5/10

This game blew my mind in 2007 but I did not enjoy playing it in 2025. It's 20 years old and it is how it is with old games like this, you have to look at what they were, what they did and block out what they are now. However, considering this is a Monolith Studios game, you can actually just look at what they were making at the time and compare it to that.

Condemned: Criminal Origins is an FPS with what is essentially a sword fighting mechanic. The concept is fine but the implementation of the mechanics is horrendous. It is an awful game to control, with timed blocks that make zero sense, firearms that do not feel realistic in any way, very limited in everything you do, including running which is basically non-functional in this game. It is 100% narrative over gameplay and compared to its tonal influences like David Fincher's 'Se7en', it just isn't cleverly written or plotted well or even original.

Back to the gameplay, Monolith should have WALKED this kind of game. They were well and truly established as an A-Grade Platinum First Person Shooter studio with a fair claim at the top spot, even against ID Software, Bungie and Valve. Their game F.E.A.R. which came out shortly before this is a stone cold classic with an incredible range of original and well-implemented mechanics, none of which feature in Condemned: Criminal Origins. The Operative: No-One Lives Forever before F.E.A.R. is another classic which is better than this, and earlier than THAT is Blood and Blood II: The Chosen which also still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rule.

With a Monolith productions team and a Sega budget, there's no excuse for a game that controls this poorly. It's a game controller required experience and that was its "thing" at the time of release. It was supposed feel tactile and sluggish on the Xbox 360 controller to offer a differing gameplay experience that felt less like a silky-smooth shooter and more like a physical effort. This PC Steam version does not support controllers natively and I couldn't be bothered setting up an antimacro profile for it so I just mouse and keyboarded it, and the game without its USP does not hold up.

Yes the level in the closed down department store is really cool and one of the most memorable levels in gaming, got to give it credit for that, hence the thumbs up. An important moment in Horror Game History. No recommendation for casual gamers, but if you are a huge horror game nerd you might as well play that level and uninstall.

played this when on Xbox. will always remember being able to take the blade off a paper cutter and use it as a weapon. Epic

Working on this at the moment. It needs the same HID input fix provided by the community that F.E.A.R needs for modern hardware but besides that its atmosphere is amazing.

Dont know why it lists I've only played an hour, when I have finished this multiple times. Condemned is dripping with atmosphere. Game follows a cop, who has more to him than expected, as he's framed for murder and has to find the person who framed him and the killer he was pursuing previously...all while dealing with a city wide pandemic and being wanted by the police.

Game is heavily melee based, although a bit simple. is really fun. Fighting enemies feels like actually fighting a person, and enemy animations can be really unpredictable. Enemies like to ambush, and in this environment is heavily helping the tension and atmosphere. The combat feels meaty, and everytime I hit someone with a pipe, I wince a little. This game also has one of the scariest sections in a game I have experienced involving manniquins.

For the Negatives, this game did come out as a 360 launch title and is a bit rough in the character models, and some textures look smudged due to how old they were. Still environments are dark enough that you dont notice how bad some of the textures are. Plot wise the game also devolves a little towards the end as it enters a more paranormal territory. I was also not the biggest fan of the Dead bird plot thread. The PC release does not support Controllers natively, despite being a 360 launch title, but community controller profiles work well enough. However I havent found a way to do executions on controller, which is a bummer.

Overall, if you are a fan of horror games, this is one of the ones I consider a must play. I would also recommend the sequel, but that one never released on PC.