Back in October of 2001, the gaming industry changed. Rockstar unleashed Grand Theft Auto 3, the third entry in their mature GTA franchise. The game had all of the franchises staple gory, over the top violence but this time is beautiful complete 3-D. The game was a hit beyond anyones wildest dreams, and sparked too many clones to count.
More than just clones, GTA ushered in a new era of gaming. Some games, like Max Payne, Hitman or Manhunt have succeeded in the same ways as GTA. Others, like Backyard Wrestling, BMX XXX, Postal 2 or State of Emergency have not, and ended up being nothing more than lame attempts at filling a game with gore and profanity in order to appeal to the older gamers. Midway is even guilty of this themselves. Roadkill anyone?
The Suffering is one of the bloodiest games you’ll ever play. It’s also one of the darkest games ever made, in both the setting and the actual lighting in the game. However, what begins as something that might be pretty good is quickly revealed for the shallow GTA wanna-be so many other games have become. The sluggish controls and bizarre/lackluster story does not help matters much.
Graphics
The first thing you will notice about the game is darkness. Anyone who has ever played Nightmare Creatures 2 knows what to expect. Midway went a bit overboard with the darkness. When lighting effects are used though, they are great. Another plus is the character models. They are pretty good looking, though much too over the top and not enough variety to be scary. However, as good as they look, they animate like crap.
The environements are also a bit too repetitive. I understand the game takes place in one remote area but hey, so do games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil but they do a good job on the variety. It would probably help if everything wasn’t so dark. Lastly, Suffering commits the ultimate action game sin and comes complete with choppyness, slowdown and tons of graphical glitches. Virtually everytime you see a cinema where a gaurd is impaled by a demons blade, you can’t help but laugh because most of the game the blade is probably sticking tothe side of the gaurds head, as opposed to going through it.
Sound
Much like the graphics, Midway did only a decent job with the sound. Some areas are good, others are not. For instance, the demons sound effects are very nice. You can hear them crawling or scraping their way to you from around corners. However, other sound effects such as the guns, etc, are horrible.
The music is also pretty good. Nothing that stands out and makes you want to scour Ebay.com for a Suffering soundtrack, but the stuff fits the mood. The voice acting however, does not. The characters swear way too much for one, and don’t sound genuine at all. They are simply swearing just to swear. All game you are flooded with inner voices supposedly struggling to control you, but they don’t come off as intimidating, scary or cool at all. Much like the gory death scenes ruined by graphical glitches, how am I supposed to be hyped about a cool struggle within when the voice acting is not any good?
Gameplay
In Suffering, you play as Torque. You are a man comdemned to die because you brutally murdered your entire family. Or did you? The answers will be revealed to you as you progress through the game, if you can stomach it that is. Throughout your journey you come across a few CPU controller characters. You can help them, let them help you, or simply kill them. These choices determine what type of ending you get. There are 3 different endings but trust me, not a single one of them are worth playing through the game to see.
Suffering plays out like most other action titles. You progress from room to room, wiping the area clean of enemies, restocking on ammo and health, etc etc. Suffering does have a couple of redeeming qualities though. For instance, the enemy demons are pretty cool looking. There just isn’t enough different types of them. Also, when Torque is angry and covered in enough blood, he can transform into a demon too. Just like other elements of the game though, Midway did a bad job with the transformation because 99% of the enemies are easily killed with your guns and you don’t get any good moves with the demon. Given more thought and time this could have been a killer gameplay feature. As it stands though, it’s about as fun as transforming in Bloody Roar.
Aside from those 2 features, Suffering has nothing else positive really worth mentioning. Everything else is negative. There are tons of AI problems, mostly with the NPC characters. As I said above, you get penalized with a "worse" ending for killing innocent people. In one scene you meet another inmate who knows you. If you don’t kill him, he’ll follow you and eventually find a gun and help you in gunfights. However, once the action gets intense, the guy just runs around blindly, paying you and your line of fire no attention whatsoever. One time I lined up a headshot on a demon and when I fired, the guy ran right into my crosshair and next thing I know Torque is covered in his blood from his bursting head.
Funny? Damn right, it was hilarious. Tedious? Even more so. The game is full of that, even with the enemies. Sometimes they will sneak up on you, then not even attack you.
Lastly I must complain about the story. It starts out very simple but by the end you don’t know what the hell is going on and don’t really care. They don’t reveal much at all about Torque until the end. Everything up until then is just useless filler that was probably more boring than confusing. And I’ll repeat that the endings aren’t worth the playtime. I got the "middle" ending. Turns out Torque pushed his wife down, she hit her head and died. Your son runs in, sees her, runs upstairs and drowns his little brother and then jumps out the window, killing himself.
I haven’t seen such quality story-writing since Mortal Kombat 2. Doh.
Overall
The Suffering is just another one of the "me too! I got blood and vulgarity" titles that have flooded the market. If you are a serious fan of action titles and are looking for something bizarre, maybe it is worth a rental. It can be completely beaten (all 3 endings) in a single weekend though and there’s not much of a challenge, so a $50 investment is definitely not a good one. The game feels rushed because the first I don’t know... third of the game is not bad but the it just goes to hell in a handbasket. Not to mention other features like the transformation that feel just half-assed and incomplete. But this is Midway so maybe that is the best they can do. Wait for Silent Hill 4.
