Condemned: Criminal Origins [X360]

Condemned is the slowest shooter you've ever played. In fact, it's barely a shooter at all. Sounds strange for a launch game on the most technically advanced console yet, but it's true. Sega's launch title, which made a surprising splash at E3, is almost ready for release and we had a chance to play through several levels in the moody, brutal thriller.

Ethan Thomas is the hero of this darkly CSI -inspired story. Thomas, a forensics specialist, has been framed for the murder of two cops and must use technical tools and pure muscle to overcome the conspiracy that threatens his future. Aiding Thomas is his former lab tech, who pipes in on an advanced cell phone from time to time. But it's Thomas who will be swinging the game's 20 weapons, many of which are brutally improvised from pipes, two by fours and other industrial objects.

Ethan Thomas may be the star, but the main attraction is Condemned 's stellar visual quality. So it's ironic that the graphics engine is used to render the most squalid locales. Players trudge through filthy tunnels, decaying shopping centers, and office buildings strewn with the detritus of a vanished civilization. Indeed, society seems a foreign concept to the game, in which your only points of civilized contact are cell phone calls and the occasional encounter with a mysterious benefactor.

The first level we investigated began in a sort of back alley. A trail of clues led through a locked chain link fence and down into an area that ran next to what seemed to be a very dingy railway. This was our introduction to the game's forensic system; at a certain point in the alleyway, an onscreen prompt suggested the use of an ultraviolet emitter to look for chemical traces.

A button press brings out the forensic tool -- while there are several to use in the game, there's no need to cycle through them all, as the command to use each is context-sensitive. So the same command will equip the chemical sensor in one area and the biological detector in another.

With the sensor engaged, previously unseen stains became apparent on the floor. After focusing on the stain, Condemned switched over to a device that would upload data about the material to Thomas' lab tech, who suggested we look for a number of other clues. In between encounters with several varieties of enemies, other clues (including a long stain left by a dragged body) led us to a corpse and more mysteries.

We then jumped ahead a couple levels to investigate a very nasty shopping center. While clues were found from time to time, the emphasis here was on combat, much of which was up close and very... crunchy. Most inhabitants of Condemned, it seems, are utter malcontents. Desperate drug addicts, thuggish gang members, and creepy men dressed as mannequins are common.

That's right -- men dressed as mannequins. In the shopping center, long-forgotten mannequins remain standing, dressed in old fashions. Approaching them has benefits, as the arms can be pulled off for use as a very effective club. But some are actually people wearing dodgy masks and filled with bloodlust. Beating down these displays in motion became our chief activity in the level.

Almost all combat in Condemned is melee. Monolith has refined the system to use only two basic commands -- an attack and block. While blocking attacks in most games is optional, here it's the most essential action in the game. Each weapon has a different capacity to stop attacks, and a different speed for doing so. Fortunately, when grabbing a weapon, a small window indicates whether it's better or worse than your current one in categories like speed, reach, damage, and blocking. Learning how and when to block with each weapon will be a big part of the game.

For the moment, our re-purposed mannequin arm worked quite well. It left enemies in a battered heap. At this point in the game, most offenders took only a couple of hits to subdue, but that doesn't mean that each fight was necessarily short. In many instances the combat became a drawn-out battle where each combatant attacked and parried, almost as if they were swordsmen. Pipes and fake arms are poor substitutes for katanas, but here they got the job done.

Some weapons also do double duty as tools. The sledgehammer can break padlocks off doors, and a large garage door was accessible only after disabling a control panel with the crowbar. That sledgehammer, incidentally, was our preferred means of attack. It's a slow, brutish thing, capable of great damage. Learning to use it took a bit of time, but it was worth it.

There are guns in the game, as well, but ammo is very limited. Typically, Ethan will have only whatever's in the weapon at when he finds it. Afterwards, rifles become pretty good clubs, but since only one weapon can be carried the best idea seems to be to ditch the empty gun for a heftier tool.

Carrying a firearm certainly has some advantages, especially when a foe goes running away to find a weapon. Most enemies move just as fast as Ethan, so catching up isn't always possible, at least until they've stopped to tear a pipe from the wall to beat Ethan's head in.

The levels of Condemned that we played demonstrated that the game is one of the more unique members of the 360 launch lineup, and we'll be eager to investigate the rest when the system dawns next month.