Graphically, it looks considerably better than Criminal Origins. This is to be expected, since the latter was a launch title for the 360, and the developers clearly didn’t know much about how to utilize the resources available to them. As such, the fact that the character models and animation have drastically improved is as expected as it is welcome.

I wish I could say that the gameplay has improved as much as the overall look of the game. Not so, I’m afraid. At least through the first part of the game, everything feels much easier. Let me expand on that. The first thing I noticed when going through the combat tutorial at the start of the game was that I didn’t really need to block to keep from getting clobbered. In the first game, encounters usually began with you having to block a 2x4 being swung at you by a lunging hobo. Then you’d have to watch your opponent and precisely time your blocks and parries until you had sent the bastard to wino hell. Each fight was intense, savage, and thrilling. This time around, however, if you notice a bad guy before he spots you, you could potentially just run up to him and punch him until he dies. Not fun. But hey, who needs intense combat, when you’ve got… minigames? Uh, no. Thanks to God of War and Resident Evil 4, game devs think that tacking a small rhythm minigame onto a fight is sufficient to take monotonous button mashing into something innovative. It’s not.

Unfortunately, the worst consequence of taking the grit out of the combat, is that the game has lost its white-knuckle edge. Playing through the first one was exhausting. Each shadow potentially hid one or more bloodthirsty crazies who could kill you pretty quickly if you weren’t ready for a fight, and the resulting tension was genuinely draining. For this outing, if you’re not worried that you’re a couple of whacks away from game over, the best you can hope for is a jump scare when the weird ash-monster explodes from the ceiling. It’s just not the visceral experience that I loved the first time around.

What I do like is the storytelling. I like that our hero has essentially become one of the lost souls he mercilessly battered in the first installment. I really like that from his (and the player’s) perspective, there isn’t any real indication that he hasn’t succumb to whatever it is that has caused half of his city’s population to turn into brutal psychopaths. Most of all, though, I really like the turn towards horror that this game takes right from the outset. The city is covered in oozing tar, skeletal ash-men lurk in the shadows, and the weird lip-ring dudes are giving you attitude in the most ominous way. Good stuff all. I just wish the gameplay was able to match the tone of the writing.

Overall, I have a lot of serious issues with Condemned 2 that I really hope will resolve themselves as I get a little further along. However, given how fantastic the first game was, I feel justified in being at least somewhat optimistic that they will.

And speaking of violent video games, Stephen King has come out against the proposed Massachusetts law that would lump violent games in with pornography as being “harmful to minors.” Indeed, he even namechecks RE4. This further supports my long-held suspicion that Stephen King is completely awesome.