Game #1103: The Suffering - Ties That Bind

 Seems there's a lot of trauma left to address...

 The Suffering was really good, and so was BloodRayne, so I quickly decided that I'd play both sequels this Octoberween. Like BloodRayne 2 before it, I can't really say that The Suffering: Ties that Bind matches the quality of the original, but at least it made for a decent time.

 In this sequel, you play as Torque again, except that this time you're exploring a city, in a very linear fashion, haunted by... the murder of his wife and children which... is put once again into question just how much of a hand did he have in it. There's a new character introduced, Blackmore, who apparently also had a hand in what happened, and he'll regularly bother you on your quest and... I can't say I cared one bit about this entry's story. From the lazy way it's told, to retreading old ground from the previous game to just how unappealing it was... I didn't care. The original game did it first and did it better. I also didn't like the fact that you'll also take part in shootouts against cops, fighting humans in a horror game isn't my cup of tea, I liked it better when it was just you against the monsters.

 A few mechanics were tweaked... You no longer carry healing items with you, you find them and you use them if you walk over them, otherwise, you just leave them there for reasons unknown to anyone. Does it make the game harder? For the most part, it doesn't. There's still an ammo cap, and even worse, you can only carry two weapons with you. It's funny, you'd think these limitations made the game harder... but it really didn't, if anything, it made it a bit more annoying. When big fights are coming there's usually an infinite ammo cache somewhere to help you, and the only tough parts in the game were tough because you'd be overwhelmed by cops. But as soon as you learn where they come from and how to position yourself to shoot at them as they come out you'll come out on top... eventually. I mean, the game is relatively easy, but there are 3-4 big fight segments that took me an obnoxious amount of times to clear. The first cop fight is particularly bad, to the point I considered dropping the game altogether.

 Still, the core gameplay is still pretty fun. The monster design is fantastic, and the third person shooting works really well, having an almost arcade-like quality to it, since it's quite fast paced. You are supposed to keep on the move while shooting your guns, strafing around your enemies.There are melee weapons too, and I think that throughout most of the game it's a good idea to carry a melee weapon and a ranged weapon, but eventually you'll stick to only the ranged weapons as melee is just too risky. And just like in the first game, while it's supposed to be played in third person, there's an optional first-person mode, and you can play the entire game like that if you want. If anything, a few times I switched to first person just so that I could aim better.

 Despite the new tweaks that force you to be more careful with your health and your weapons... the game felt less scary than before. I think that if the original game didn't exist, and thus I didn't have a direct point of comparison, I would've liked this game a bit more, but as it stands... the first game did everything this one did but better. Heck, even if for the plot fans might as well just ignore this one, as it adds nothing to the story, only make what we knew from the first game more needlessly convoluted. Still, as unnecessary as this game felt, I can't stress enough the fact that it's still fun to play.

7.0