lots of extreame gory violence. One part in which you see a man whith nothing but his stomach left but the rest of his body is torn off and his just sqealing like dead fishes..it's really disturbing and if you shoot him and put him out of his misery you acctually earn a good Deed point!..Very disturbing sequence also..

Good
-Great Visuals
-superb atmosphere
-good storyline
-Very creepy score..

Bad
-the game is too short
-some levels look too identical which really ruins the mood of the game
-the game doesn't have much of a side story and that is pretty lame
-It seemed kind of like a SH rip off but still is a great game..

The Ugly
-get the good ending....Poor Torque

Overall this game is one of Midways Finest yet but it fails at all of things that midway could have attempted to fix but didn't. Other then that the game has a great story, Fine Controlls, Great gameplay with lots of fast paced action and some cool atmospheric gameplay with lots of monsters....Overall with all of its pros and cons I gotta give this a

3.9 out of 5 stars....

Good Game overall..

Lates

I own about 30 PS2 games so far, and this is only one of about five of them that I've actually played all the way through to the end. This is a GREAT game!

The graphics are great! The voice-acting is superb and very realistic! The music and sound effects are also great and add to the eerie, disturbing, gritty, frightening, and desolate atmosphere that permeates this game.

One thing I didn't like was that the Final Boss Battle lacked "information" on how you were supposed to kill it. I had to go online to find out how to kill him, which was 100% totally different from how I thought it had to be done.

There were some puzzles, but they weren't of a Myst-like difficulty. Most involved moving boxes and crates, or turning valves on or off.

The monsters in the game were totally spooky. Great designs! They really looked great graphically, and were really scary!

There was plenty of ammo and health drinks scattered throughout the game, so running out of firepower or dying from injuries seldom occurred. In fact, there may have been TOO MUCH ammo laying around to pick up -- I didn't use 2/3 of what was available.

The map feature is nice, but I didn't need to refer to the maps at all for help in getting through the game. Besides, the maps weren't too helpful because they didn't show what locked doors you had already tried or what areas you had already explored, etc.. Not a big deal, but the maps are definitely not as helpful as the maps are in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. So I didn't use the maps at all in this game.

The high level of detail that went into designing this game is just incredible. It is well worth adding to your collection if you liked games such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

the suffereing is based on a man by the name of Torque, who has jus been convicted of killing boht his wife and child. As he enters his cell block, he briefly meets his fellow inmates, before soemthing goes terribly wrong. The lights go out, and a horrific clicking noise fills the cells, followed by blood curdled screams, and then just plain blood, and now the action starts.

The suffereing really isn't one genre for sure, it's several. At one moment it takes the form of a great sction shooter, then the ambience takes over and puts you in mind of a survival horror title. Then you find out you can switch to first person shooter, and it becomes an FPS! That really is the charm of the suffering, its not one thing its many. Its packed with extras, action, and just plain ol' shooting fun.

As for the controls, they are what is to be expected from an action title, with primary use of the analog sticks and shoulder buttons. I did, however, find that doing a 180 degree turn was somewhat difficult, and often resulted in losing some health. When the game changes to an FPS, the transition is done so very well, with just one tap of the buton, you have changed your action title into a first person shooter, a great innovation that would be a welcome addition to many games these days.

The storyline is excellent since its outcome heavily relies on what you as player do. If your the type that loves to kill to get a laugh ina video game, then don't count on getting the good ending. This game has several situation in which you have the chance to help someone. Whether you help that person or not is up to you, but just keep in mind that whether you are good or bad will ultimately decide in the end whether you killed you wife and son or not!

The greatest part of this game that sets it apart from many others is the great ambience. The sound is great (especially if you have your system hooked up through a set of stereo speakers.) The graphics are amazong, and add that much more to the eerie setting.

In conclusion, the suffering is a very wel thought out game, but is a bit on the simple side. I am a fan of all survival horror genres, Resident evil, Silent hill, Fatal frame, it doesn't matter. While this game follows the framework of a survival horror game in no way shape or form, itstill manages to get that scare factor across quite well. If you feel like a change from the usual survival horror action, but still want to be scared in the same way, rent it, believe me thats all the time you'll need to beat it.