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HEAVY SPOILER ALERT! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Nope. A plane? Guess again.
It's Monolith and WB Games totally jumping the motherloving shark!
My absolute favorite launch title for 360 was Condemned: Criminal Origins. Here was a game that not only shattered every last one of my nerves, but took steps to create a new spin on a genre I thought was getting a little staid. Atmospheric, compelling, scary as hell, and most possibly most shocking, surprisingly intimate, this was the game that put a tangible face to the nature of fear. All encapsulated in the everyman of Ethan Thomas.
A year and a half later, wtf? Gone is Greg Grunberg's fantastically grounded portrayal of Agent Thomas. Forgotten is the, let's face it, paunchy and relatable visage. It seems that in Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Mr. Thomas has become a gym motivated alcoholic. Contradiction in action. While this seems like a minor quibble, the very nature of the first game hinged on Ethan's ability to act as a convincing conduit between the game and the audience. When he's busted down to a one-liner spouting personification of rage, you lose his struggle against the darkness within as well as his relatability by a majority of the audience.
That's not to say this installment is lacking in the promise department. Character issues aside, this game starts out like gangbusters. The atmosphere of the city takes the bar set by Criminal Origins and says "f' that." Catching up with Ethan Thomas in a bar, we see how much further our hero can fall after already scraping the bottom of the barrel. Permadrunk and alone, he's the only one who knows what's in store for the city. He's seen it before, and it ain't getting any better.
SKX is back, and it's time to strap in and make sure you're sitting on your favorite brown chair. For three missions, the scares are wicked, the beatings brutal, and the investigations much more refined. Everything I had come to know and love was more or less falling into place...
Vocal chords? Poppin' the wha?!
Yeah...spoilers abound. But having played through the game, it still barely makes any sense to me. Apparently, our pasty boozehound hero has vocal chords that can, quite literally, blow your mind. Huh?
This makes him the prime target of a far reaching global secret society that he was born to take down...
Soooo......he's Neo as played by Sebastian Bach?
Of course, they don't start explaining all this until, like, two-thirds through the game. So you're past that point of no return, and all you really can do is just basically lie back and accept it. By that point, you're hooked on the wonderfully intuitive gameplay, gorgeous graphics that go above and beyond the call of duty in immersing you in a lavishly broken down world, and the absolutely genuine shocks waiting virtually every time you turn around. It's tantamount to meeting the woman of your dreams, only to find out she's your long lost first cousin.
Mountains out of molehills aside, there is much to enjoy with Bloodshot. As mentioned before, the gameplay is just so polished that once you find the right rhythm for the punches and the range for the myriad weapons you have constant access to, the beatings become ever so satisfying. Especially when you ramp up for chains and environmental kills. I personally, will never tire of smashing the heads of insane tweakers through the glass of an arcade machine.
Graphically, this game is a shining example in just how gorgeous the darker side of Sears can be. From a dessicated hospital to a defunct bowling alley, a derelict ski lodge to a truly terrifying hotel, this installment is a more than worthy follow-up to the chills and goosebumps elicited by Criminal Origins.
One aspect I was trepidatious about was the inclusion of the Bloodshot Fight Club. A series of modes that basically wind up being little more than pugilistic minigames, this mode turns out to be surprisingly addictive for those who have that thirst for fisticuffs without running the risk of encountering that unwieldy narrative. Online multiplayer is also well constructed and executed. With game types ranging from standard deathmatches to variations on attack and defend and territories. (Note to anyone reading this, I'm down for a Bloodshot game night...)
With video games increasingly becoming not just art, but also a viable narrative medium, I don't think it's too much to ask for a franchised game to remain true to the story style that engendered itself to the masses in the original installment. Developers now have a duty to make sure that their franchised characters keep up a consistent personality and behavior and if they try to take a leap towards the epic from the intimate, to make it logical and believeable.
Despite all it egregious narrative flaws, there is still a level of visual bravado and technical expertise involved here to recommend Bloodshot to anyone in the mood for a good scare and a still original depature from the average shooter.
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