The Suffering
Added January 28th, 2004 by Barnolde
*This preview is based off a demo and all information is current upon time of writing.**This preview DOES NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS*
I had my doubts about The Suffering, mostly because I am not a fan of the survival horror genre. I did not expect much of the demo that came on the new OXM disc, as the screenshots and information about the game did little to detour my bias against survival horror games. When I started up the game I had no idea how wrong my bias was.
The demo (and most likely, the game) starts off with your character, named Torque, being put into jail for supposedly killing your family. While you are getting “acquainted” with your new jail cell, you hear from the other inmates how no one knows who really killed your family, and you do not remember a thing. Just a minute into the game, I knew from the language alone, that this game was NOT for kids. Since it’s based in a prison, you can’t expect the prisoners to talk like Harvard professors. Your character doesn’t talk, which adds to his “badass” personality and also adds to the mystery that shrouds him.
Shortly after your cell door closing and locking in your fate, weird things start happening. The lights start flickering and you hear screams from your fellow inmates. The door ends up breaking open, and as you walk and look into the other cells, you see your fellow inmates gruesomely impaled. You grab a shiv (dagger/stake type weapon) from an impaled prisoner and then you go further into the prison.
As for the game itself, it uses MANY elements of surprise to scare you. You can view other parts of the prison through monitors, which often show creatures darting across the screen and more signs of death and destruction. The prison itself is just like the ones we’ve all seen on TV (hopefully not from the inside), which adds quite a bit to the realism. The environment is dark, dank, and especially foreboding with the lights mostly off. Everything seems to have a rusted and worn feel. Great attention is paid to even the most minute details. For example, there is a bloody soap on the ground of the shower (ugh) and there is a book in a prisoner’s cell, entitled “How to grow marijuana and not get caught”, which made me chuckle.
The gameplay itself consists of melee and gun combat. You start off with the shiv, but as you progress, you pick up bigger and better weapons. There is also first person view, which also helps to make the gameplay a bit more varied. The creatures are varied and will require different methods in which you need to dispose of them, before they dispose of you. The creature design is excellent and unique, which provides a well-needed break from the lame zombies that inhabit other games. The combat is excellent, it doesn’t have difficult controls, which leave your character shooting frantically at the wall and controlling like a tank. When you’re in a firefight, you’re agile, which is good, because it sucks to be constrained by bad controls.
This game has many freak-out moments, which are aided very well by the audio. This is one game that must be played with surround sound at night, to be fully experienced. Things will pop out at you, you will see things out of the corner of your eye, and other things will just mess with your head, and make you question what you just saw. There are different ways to do things, and choices for many things, which can cause the gameplay to change. You can be either good or evil, and your actions reflect your choices. One example of this in the demo was when you came across a foul-mouthed and angry prison guard. You have the choice to either kill him and take his gun, or join with him, and fight the enemies side by side. Your choices in the game will have an outcome, as there are three different endings. A feature not shown in the demo is the insanity feature, which will allow you to change into a large creature for purposes of greater attack. No further information about the insanity feature is available, but I have a feeling it has something to do with your choices in the game.
The Suffering is sick, disturbing, violent, gruesome, vile, scary, and incredibly fun. If the demo is just as good as the final game, then Midway has a winner of a title on its hands, and we can only hope that Surreal Software delivers the goods. When the game releases in March, it’s sure to scare a lot of people. If the preview wasn’t enough incentive, if you pre-order The Suffering at GameStop.com or EBGames.com, you will receive a FREE copy of Midway Arcade Treasures.
