As many of you know, I have a huge man crush on Condemned: Criminal Origins. I finally got my copy of Condemned 2 yesterday from the postman, who has gone up in my esteem for his timely and friendly customer service. After getting a whopping twenty minutes of playtime last night, mostly due to distractions of the green beer persuasion, here are an unabashed Condemned fanboy's impressions.

Let's start with the presentation, shall we? I liked the nasty, dirty world of the first Condemned. So far, this world seems to be more of the dilapidated city whose name I don't know, but I love. I'm hoping for a variety of environments, as the "dark farm where your only light comes from a burning plank" level from the first game was one of my favorites.

Just like Rev Anthony, I am not enthralled with the new, "angsty" Ethan Thomas. I liked the old Ethan just fine. Greg Grunberg's voice was great in the first game, and the character was likeable in a way that few video game protagonists are. The nu-rock/metal playing in the background of the opening bar scene has me terrified as to the level of cliche that this character is going to be taken to. I understand that Monolith is trying to show how Ethan has changed due to the events of the first game, but not everyone should respond by becoming a gruff anti-hero. I'm hoping that this game doesn't become a textbook example of how to ruin an interesting main character.

The new play mechanics are a welcome change. I like the dual fist combat system, and I feel that on the whole, it gives me much more variety than the first game's "swing weapon, back up, move in, swing weapon" battle tactics. I could never seem to get the block to work just right in the first game, but the block mechanic in the sequel feels natural and works like I would expect it to. My only complaint in combat so far is that I dislike the destructible nature of the weapons. Again, I understand what Monolith is trying to do here, forcing the player into a little more variety, but I'm pretty sure that most metal pipes I've come across don't fall to pieces after hitting a guy in the head five times (note: test ludicrous statement). My other issue is with the timed response button presses. If you're going to give me an opportunity to respond to a situation with a button press, it would be nice to have an idea about the action that button press will cause. I didn't really want to flip that hobo off at the beginning of the game, he was just trying to be nice to me. Sorry, hobo. My bad.

I have to admit that I loved the convoluted story in the first game, and delved into all of the supporting documents that the game's achievements unlocked. Many of the reviews that I've read state that the game starts off well, but detours too far into the supernatural towards the end. I'm fine with this, as I liked the supernatural portions of the first game, and want to see where they take it.

So far, so good, but I have a long way to go with this game before I'll be able to render a final verdict.