Condemned: Criminal Origins (Gameplay #2) - Master of Puppets
2After having briefly checked out Condemned 1 two years ago (see earlier video) I quickly got sidetracked and didn't return to the game until a few days ago. What I like the most about this highly unusual "horror brawler" is that - unlike Monolith's other supposedly frightening first-person series FEAR - Condemned is actually kind of scary. There are long stretches of gameplay which consists of simply walking slowly through creepy and depressing rundown buildings while trying to decide whether that sound you just heard was the footsteps of a madman who wants nothing more than to crack your skull with a metal pipe, or if it was just some random background noise. Once in combat the (admittedly rather cartoonish) enemies can be unnervingly erratic and unpredictable in their behavior and frequently try to hide in order to ambush you at a later point (something they actually manage to pull off with surprising regularity). There are also small puzzle-like investigation elements thrown in for good measure, and although these are really just glorified pixel hunts it does give the game a welcome excuse to add more dialogue and story exposition inbetween its action and exploration sequences.
Condemned is a pretty old game by now (in console terms it was an early Xbox 360 release) and the level of detail in the character models and environments isn't up to current standards, but the game becomes very atmospheric when played in stereoscopic 3D on a modern PC. Too bad the second game was only released on consoles (and is now kinda hard to find; at least if you're like me and really don't want to buy used copies of video games).