The Suffering: Prison is Hell (2004)

Quote :

The Suffering is a video game developed by Surreal Software and published by Midway Games, released in 2004 for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and the PC.
A sequel, called The Suffering: Ties That Bind was released in September 2005.
A film adaptation (IMDB link) was announced by Midway and MTV Films to be released in 2009.
The game featured monster designs by Stan Winston.
In September 2008, the PC version of the first game was made free for download.

Just to make a little sub-note here, Stan Winston has also designed first-hand the most popular characters in the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, the Aliens series, the Predator series and many more sci-fi productions for which he's gathered 4 Oscars and many more other awards. So just the idea that this one guy created the Predator, Ellen Ripley's Xenomorphs and the red-eyed Arnold's Exo-skeleton is completely mind-blowing!!!

Back to this game...
I'm not a horror head, honestly. When a freak jumps outta the dark to maul me I experience a combination of shock, freight, frustration and quickly getting pissed off. But the day The Suffering was released as "free for download" I thought to myself "why the hell not?".
So I took it on, played it... then played it some more... I expanded my playing time for hours and hours, so that in 3 full nights I finished it and started over.
The "who", the "where", the "what the HELL!?", the "how in the woooorld?!" and the "am I gonna make it out of this?" quickly converted me from a casual player to a BIG FAN of this game's franchise.

Let me translate:
WHO - Torque is awesome in that bad-mo'fo' not-to-be-fucked-with way and he's got mad skillz with any weapon he gets his hands on
The other main characters (especially the spirits and villains) are very well defined and developed, the voice-casting is perfect and overall production of the cutscenes and dialogues is really captivating.
The creatures are flawless, though the mainliner reminds me of Golum a bit, it preceded him so Tolkien can shove it xD

WHERE - Carnate Island is the perfect most original, complex, terrifying and well thought-out action stage for all the horrors a team of human beings could ever imagine: a super-max penitentiary, an asylum (doc's mansion), a quarry, a dock, grave-yard, sewers and many more aweful settings you'll shiver your boots through.

WHAT - The apocalyptic outburst (of a various palette of incredibly amazing creatures Stan Winston was so inspired to design) is very well scripted and offers a great incentive for this action-packed thriller video-game, with stage difficulties ranging from "walk in the park" to "Ye who enter here leave all hope behind." (Dante - Inferno reference ).

HOW - self-explanatory motto: "INSANITY is your DEADLIEST weapon!"
Also, not unprecedented but very well projected is the multiple-ending scenario where the choices you take through-out the game affect the way it will lay out for you to the end. There are 3 morality paths: Good/Neutral/Evil, all worth experiencing, all professionally differentiated and exposed as you maim your way deeper down the plot-line.

Graphic quality or realism is not an attribute to any 2003-2004 release of any video-game company so don't stress it, alright? For the amount of action this game provides you really have nothing to complain about! Realism is overrated anyway

I guess you'd have to try the game out if you wanna understand what I'm about here, but in order to make my review of this game more convincing, here's a few screenshots I took (by Fraps means) of the gameplay:


Review on the sequel "Ties That Bind" to be followed shortly

Was a fun game at it's time.