The Suffering: Ties That Bind

by Midway

Product Features

• Flashbacks move the story along as you define Torque's future path while battling his inner demons, rage, and tenuous grip on sanity
• All-new disturbing characters and monsters in the mix of street crimes, gun violence and riots that prosper in poverty-stricken slums
• Game-defining moral choices affect the game's outcome - each path providing a completely different gaming experience
• New multi-leveled insanity mode is tied directly to players' actions -- Torque's inner demon goes from normal to brutal and bloodthirsty depending on the moral path that players choose
• Redesigned and streamlined inventory, expanded player movement mechanics, refined controls, more varied and advanced enemy AI and a large arsenal of weapons

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000BH3DCE
• Item Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: July 7, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,525 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

The City has its demons...but so do you.Product InformationThe sequel to the genre-defining and award winning action/horror game TheSuffering.The Suffering: Ties That Bind is a revolutionary action-horror game thatemphasizes the disturbing terror of its predecessor with new twisted creaturesand a few familiar faces.  Set in the unforgiving streets and prisons ofBaltimore the player once again controls Torque as he seeks revenge against themysterious grand manipulator Blackmore a man somehow tied to the death ofTorque's family.Players will explore the tough inner-city with poverty and urban injusticestrapping people just as effectively as a physical prison.  The uniquemorality system returns as players delve into the perverse world of Torque'ssanity to discover his past and struggle to control his future.Product Features Journey Into Madness -  Delve deep into Torque's past with flashbacks and define his future path while battling inner demons rage and a tenuous grip on sanity. Disturbing Characters and Creatures - A plethora of brand new ferocious fiends in addition to several returning favorites designed to depict tough societal problems like street crimes gun violence and riots that prosper in poverty stricken slums. Choose Your Path and Choose Your Plot - Define the true story behind the nature of Torque's crimes and his journey into madness with game-defining moral choices that affect the game's outcome.  Each path providing a completely different gaming experience. Master the Rage - New multi-leveled insanity mode is tied directly to players' actions creating the most deadly weapon in the game Torque's inner demon.  This giant horrific creature goes from normal to brutal and bloodthirsty depending on the moral path that players choose to follow. A Seedy Urban World - Explore the gritty slums streets and prisons of Baltimore battling urban

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Yes, I'm suffering. Happy?, May 24, 2006

By 

Warlock One (Portland OR) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Suffering: Ties That Bind (CD-ROM)

All right, obligatory snarky title. I played through the original "The Suffering" and liked it; finding "TTB" for $10, I decided to give it a try and support the series.

It was probably worth $10. I'm glad I didn't pay $30 for it.

If you've played third-person shooters before, you know what to expect on a basic level. You'll spend a lot of time running-and-gunning, discarding empty weapons and picking up new ones, searching for health restoration items, and completing the occasional environment puzzle, some of which are borderline-cliche box-dragging affairs, and others which are moderately clever.

If you didn't play The Suffering: the basis of the story casts you as Torque, a (now escaped) death row inmate whose back story is to a degree dictated by the moral choices you as his controller make during the game. Now in his home town of Baltimore, Torque battles with monsters whose forms seem linked to the horrors of life in a downtrodden slum and with his own inner demons and possibly tenuous grip on reality.

In addition to dictating the storyline's twists and turns, your moral choices affect you in combat. Giving his insanity free reign, Torque can temporarily turn into a monster himself; his form and powers are dictated by whether he has been good, neutral, or evil in his dealings with the various non-aggressive characters he encounters.

Unlike the first game, the player of Ties That Bind will spend a significant amount of time facing versions of monsters that can *only* be beaten in the player's monstrous "insanity" mode and/or blocked by walls that can only be broken through in that mode. The monster can only be accessed when a meter is filled by killing other creatures, which these quasi-invincible creatures fortunately teleport in for you to kill off at regular intervals.

Contrived? Heck yes.

Repetitive and dull? By the end, it sure is.

Also unlike The Suffering, the player can essentially only carry two different weapons at a time (not counting the fact that you can wield some weapons with one in each hand, counting them as a single weapon.) But in areas where you'll face large numbers of enemies, there are convenient ammunition boxes that contain unlimited amounts of ammunition.

Contrived? Heck yes.

Repetitive and dull?... Well, do you want to spend extended periods running back to an ammo box over and over again? This dynamic breaks up much of the flow and joy of combat, especially given how many rounds of many firearms it takes to take down a single enemy. It would incline one to spend more time using the melee weapons, if doing so against many of the enemies wasn't tantamount to suicide.

Additionally, the game has moments that are very poorly planned... Placing the player in areas with limited amounts of resources without apparently having a good sense of how healthy and well armed the player would be when he got there, and then pouring on the enemies. One sequence like this pits you against four or more waves of creatures... And *then* drops a boss on you.

And may I say a word about fire? You will learn to loathe, loathe, LOATHE the factory-issue generic explosive barrels. You will want to blow them up as soon as you see them, because you'll find if you don't, they'll go off at the worst possible time when you accidentally hit them with a stray shot, or an enemy does. Use them to take out enemies? Good luck. Most of the time you'll be too busy running to line up such a providencial shot. And if you're set on fire- by a barrel, by a random piece of burning scenery, by an enemy attack, by a molotov cocktail- you will take a TON of damage. Unless you perform a roll to put yourself out- a combination executed by pressing control, a direction key, and the space bar simultaneously. Good luck with that in the midst of combat. It highlights that the game was designed with a console controller in mind; further highlights include tying grenades to the right mouse button. Change that as soon as possible if you value your life. Nothing like throwing a grenade point blank in the midst of a close encounter.

And then there's the bugs. I came to the game fore-warned about Starforce, and installed on my virtual-drive free laptop. Which only meant I had to spend half an hour poking around to find out why the game was causing a hard crash and reboot. Turns out Starforce doesn't play nice with the Zone Alarm firewall, at least out of the box. Once you update your driver (yes, update your *copy protection's* driver... I know, I know...) it works tolerably well. AI will still occasionally do dumb things, scripted events will occasionally fail to execute, and I'm still waiting for a response from Midway on the odd cut off that occurred in the final cinematic, but... It's nothing crippling, given that the game *does* get things right with a liberal check-point and save system. Kudos for that.

Griping aside, the game has an interesting tone, good production values, an interesting morality dynamic, interesting creature designs. It's a passable run-and-gun with decent atmosphere. Worth your $10, if you like the genre, horror or third-person shooter.

And incidentally, kudos to companies that are ceasing to use bad neighbor Starforce as their copy-protection. A company that refuses to acknowledge the serious problems caused by its software and accuses its detractors of links to organized crime and piracy deserves to see nature take its course.

5.0 out of 5 stars kick ass of a game, January 11, 2012

By 

mattnew - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Suffering: Ties That Bind (CD-ROM)

in the game your in the town center battling against twisted and deformed monsters but all gos wrong when you have the forces after you to. equipped with a gun in your hand and the monster with in what can go wrong.

5.0 out of 5 stars One Scary @$$ Game, January 7, 2011

By 

Chris Wolf - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Suffering: Ties That Bind (CD-ROM)

I ordered this for the computer because i dont have an xbox or ps2 anymore and i obviosly have a computer, lol..

anyway, i didnt get my PC version yet but when this game came out, i could not stop playing it, i beat it many many times and, even tho i forgot most of the game because i was young when it came out, i still know that this game is pretty scary. i still have nightmares from time-to-time about those legless cops with the flashlight in their head. (i forgot what they are called) but this game is worth the price. that is, if youre looking for a scary, good fps, action packed, suspensful, awesome, good quality PC game.. :)