Quite frankly, we’re disgusted. Crack houses aren’t the most welcoming of places and addicts aren’t known for their hospitality, but in the last five minutes we’ve been beset by withered junkies, naked and screaming, their bodies pocked by track marks and weeping sores from the decades of abuse. Pinned to the floor with a rusty syringe being driven towards one eye and a set of gnashing, yellowed teeth inching toward the other, we start to think that perhaps we have methadone in some hidden jacket pocket. If so, the bum can have it, because we want out. We’ve been beaten, stabbed, shot at, and our legs are wet with what seems to be black slime. Or urine, and it says everything about our day so far that we hope it’s the latter.

We’d been playing Condemned 2 for precisely 90 minutes and were having no fun. Yet, perversely enough, were enjoying every sickening minute. Perhaps we should explain, because in a sense this seemingly innocuous statement is actually controversial, particularly to Nintendo fans.

There will be many who will despise Condemned 2 for its total lack of joy, for its black-hearted personality, and the amount of effort that has been poured into faithfully recreating some of the worst places imaginable. The belief exists that games really should be all about fun, a hangover from the days when designers had seven colours to work with, and three of them were different shades of yellow.

By way of example, Gears Of War was lambasted by purists for being ‘too grey’, but we’ve yet to figure out what that means or why we should even care. Suffice to say that if Marcus Fenix were replaced with an anthropomorphised, fluorescent orange dinosaur then Gears would be less grey, but it would also be absolutely terrible. Games are changing, and good design is no longer limited to colourful characters and bright, bouncy levels. Condemned 2 could be the posterchild for this notion – it’s dark, dirty, decayed and disturbing, but there’s just too much skill on show to ignore.

Monolith is a talented studio, but regardless of the inevitable 18-rating, the subject matter of Condemned 2 isn’t necessarily for everyone. The game is undeniably scary, but not in a sophisticated or original way. The game is darkness and slums and hobos and crackheads and sick black ooze. Provoking fear with such immediately repellent images is like shooting fish in a barrel, but Monolith hits its targets so frequently that we can offer little but respect.

The original Condemned eased you into the chaos in order to establish its story and characters. With the sequel there’s no pussyfooting around, no need for too much context. We open on Ethan Thomas as a drunk and a bum, battering a complete stranger unconscious, his mind frazzled by the horror it has endured. Within an hour we’re busting tar zombies into black vapour with one punch, and blowing holes in sinister, giggling addicts with a shotgun. If Condemned was atmospheric, this is nothing less than emotional terrorism.

Indeed, Condemned 2 is so much more intense than its predecessor that – in the early levels at least – we were given good reason to wonder whether Monolith had pushed it too far. The original dissuaded many with its unrelenting gloom, and there is far more overt horror in its sequel. In the simplest possible terms, Condemned 2 is not a nice place to be, though that is often its greatest strength.

Condemned’s horror is entirely derived from reality, so what you see is essentially what you’d least like to be doing if you had any choice in the matter. With the sequel, Monolith seems to be reaching for some level of originality, but it just ends up grabbing fistfuls of Marilyn Manson instead. When it works, however, there are few games in history that have terrified with the same ferocious intensity. Condemned 2 may have relatively few moments of great imagination, but it is a quite stunning feat of detail and atmosphere. Sometimes that’s enough.

Most importantly, though, Monolith has improved on the original in almost every way. Despite the more fanciful enemies, there is a genuine commitment to realism that accentuates the constant sense of unease. The detection is far more sophisticated, allowing you greater control on what equipment to use and when and demanding an almost surgical attention to detail. The combat has also evolved from the simplistic punch/block mechanic of the original to a deeper, combo-based system that requires you to structure your attacks rather than blindly lashing out. In almost every way, Condemned 2 feels less like a game and more like an experience, which is almost certainly what Monolith was striving to achieve. Unfortunately this is also where the game comes unstuck.

The impressive level of detail simply doesn’t sit well against the more fantastic elements of the story, and some poorly contrived set-ups prove damaging to the overall atmosphere. If there is a murder in a public museum, security guards simply don’t have the authority to forbid the police from examining the crime scene. This is surely common sense, but why, then, is there an entire level devoted to you sneaking around a museum for that very reason? Condemned was criticised for its lack of variety and it is admirable that Monolith has attempted to address this, but to justify a stealth mission in this way is a little patronising.

The second level sees you scour a building accompanied by two police officers. Despite being heavily armed and the story demanding that they keep you alive at all costs, you are given a shotgun with just six bullets to defend yourself and sent into every room alone, while they wait outside until, a) the shooting stops b) you emerge further down the hall or c) you die and have to do it all again.

The irony is that Condemned 2 would be even more effective if Monolith didn’t stick so slavishly to its ‘no ammo, no chance’ scenario. If the other officers were allowed to help you, and you had a gun that lasted for more than two minutes, your eventual separation would make the situation seem that much more desperate.

We understand that survival horror is about scarcity, but believability is about context and Monolith occasionally gets the tone wrong. A more absurd example would be one officer’s intimate knowledge of an abandoned doll factory. Apparently he “played there as a kid”, and as a result knows exactly where the manager keeps his gas mask and that he once wrote a secret code on the wall of his office in ultraviolet pen. Although the bizarre thought of a manager of a doll factory even owning a gas mask is never touched upon, the fire looks nice and it gives Monolith the chance to include a few puzzles. Like we said, a little patronising.

The first third of the game is full of these leaps of faith, and only an apologist would be willing to make all of them without asking some serious questions of the creator. If the trend persisted it may have become game-breaking, but after the debacle of the doll factory there is a glorious moment of light as Ethan returns to the police station.

In one stunning level of delirious invention, Monolith shows exactly what it’s capable of. The preceding hours are compelling, but feel like little more than shinier retreads of the original game. The combat and detection are much more accomplished, but they wouldn’t have saved the game from disappointment without a little respite from the darkness. It is an example of compelling drama that stands in comparison with the giddy heights achieved by BioShock, and highlights what the game thus far had failed to deliver, and what its predecessor never quite managed to achieve.

From that moment on we looked at Condemned 2 through different eyes. Every single criticism we have outlined still stands, but that one level grants you a sense of mystery about what lies ahead that’s vital for a game which, until that point, seemed destined to fall into the typical sequel trap of bigger, faster, and more. Just as the horror threatens to die Monolith gives you a reason to carry on, and that is very much to its credit.

Of course, the chances are that around that corner is nothing more than just another crazed junky, waiting to jab syringes in your face and spray ooze (urine?) all over your legs. But in the back of your mind there is that nagging doubt that it will be something more, something different. After all, there’s no greater fear than that of the unknown.

Matt Handrahan