If they lose their weapon, they'll run off and find another, or they might just leap at you, grab your arms and try to head-butt you into submission. If you do land a hit they retaliate immediately, using the force of your own attack to spin around and add additional momentum to theirs. They feign attacks, fooling you into blocking early before striking out. They're just as tricky when the fight begins. Sometimes they'll run away and hide, leaping out at you from around a corner when you seek them out. Instead they flit in and out of doorways and move toward you in a bizarre zigzag motion, trying to catch you off guard. When they spot you they rarely attack directly. You usually hear them first, panting, grunting and swearing under their breath as they approach. The amount of work Monolith put into the animation and AI of Condemned's crazed thugs is still remarkable eight years on. Rather than trying to dazzle the player with flashy manoeuvres, Condemned focuses on making its opponents interesting to fight. Condemned has the makings of a brilliant, brilliant detective game. Oh, and a Taser that's stupidly overpowered and completely unbalances the game if you use it. Your fighting abilities are limited to four directional swipes, a kick, and an overarm block that needs to be timed right in order to succeed. There are no flamboyant combos, no pre-animated special moves and no differentiation between light and heavy attacks. The weapons are basic, improvised from lead pipes and planks of wood, and the best weapon in the entire game is simply named the "Stick". Simplicity is the driving force behind Condemned's combat system. Soon the pistol too is conveniently lost, and Ethan is forced to be more creative with his arsenal. Condemned wants you to see what's coming for you, and you're not going to be able to take it out from a distance. You can abuse your torch-shining privileges as much as you like. When asked to turn on your torch by your fellow investigator, there's no icon to suggest a rapidly depleting battery. ![]() Its lead character, FBI Agent Ethan Thomas, doesn't run by default like most FPS protagonists instead he moves with plodding caution through the game's dilapidated environments as he investigates a string of serial murders. But there are little tells that suggest otherwise. ![]() In the beginning it briefly leads you on into thinking it's another standard shooter, even providing you with a pistol as your starting weapon. So it's rather fitting that insanity is the overarching theme of Condemned: Criminal Origins, the first and perhaps only game to really get to grips with first-person melee combat. You'd have to be insane to try to base an entire game on such an awkward mechanic. ![]() That's generally what swinging a weapon feels like in games, clumsy, slow and flat. Now clasp it between your feet, close one eye and try to swing. If you want to replicate this experience in real life, get a stick and sit on the floor. Not only do you have to deal with control systems that simply aren't designed to replicate the surprisingly intricate nature of one person swinging a heavy thing at another person swinging a heavy thing, the first person perspective also severely limits the player's field of view and ability to judge distance. When you consider how difficult it is to make first-person melee combat feel good, this isn't particularly surprising. Games which rely on the mechanic almost entirely, such as Zeno Clash and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, are scarcer still. Only a handful of games feature first-person brawling or swashbuckling at all, and in many of them like Skyrim, Dishonored and Dark Messiah it's only part of the overall experience, mixed together with magic and stealth. ![]() My favourite type of game is the first-person melee fighter, which is an unfortunate preference because the good ones are rarer than Fabergé eggs.
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