Suffering for PlayStation 2

Horror video games, though not as popular as other genres, remain a favorite amongst video game players and every now and then there is a Horror title that is a hit. Undoubtedly, the two most popular Horror game series' are Resident Evil and Silent Hill, game series' that have scared gamers and have had them playing them countless times over and over again. And every now and then, for every Horror game that is a hit, there is also a miss, and I don't mean miss as in a bad game, I mean as in one that's sadly overlooked and not given much attention, at least for the time being. Games such as 2002's The Thing (which I reviewed) fall into the category, and The Suffering arguably does too.

Released in Spring 2004 on the PlayStation2, X-Box and PC (and planned for the GameCube before unfortunately getting cancelled) and with quite a bit of hype, the game seemed to fade away shortly after it's release... or did it? It has acquired a considerable following (much like so many Horror films do) and a sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind, is slated for release in September 2005 (just in time for Halloween). The Suffering looks to finally be getting some recognition and a following, and it deserves it too, because it's honestly one of the best games I've played in a long time and has already become one of my all-time favorite games, and while I haven't exactly played a lot of Horror games, I'll go out on a limb and say this is my favorite thus far.


Story:


Torque (full name unknown, and who never speaks throughout the entire game), a Maryland citizen, has just been sentenced to die by lethal injection for murdering his wife and two sons, and is being transferred to Abbott State Penitentiary on Carnate Island, an island with a very troubled and disturbing history full of violence and atrocities. Though Torque has been found guilty and is sentenced to die, he himself is uncertain as to what actually happened, as he claims to have blacked out during his family's murder and is unsure if he really killed them or if the murders were the work of other criminals.

While incarcerated on death row, a mysterious outbreak occurs when Demonic creatures who are formed after various execution methods (representing executions such as decapitation, lethal injection, firing squad, live burial, etc.) attack the prison population, both inmates and guards, and put the already unstable prison into chaos. During the cataclysm, Torque escapes from his cell when his cell door breaks open, and fights to make it out of the prison, slaying the hideous beasts and making both allies and enemies with the prison population, and being tempted by voices he hears to be either good or evil. While fighting to make it out of the prison and off the island alive, he uncovers more about his past and what really happened. Is Torque innocent or guilty, or a little bit of both? That's up to you actually.


The Suffering is an amazing game and immediately became an instant favorite of mine when I first played it after receiving it for my birthday in June 2005. It can be described as a fusion of The Shawshank Redemption, Hellraiser and Die Hard, with touches of The Evil Dead, The Shining, and the prison riot sequence from Natural Born Killers. It has everything I love in a game: an intriguing story with an interesting cast of characters and different branches, a wonderful atmosphere that totally immerses you, and incredibly fun and addicting gameplay featuring good mechanics and features.


The Suffering sports a very interesting story and one that immediately hooked me right from the get go. The entire prison environment and other settings as well (such as the Asylum, wrecked slave ship, caverns, and abandoned World War II fort) all have very interesting (and often quite creepy) backstories that reeled me in like a fish. I also really liked the idea of different story branches and paths, that depending on your actions, whether Torque is innocent or guilty depends on what path you choose; if you help guards and inmates kill the monsters that are running rampant, it will be revealed Torque is innocent, but if you kill everyone in sight, Torque will be guilty and one of the island's Demonic kind, and if you do a little bit of both, Torque isn't exactly evil but he isn't a saint either. The game sports three different endings (good, evil, and neutral) and all are well worth getting - you'll have to play through the game and get all three endings for the full experience.

I really liked the idea of playing as a lead character who's not automatically a hero nor villain, but instead you can make either or even make him both. It's a nice turn from so many other generic Action games. While Torque's nickname may be silly, he makes for one cool game character. The game's script is also quite well-written, with plenty of memorable and witty lines and the plot itself is nicely constructed.

Also worth noting is the prison setting itself - you know a video game has guts when it's main character is an inmate convicted of murder and you're playing as said convicted murderer, and your allies are people of your own ilk. Yes, you'll be making friends (or enemies depending on which path you choose) with prison inmates who are guilty of who knows what, and guards who despise you but may help you out anyways just to survive. The fact players are assuming the role of such a character and having to fight alongside (or against) characters such as prison inmates is certainly quite a disturbing thought.

Another very cool and even *gasp* innovative part of the game are it's truly wicked and nightmarish monsters, who are unlike anything ever seen in a video game. The Suffering's cast of beasts are modeled after various methods of execution: Slayers represent decapitation and have blades for limbs and their heads detached from their torsos; Marksmen are basically lumbering muscular beasts who represent firing squads with a fleshy sack containing a soldier's corpse and dozens of rifles; Mainliners represent lethal injection and have needles filled with toxic chemicals sticking out of their bodies (and even sport said needles for their eyes); Nooseman are based on hanging and are rotted corpses that have been sliced in half and hang from nooses attached to blood pools on ceilings; Burrowers are based on live burials and are wrapped in sacks tied together with sharp chains; Festers represent slave traders and live out the horrible fates that brought upon their slaves with rats bursting out of their stomachs, and there are even two story characters with such backstories; Hermes T. Haight is an evil executioner who took great enjoyment and pride in his work and upon gassing himself in the gas chamber, returned from the dead as a specteral form that emits lethal gas, and Horace Gauge is an inmate who was executed in the electric chair and emits electricity from his body, but unlike Hermes, Horace is there to actually help Torque. These creatures all have very creative backstories and downright disturbing ones too to boot. Forget the generic zombies or giant mutant beasts - these monsters are as disturbing, grotesque and freaky as they come.

And speaking of innovative, a special mention goes to Dr. Killjoy, one of the game's main villains who's one of the most original I've seen in a long time. Yes, you read right: an original game villain. Killjoy is a mad scientist type who performed some deplorable experiments on Asylum patients throughout the first three decades of the 1900s in the Asylum, and after the Asylum closed down he disappeared. What's original about a villain like that? Killjoy appears in the game as a ghost projected through a 16mm film projector, having the appearance of 16mm film with a wide light streak and appearing washed out and ancient, and with a voice very remiscent of film audio from the early decades of the 1900s. It's an awesome concept and one that works very well for the game, and such a villain is quite a breath of fresh air (no pun intended).

One of The Suffering's strongest aspects is it's incredible atmosphere, which really hooks you in and puts you right into the environment you're playing in. From filthy prison cells and showers with more dirt and grime that I can count, an abandoned and haunted Asylum with thinning paint and worn-out structures, a beach with a wrecked slave ship that's badly decayed and rotted, and an abandoned World War II fort that's incredibly dark and grimy, and each setting with many impressive effects, such as rain, fire, searchlights, steam/smoke, etc. all bring everything to frightening life. Add to that some incredibly eerie sound effects, which range from a Slayer's blade skidding on a surface in the background, a Burrower's rumbling underground, someone screaming in deathly pain, and the many disembodied voices you'll hear throughout.

The Suffering is a very scary game. Actually, let me rephrase that: The Suffering is an incredibly scary, spooky, and disturbing game that's honestly one of the most tense and scary I've played in some time. While the game is very heavy on the action (more on that a little later), that doesn't detract from the scare factor. Monsters will often pop up out of nowhere, the many creepy background noises and atmospheric effects can be incredibly unsettling, there are some very disturbing flashbacks and ghostly occurances involving Torque's family (including his two young sons crying to him for help, very haunting), and seeing the game's many hideous beasts emerge from the shadows to strike at you is nothing short of freaky. And did I mention the video monitor you look at that has you on it and features a ghost creeping up behind you, and you turn the camera off only to see that the ghost isn't there? Or how about opening a holding cell in the Asylum and seeing the dismembered but still living body of a prison guard wiggling around? Or walking into a room inside a World War II fort and seeing a skeleton in a chair, and then seeing a flashback of the soldier lying dead in the chair following a suicide? If this all sounds scary, then believe me, it is, and then some. The Suffering is honestly one of the most genuinely scary games I've played, and it even freaked me out a bit when I first played it (of course it helps I did so at night in the dark with the lights out and the volume up ;) ). There's nothing quite like this game when you first play it.

The graphics of the game are really fantastic, and while far from the best the PS2 has to offer, are quite impressive nevertheless. Character and creature models are nicely designed with fluid movements and animations and not looking overly blocky nor pixelated, the environments and settings are all designed with tremendous detail and scope and work in conjunction with the atmosphere, the various special and atmospheric effects all look great (especially the rain and steam, the flickering flare light from the flares you toss, and the beam of light from Torque's flashlight), and on the whole the graphics also sport very high resolution, and rarely if ever show any pixelation or distortion, and I rarely experienced slowdown and clipping when playing. Good job by the designers.

The Suffering also packs an insane amount of blood and gore effects that'll have the most hardcore gorehounds out there howling and jumping, with an unbelievable number of shooting and dismemberment deaths, tons and tons of bloodshed, plenty of decapitations and corpses strewn around, and Torque himself gets quite bloody throughout the game, getting drenched in blood after killing enemies at close range or getting attacked. And the creature designs are gore in their own right. It's worth noting that the creatures were designed by Stan Winston Studios, the same studio and legendary effects maestro behind such awesome creature effects in movies like Aliens, Predator 1 & 2, the Jurassic Park and Terminator trilogies, and Pumpkinhead. Winston has another great piece of work on his resume.

Soundwise the game is quite good, with solid voice acting by the entire cast, who all breathe life into their characters and give them voices that sound believable and not cheesy, the growling and gutteral sounds made by the creatures are nothing short of freaky, and the gunfire and explosions all sound great, very loud and powerful. Atmospheric sound effects such as thunder and steam also sound great. Many of the sound effects are very eerie too and some, like the disembodied voices of Torque's sons crying to him for help, are guaranteed to make your hairs stand up on end.

The most important aspect of any and all games is of course the gameplay. Good news: The Suffering is one of the most fun and addicting games I've played in a long time. This game had me hooked and wouldn't let me go, and not only because of it's awesome story and settings, but because of the sheer fun of the gameplay. Blasting fiendish creatures in dark and dingy prison environments alongside inmates and guards, environments to explore that are both fun and creepy, segments where you're fighting to survive and on your own, and some neat boss battles.

The basic gameplay has you in control of Torque, slaying monsters left and right (and the occasional inmate and guard as well) with weapons that range from Shivs, Axes, Revolvers (which can be wielded both singular and dual), Tommy Guns, Shotguns, Dynamite, Grenades, Flamethrowers (which you actually have to assemble yourself), and even mounted World War II machine guns. Blasting some freakish monster never gets old, and especially when it's in such fun environments like cemeteries, prison cells and showers, World War II bunkers, caverns, prison courts and recreation yards, execution chambers, an Asylum, a sewer tunnel, a rock quarry, a loading dock, and beaches. Often the environments will sport neat details and features as well (like lockers you can open, lights you can flick on and off, machinery you can operate, etc.) and all are very fun to explore and fight in, and can often be quite intense and scary too.

It's also worth noting that the Artificial Intelligence is quite good, with guards and inmates often helping you and being quite responsive and they can generally be of great assistance, killing enemies and showing you pathways and such. It would've been nice to give orders to the non-player characters but the A.I. here is decent and works fine.

The gameplay is pretty basic running and gunning, going from one location to the next and killing all opposition, but there are occasionally some puzzles to solve and rather cleverly done ones too, like having to manuever demolition equipment to make an entrance in a rock quarry or knock over a water tower to put out flames, move crates to make it possible to get higher, flicking on searchlights to kill Slayers (who are vulnerable against extremely bright lights), and some well-done boss battles, like when trapped by Dr. Killjoy and having to destroy the film projectors generating him while dodging Slayers he keeps reviving, destroying electrical switchboards to set Horace's spirit free while he's getting electrocuted in the electric chair and electrical shockwaves are striking you, and trying to blow Hermes' gaseous form into a boiler using steam pipes and moving boxes over grates and shutting off valves to prevent his toxic gas from striking you. Plus there are even some arcade-style shooting segments where you take control of a World War II mounted machine gun and mow down countless monsters.

One of the best features of the game though is the ability to transform into a monster that can wreak some serious havoc and gain a more powerful shockwave attack as you fight more and more in your beast form. When your insanity meter fills up after you kill a large number of enemies, it'll glow, and by pressing the activation button, you'll transform into a massive creature that can really cause some damage by slashing and skewering enemies and using shockwave attacks that increase in strength as you attack more and more in your beast form. You can only be in this form for a limited time and by the time the meter drains your health will also drain (and you can't use your guns nor heal when you're in your beast form), but the meter can be refilled quickly by killing more monsters in your human form. It is very fun to run rampant and fight in your monster form and you'll be doing it very often too.

It also helps a great deal that The Suffering's control scheme is very user-friendly and responsive. Some have griped about the aiming controls (on the PS2 you use the L3 button to move Torque and R3 to aim with the crosshairs), but once you get accustomed to them they work great, and playing the game I didn't really have any issues with the control scheme at all. I also really like that the game has just the right balance of challenge and ease without overdoing either - the game isn't too easy and it isn't too hard either. Some may argue on the medium setting it's too easy, but you can always play on the harder difficulty settings for a significantly tougher challenge. I usually play on the medium setting, and though I can usually breeze through it, there are times I have to be cautious. The game has plenty of ammunition, health pick-ups, flares and flashlight batteries scattered around, so you'll rarely if ever be short of any of these, and they all will come in handy. You can also switch between first and third person views and can play the entire game in first person if you'd like, and the first person view comes in handy when trying to more accurately nail a target, but the targeting crosshair and targeting system are all-around good.

Another very commendable aspect of the gameplay is that I rarely ever felt frustrated playing it - too often these types of games can become too tough at times and be more frustrating and aggrivating than fun. Not so here. The game is extremely fun to play from start to finish, has a good challenge level, decent replay value, great atmosphere, and a very interesting story that encouraged me to play through, and I had so much fun blowing away all these hideous monsters and often having an inmate or guard alongside and even transforming quite frequently. Sure, this kind of running and gunning gameplay has been done before, but The Suffering does it greatly.

And one GREAT aspect of the gameplay is that there are checkpoints scattered throughout the levels and if you die, you start from the checkpoint. Too many of these kinds of games don't have checkpoints and can cause a great deal of frustration when attempting a level multiple times, but the checkpoint system works like a charm here, and will often occur at very convenient spots as well.

In terms of replay value The Suffering is pretty decent, with three different endings to acquire and the very cool archive pages, which you unlock as you progress, and the pages contain various details concerning the origins and backgrounds of the creatures and settings. They are fun to read and sport cool illustrations and nice narration, and you can even unlock bonus pages depending on which endings you get and you can save the settings to view all the pages. Plus the game is so fun that it's easily a game you'll want to play again from time to time.


Overall The Suffering is truly an excellent Action Horror game and one of the best games I've played in a long time, and this is already ranking right up there with the Grand Theft Auto series as my favorite PS2 game series (The Suffering sequel is in development as you're reading this review). Extremely fun and addicting gameplay combined with an incredible atmosphere, good graphics and sound, an intriguing story with many cool twists and turns and even different endings, and a truly awesome and wicked array of villains and creatures, this is everything I love in a game. I have very few negative feelings towards this game, except it could use a little more variety, like more weapons and monsters and maybe some different scenarios as well. Sure gunning down some freakish beast with a Shotgun never gets old, but why not some vehicle driving segments for some variety and freshness? From the sound of it, the sequel will have many more weapons and some new monsters, and quite a bit more diverse gameplay, so variety is looking to be good for Part 2. The inventory system could also use some tweaking, like being able to access it when the game is paused and making scrolling during gameplay easier and more convenient.

The game also sports some great DVD-esque bonus features, including a promotional trailer for the game Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (looks like a neat game), a decent making-of featurette that's around 10 minutes long and features developer interviews with some production footage, and a great 15-minute documentary on a real-life haunted prison in Pennsylvania called Eastern State Penitentiary, with some very eerie footage and illustrations as well as accounts of the paranormal encounters there and the very disturbing history of the prison. For more information on the prison visit http://www.easternstate.org

All in all a great package. Surreal Software (the developers) have a very promising career ahead of them.

Get this game now, it's worth every penny, and make sure you play it at night alone in the dark with the lights out! :)