The launch of the Xbox 360 was a strange beast indeed. Hotly anticipated launch titles were pushed back, some of the titles were accused of being rushed, and yet systems have sold out everywhere. One of the more original titles to be released on the system, Condemned: Criminal Origins, is an even stranger beast but, unlike the 360’s launch, is not a good thing.

Brought out by Sega, Condemned takes you into the shoes of FBI agent Ethan Thomas as he investigates the latest in a series of killings by a brutal serial killer. While securing a crime scene, Ethan’s gun is taken, and the weapon is subsequently used to murder two fellow agents. Now being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, Ethan has to weed through the seedy underbelly of the metropolis he calls home and clear his name while continuing his investigation. To add to Ethan’s troubles, he is continually attacked by people on the street who seem urged forward by an unseen tormentor. Thankfully, he is assisted by a very manly looking woman in the crime lab named Rosa who believes that Ethan is innocent.

Condemned in itself is a very interesting experience. Gameplay is particularly varied and while none of it is great, it’s all good and pretty enjoyable overall. You will spend most of the game exploring dark and dingy corridors with your ever-lasting flashlight (it’s really powered by magic, ooooh), looking for clues, and subduing anyone that happens to attack you while crossing your path. When you come across an area containing a clue, you will be prompted to locate it by a video sequence of you picturing the killer’s movements and then a menu pop-up. You then take out one or more of five police devices: A green laser to locate chemical substances, a black light to view spilled bodily fluids, a chemical analyzer to store data on anything you might fight with the prior mentioned devices, a gas spectrometer to sniff out corpses, and finally a digital camera to capture any photographic evidence you may have found. Then you transmit the evidence to Rosa via your highly advanced video cell phone (don’t even ask about the hidden charges there) and she prompts you on any info that might result. This is actually the best part of the game in my opinion and of course it appeals to the CSI nerd inside us all. Just like me, you will begin spewing law enforcement terms like "perimeter," "perp," "incriminating" and "donut." Alas, the story becomes sour in the later stages of the game as the "twists" are rather cheesy and incredibly predictable, and the final battle in itself is also incredibly anti-climatic. You are literally introduced to the final boss in the end of the game, with no previous buildup whatsoever.

In the case you come across anyone who intends to do you some harm, you have two ways to dispatch them. You can either pick up any firearm nearby, and mind you, you only have ammo you find on guns lying around or you could grab a melee weapon. Personally I enjoy the melee weapons so much more. You can grab almost anything that could be feasibly used as a weapon. Rip an electrical conduit right out of the damn wall or a pipe off the ground. You can grab desk drawers and paper cutter blades, or even locker doors. The list just goes on. Then you can either attack with the right trigger or block with the left one. This takes a little of the wind out of your sails being just two attack animations per weapon and one block but for the most part it is in fact fun and each weapon boasts its own stats and some are needed to pass into the next area. If you haven’t beaten the bloody pulp out of your opponent in a few strikes you can finish them him one of the four automatically mapped finishing moves on your D-Pad or just give them a good kick with a press of the stick. It’s of course very satisfying snapping the neck of a perp who just took out at least half of your life bar (which looks like a test tube but that’s neither here nor there).

Honestly, it’s hard to play a suspense game without comparing it to the stellar Resident Evil series. Here Condemned can’t really compare as this game is somewhat moody with few jump scares while RE games make you feel like you may not make it out of your gaming chair alive, or at least without changing your pants. Condemned could certainly use more elements where you feel like someone is stalking you. Every now and again you will see that you’ve disturbed the attack plans of someone that was trying to get the jump on you and they will suddenly move on to Plan B but with every crack head and cop in town on your trail the suspense could have been so much more, which is where this game really suffers in my opinion. Enemy AI is piss poor here as the enemies know nothing of strategy. Maybe it’s because of their respective addictions, lack of education being in the slums, or the illness spreading throughout the city but honestly, when I see someone picking a new hiding place in front of me it’s just hard to act surprised or like I didn’t see them. Add to the fact that AI difficulty does not get harder from level to level and it makes me think I personally have the physical capability to take down these people. Either that or Ethan is just Superman and they just don’t tell us. It’s up to you to decide.

Graphics is the department where Condemned shines. Well, it actually doesn’t shine per se; it’s actually really dark and gloomy. Level design is damn good here. You will go down dingy corridors of abandoned apartment buildings, dark unused subway tunnels, condemned department stores - the list just goes on and on. There are cracks in the walls, holes in the floor, burn marks, tagging of all shapes, sizes, and colors, dirt, garbage, and everything you can think of to make the environments truly unsavory. Also, on a side note the mannequins are excessively creepy and they, along with the corpses, are extremely well made.

So with all the game does right with the graphics, why is it that they suffer when it comes to the game’s character models. The main characters, Ethan and Rosa, are absolutely huge! They look like mountains and I doubt it is the FBI windbreakers they wear throughout the game. Then you have the people afflicted with the later stages of the disease looking like the male and female versions of the scary chick from the Ring movies. The extremes are almost laughable here and definitely knock some points off in my book.

Positional Audio is both a great asset and a huge fault here. On one hand you get the creep factor of hearing your enemy closing in on you. On the other hand, this makes locating your tormentors painstakingly easy; it’s as if your enemies, being educated to sixth grade levels, didn’t make it easy enough for you, you can hear enemies coming for you a mile away. With titles like DOOM 3 and RE 4 having scared the pants off of people with their superb audio, it’s too little too late.

Let me take a moment here to comment on the new "Achievement" system on Xbox Live. For those of you who haven’t played a 360, one of the main functions is this new achievement point system. For doing things in the game like beating a level, collecting a hidden item, doing something a certain way, etc. you get points. These points are stored along with your gamer rating on your Xbox and more importantly on Live. In turn you are assigned a cumulative score based on what you’ve accomplished. Your online buddies can then compare scores and accomplishments with you. This, for the most part, extends playability. In Condemned you can earn points for collecting the hidden goodies that have been left behind. Also, if you go and complete the game without using firearms, you get added bonuses.

Despite all that you can go and collect, the game from beginning to end is about eight to ten hours. This on a new system is just intolerable. Even going back to collect the different items, you can complete everything in about fifteen hours. For the extra ten dollars being dished out on games for the 360, this is intolerable. Therefore, in good conscience, I cannot suggest paying sixty dollars for Condemned. Wait to see if you can buy it used or rent it from any place you know that rents out 360 games.

The 360 has gotten a lot of slack from naysayers. In some respects I can see why; features cut out of sports games, certain titles seeming like they have been rushed, but I still remain a fan. This game is not terrible, far from it, yet it is not great. Condemned is however one of the titles giving the otherwise stellar Xbox 360 a bad name and the climate of games will only get better from here.