Suffering: Ties that Bind Review (no fat)

Game Description

Big words like "Pain", "Suffering", "Tragedy" or "Theater" have always seemed to be under the spotlight of the entertainment industry. The reason for this will probably remain a mystery. Maybe people like big things. Actually, people liked the original game, enough for the developers to give us a sequel for it. Ladies and gentlemen, meet The Suffering: Ties that Bind

The Suffering: Ties that Bind - And other things that bind

Like most sequels, Ties that Bind is strongly bound to its prequel. The story picks up from where The Suffering left us: Torque managed to escape the Carnate Island, and wants to return to Baltimore. However, outside Carnate Island is, by no means, equal to "safe". So Torque is captured again, by a paramilitary organization that calls itself The Foundation. Nevertheless, Torque goes on, although his mental sanity can be doubted. The spirit of his wife asks him to go back to Baltimore and investigate the death of his family.

This gives Torque a boost to go on with his struggle in life, carrying you on the streets of Baltimore. In Torque's shoes, you will find yourself on the streets of Baltimore, trying to find out what happened to your family, fighting against Blackmore, the crime lord, and also trying to fight the strange creatures against which you fought on the island, creatures which have shown up on the streets of the city

The interesting thing here is that, if you have the old saved games from The Suffering, you can use them here. They will influence the way everything evolves, giving the game a considerable amount of depth for someone who has played the prequel

The Suffering: Ties that Bind – The Action

Still, leaving the plot aside, The Suffering: Ties that Bind is an action game, not a novel. Therefore, the action part of it is still the actor under the spotlight in this game, although, compared to the first part, he wears contact lenses.

Quite a few things have changed about how the game plays. The most important is the fact that you can no longer carry an entire arsenal with you. You are limited to two weapons and a handful of grenades. This makes the game a little bit twisted, because not all enemies can be taken out with a shotgun. A melee weapon is actually very important to have. Even though this might seem like an annoying limit, the truth is you'll never really notice it in the bad sense of the word. It feels rather Hollywood-esque. You are no longer able to carry xombium bottles around, either, making the game seem rather checkpoint-based at times.

Aside from the usual weapons, you also have an interesting, let's call it morphing tool, at your disposal. In certain circumstances, the character can turn into a beast with devastating attacks, literally reaping his way through the enemies. Although the attacks themselves are effective, you will feel a little bit disappointed at times though, because the creature mode is not really as impressive as it sounds.

In fact, the overall impression over the weapons is that the people in the art team, the design team and the physics team didn't quite enjoy working with each other. The Colt pistol, which was so cool in the first part, is rather unusable (unless you're very ambitious) for anything but scratching monsters' backs. Even the automatic weapons feel weak compared to what you enemies can do, or compared to what you can do when you turn into a beast.

The enemies you encounter are quite diverse, ranging from humans with guns to beasts with claws. The AI is rendered nicely, with the enemies collaborating where they have to. However, some glitches can still be felt here as well.

The Suffering: Ties that Bind – Decisions & Implications

All through the game, you will be forced to take some moral decisions. These decisions have a strong influence over how your game evolves. You are always "described" by a morality form, which influences not only how the game ends, but also what attacks you can use when you turn into a beast.

Although the gameplay is normally interesting, and has all the premises for being a hit, it does suffer from glitches that will probably disqualify it for many of you after the first few hours. The biggest problem is the blatantly unbalanced game. The difficulty fluctuates a lot along the way, and there are some times when you will be facing ridiculous amounts of enemies, as if people in Baltimore didn't have anything to do but try to kill you. Besides, probably in an attempt to promote the beast mode, the guns you have at your disposal are simply too weak to be of any use at some moments in the game. In the later stages, you will find yourself firing enough bullets at a single enemy to turn him into a projectile, and he'll still come to get you.

The controls are also a bit awkward. 3rd person action games simply don't work that way. The decision upon the controls seems to have been taken under the idea that the game's PC version is the priority.

The Suffering: Ties that Bind – 2 cent

Everything in The Suffering is creepy, starting with the graphics. Although the graphics engine is not necessarily one of the greatest you've seen, the designers did a good job, exploiting every one of its possibilities. The levels include a lot of cleverly lit rooms, scary corridors and many others.

The atmosphere of the game is completed by an interesting blend of sounds. In fact, the sound plays an important part in the game, since a part of the way the story unfolds is done through the voices Torque hears. The overall artistic design is done in order to set a mood, and that works quite well.

Price

The game currently retails for 19.91$, which is fair for the amount of good gameplay you get