Condemned: Criminal Origins

Condemned: Criminal Origins

Condemned: Criminal Origins is a Horror Survival Game produced by Monolith Studios and Published by SEGA for the Xbox 360, and later PC. It was released in North America on November 15th 2005, Europe on December 2nd 2005, August 31st 2006 in Japan. The PC version was released April 11th 2006. It is rated Certificate 18 for a mature audience only, and in some European countries the game was banned completely. The sequel Condemned 2: Bloodshot was released March 11 2008 for Xbox 360 and confusingly Playstation 3.

Plot

The plot of Condemned: Criminal Origins is a complex and confusing one. It is hard to understand and some things, like the main character's psychic connection to serial killers, are never even explained. Condemned: Criminal Origins follows the clean-cut, intelligent and mentally gifted SCU agent Ethan Thomas, and his fight against Metro Citys more colourful criminals, in Metros violent underbelly, which is also laden with drug-fuelled, violent maniacs, hell-bent on destroying everything they come across. It starts on the scene of a serial killing by a killer known only as 'The Match Maker'. But it seems a man that could possibly be the Match Maker, is still loose in the building. Ethan investgates, and after getting electrocuted, the suspect steals his gun. Ethan confronts him and the suspect shoots the two metropolitan police officers that Ethan was with, he then knocks out Ethan. Ethan meets a man named Malcolm Vanhorn, who tells him that the FBI have 'already decided the truth' about the killing of the police officers. The next few levels highlight Ethan chasing the suspect through subway tunnels, and finally onto a subway train. Ethan loses him, and travels to Bart's Department Store as a possible location of The Match Maker. As he proceeds through, he discovers the Match Makers corpse, set up in a date with a female mannequin, which is The Match Makers own modus operandi. The only reason that Ethan knew it was his, was that all of The Match Makers fingerprints are missing an index finger, and the corpse is missing an index finger. Rosa decides that the killer must be a 'Serial Killer X' a serial killer that kills serial killers. They meet in a ruined library, and after Rosa gets kidnapped by an unnamed creature, Ethan finds her, and they identify SKXs next possible victim, a serial killer known as the Torturer, who is currently at St. Josephs school for the severely disabled. After finding The torturers latest victim in his death throes, a ex P.E. teacher at the school who ratted The Torturer out, a man named Samuel Tibbits, who tells Ethan that SKX took The Torturer away. Ethan goes to Apple Seed Orchard, where he finds The Torturers dead body, after the Torturer killed himself. After disguising himself as The Torturer, She jumps SKX and fights him. He then is knocked out by Malcolm, who is revealed as SKX uncle, as SKX being Leland Vanhorn. Leland takes Ethan into a barn, where he takes off one of his fingers. An assassin is seen on the roof, a disfigured beast which Ethan must kill later. Malcolm jumps Leland, and they struggle, with Malcolm saying 'Find the one who caused all this evil'. Ethan follows the assassin through the fields until he confronts it at a barn and kills it. Ethan is then in Malcolms car, and he hears SKX in the boot. He gets out, and it entirely up to the player whether to spare him, or kill him. Either way he gets shot, because if you spare him, he grabs your weapon, and turns it on himself. The end sees Rosa talking to Ethan about it, then she writes on a bit of paper 'I'm Wired'. Ethan is sick in a wash basin at the end, and we see a beast creeping up on him. Ethan spins around and we see he has the same facial metal pieces as the monsters have.

Characters

• Ethan Thomas - An expert SCU agent framed for the deaths of two metropolitian police officers, has psychic connections to Serial Killers, such as The Match Maker. He is responsible for the shooting of SKX, depedning on what the player chooses. He is friedns with Angel Rosa, and Malcolm Vanhorn, and his boss is Ike Farrell.
• Angel Rosa - Ethan's labroatory assistant,and the only SCU personell who believes that Ethan is innocent. She helps him through the entirety of the game, and is kidnapped at Metro City Library by an Oro assassin. She is majorly seen on Ethan's mobile phone, as a mobile source of help, and permits Ethan to full lab access.
• Malcolm Vanhorn - A former friend of Ethan's deceased parents, he is the uncle of the serial killer, known as Serial Killer X aka Leland Vanhorn. He puts himself down as Ethan's friend, bbut betrays Ethan near the end, when he helps Leland. Malcolm helps Ethan escape by fighting with SKX. During the game, he regulary appears at the end of the level, saying he was 'in the area' or suchlike.
• Ike Farrell - Ethan's SCU boss, and believes that Ethan has gone mentally insane when the two officers were found dead by his gun.
• Leland vanhorn}} - aka Serial Killer X, is the game's protagonist. He thrives on killing Serial Killer's using their own methods, like the Match Maker.
• Carl Anderson - aka The Torturer, kills his victims by torturing them until they break and commit suicide.