Condemned: Criminal Origins

The 2005 masterclass in Horror from Monolith Productions, the same developer responsible for such classics as Blood, No One Lives Forever and Aliens vs Predator 2. Condemned was inspired by films "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Se7en".

Fun fact: Originally released for Xbox 360 in 2005, Monolith released F.E.A.R a month before on PC. Condemned was ported to PC a year later in 2006.

Condemned features a top FPS combat system and great pacing with unsettling atmosphere. The one downside is how heavy and slow the walking is in certain sections, almost feels like you are not even moving.

Fun beating up homeless people :)

Unplayable. Performance issues including FPS drops and continuous crashes.

A hood classic, that works perfectly on the steam deck.

As a kid I really didn't realize how terrible the story and balancing of combat was.
Sound design and atmosphere are amazing, while not scary as an adult, as a kid I couldn't get past the first level and would quickly alt + f4.
Parts of combat are clever and very ahead for it's time, like having to conserve firearms and ammo, or having to dodge & parry a variety of attack styles in a fast paced game. The bad thing about combat is the taser which allows you to stun any enemy every 5 seconds, and later on even 1 shot enemies. The executions are an extreme gimmick and very underwhelming.

Overall at the discount price it's a very good linear game that can be completed in a day or two, the developers thankfully didn't drag it out too much.

Wish they would have ported the sequel even though I hear it's trash. Love replaying through this game after playing it years ago. 3 things to note: *You'll need to install a mod pack from the steam community page to run the game or else the frame rate will make it unplayable *Depending on the mod pack you install you'll want to reload the game after every chapter because the frame rate will die out *Quicksave often it's an old game and this helps with some of the janky parts of it

It's a good game, but its not at its best mising sounds,bad frame rate and no widescreen support. sega fix the port please.

I loved this game and 100% it when I was younger. I used to play it alone in the middle of the night in the dark and it shat me up for real. I wanted to grab it specifically to collect dead birds and pieces of metal like one of the drugged up homeless people that this mad cop keeps blasting away without warning, alas, the game works TERRIBLY.

First off, if you were planning to play on control either, expect to map all of the buttons yourself in game with zero reference using possibly the most awkward interface I've ever encountered (this is what I did, it kind of works) or, do what a normal person would do and intsall Xwininput or whatever its called, which will allow you to map your controller to the game using a modern interface that makes sense. TLDR controller bad.

second, while playing the game you will experience what feels like input lag but essentially the game is barely clinging to life and it takes a second for it to figure anything out. it started off sort of promising and I really wasn't expecting much, I don't care how it looks honestly and I would have played with a second of input delay (even though it hurt to fight anyone and most of the time I couldn't tell if my melee attacks were even connecting/doing damage just had to guess with blocking too)

but, unfortunately, finally, on a modern machine with the biggest i7 there was and an RTX30'series graphics card etc etc. this game would only work "sort of well" for X amount of time (not super long it varies I played like a solid 30minutes once I got everything set up and was near the end of the first mission when it all went haywire) the game absolutely will give up the ghost and stop working, the number of frames I was allowed slowly decreased until I was playing the game in single movements once every so often so that I was nothing more than an apparition, floating down the hallways. It doesn't work, its a slow burning dumpster fire of a port (I'm assuming) and its only a matter of time before you watch your childhood favourite crack head killer warp before your very own eyes more than he could inside the story of the game.

seeing as this game doesn't support steam achievements anyway, and I got it on sale for less than 2 units of my local currency, I don't really feel like I'm missing much anyway. sad story, great game, terrible ******* version.

Slightly overrated but a semi-classic. These hobos will have you shivering. The melee combat just about holds up still.

average day in Portland

Very fun and creepy game, i wish steam would get part 2 as well. Only problem i had was the game kept crashing every time i played which got annoying, but it would happen far in-between each gaming session. 8.7/10

good game, not trash I promise papi

Condom'd: Criminal Orgasms

Oyun fizikleri doyumsuz bir zevk veriyor. Asla bulamayacğın dediğim bir oyundu. Çok eskiden beri arada bir aklıma gelen bir oyundu. Sonunda Steam üzerinden aldım.

fuck pyrocynical

Somehow someone at Monolith was able to predict the direction that horror games were heading, as several sections of this game feel similar to those of Amnesia, Outlast, or PT. It also falls into the trappings of a game from 2005; levels are littered with random collectables, nearly every action is context sensitive, and there's this crazy "moral choice" ending that feels like it was added in at the last minute. Some of these are charming, others not so much.

Overall while I'm not a huge fan of everything this game has to offer, I still highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see an early attempt at a modern horror game. There are even a few lessons modern horror games could learn from this one. I sincerely hope Monolith decides to revisit this classic with either a remake, another sequel, or a spiritual successor someday.

haven't been so paranoid playing a game in my life
highly recommend :)

Condemned is one of the rare video games I play back and forth. On my old account, I have easily logged over 100 hours alone. It's an urban explorers' dream. Spaces normally forbidden to the public open to us all in a format that is shown through a story that could easily succeed as a full-fledged series of a season of two or a well made movie. The spaces shown in this game, I believe - are beautiful and filled with history (Okay, fine, an elementary school isn't the New York City Subway System...but the general concepts apply.)

The lighting, story, and gameplay still presents it's self well and is well deserving of a modern remake - nothing redone. But as close to a 1:1 rendition but allowing for modern sensibilities. Some of the best moments WAS walking stretches of the subway and platforms as well as the numerous buildings before an encounter..... EX: Office space, streets, a department store. Before you get at me ....people like us see the nuances in these buildings and spaces....and whey they can offer and do with regards to the situations presented in game and if we went to these places ourselves.

An action game where you have the speed and combat capabilities of a turtle.

timeless masterpiece, takes you back to days of max payne.

I played this game when it first released on Xbox 360. The FPS melee combat and horror was a fantastic mix. REMASTER PLEASE!! Or at least acheivments on steam!!

A truly unsettling and grimy experience. Nothing else quite like it.
Voice acting and overall presentation holds up really well (lumpy potato people aside).

awesome game

An old school horror game made by Monolith Productions of F.E.A.R. (And Middle earth shadow of mordor) fame.
Won't go much into the story as it's best you experience it yourself IE: Track down a serial killer.
Released shortly after the first F.E.A.R. it holds the same charm: The terrific atmosphere alongside intelligent (well somewhat less in Condemned.) enemy AI.
Enemies hide behind walls to ambush you, flee purely to get better weaponry or ambush positions, different factions of druggies either fight amongst themselves or work together to take you down.
Armed with your trusty tazer and whatever item you can get your hands on, you end up relying on melee combat for most of the game and most ranged weapons barely holding more than 5 bullets.
For a game made all the way in 2005 (well this port was 2006 but still) It still holds up, which isn't suprising since Monolith used to make great horror games.
Highly recommend it as a game you can play for the novelty and if you like some good old horror atmosphere.

Genuinely creepy game. This was one of the first I played when the XBOX360 came out. Even all these years later it still sticks out in my mind because of the erie atmosphere and jump in graphics compared to PS2 era stuff, especially the lighting and motion capture. The ambient sound and music is also really good (the main voice actor isnt that great though). I realized the gameplay is also pretty solid as I go through it again now. If you look at the recent Resident Evil games and stuff like Dying Light I think some of those took a cue from the story telling of first person horror like this. even The Last of Us has crazed tweakers and violent freaks similar to Condemned, as well as an animal-born type plague. This game did a lot of those things first but not as many people played it

A good 7/10 Horror experience

with the amount of flying ragdolls this game doesn't feel scary but rather a team fortress 2 ragdoll compilation wrapped around a horror game

Still one of the best horror games ever in my opinion.

Download the Widescreen and FOV fix & its perfect.

Great game. Wish you could throw objects at enemies, adds to the desperate combat.

Had to mod it a bit to fix a few issues but its still a pretty good port. I enjoyed my time with Condemned. The atmosphere was fantastic. Gameplay was very solid. I liked melee combat and how unpredictable enemy AI was. Blocking is a bit weird at first but you get used to it. Guns are a nice power weapon to ease tension but don't last long which is good, the game does get easier when you have a gun. Investigations add variety to levels and do a good job of making you feel like a proper detective solving a mystery. Story was pretty good up until a point near the end where it goes off the rails, same with the gameplay. The game is great for the most part but that last chunk is really disappointing in my opinion. I'd probably give it a 7 or 7.5/10.

Revisiting this game after nearly 20 years I can conclude it still holds up very well.

Condemned: Criminal Origins is a real tone poem and a perfect example of "less is more". All you do is explore creepy abandoned buildings and fight rabid degenerates. No leveling, no inventory, barely even a HUD. Just atmosphere so thick you can cut it with a knife. Execution is near perfect, from sound design to lighting. The enemy AI deserves special mention, providing a frequent source of organic tension and scares.

The final level is a bit of a dud and the story is a little wacky (and gets increasingly so as the game goes on), but apart from that a very enjoyable experience. Strong recommend!

very good old horror game. just have to install patches.

Kill homeless people and crackheads simulator, also you collect dead birds for some reason.

Condemned is a first person melee horror game where you play as police officer Ethan Thomas who in the beginning of the game was investigating a murder crime scene with a couple other officers. Then something goes wrong and Thomas gets accused of killing the officers he went with at the crime scene, and then later on in the game he learns that he isn't an ordinary human being (he's a special boy).

The gameplay consists of you going through 10 linear levels. Combat mostly involves you hitting enemies with melee weapons like axes, planks of wood, sledge hammers, and etc. There are guns in the game, but they are terrible to use, but its obviously by design because this game want's you to play it like a melee game most of the time. Most of the time when I ran into a gun in the game I mostly ignored it, you also have a taser that can stun enemies that are in a distance. If a enemy has like a gun you can taser him and then whack them with a melee weapon. The only gun I liked was the assault rifle mainly because it had the most amount of ammunition out of the other guns. When a gun is out of ammo you can whack enemies with it. When fighting with melee weapons you can swing your current weapon, block with it, and kick (pretty standard I know). When you have a gun there isn't a cross hair on the screen for where the bullet will go. Guns in general are kind of weak, and there aren't any ammo pick ups for the guns. The only way to get more ammo for a gun is just to pick up a new one if you happen to find one. You can't grab ammo from a gun on the ground that you currently have equipped, like if you are holding a pistol you can't grab more ammo from a pistol you found on the ground.

I "think" there were some situations in the game for me where it didn't play any sound for whatever reason, or maybe it wasn't supposed to? A couple explosions I ran into the game didn't play any sound effects. Also there was this one part in the game where the main character is on a platform behind a train that is moving. For me when I played through that it made literally no noise, like I think it should have made noise for the train moving and the homeless people that where trying to attack me on the train but it didn't? The rest of the game ran fine besides those two issues, there are apparently fan patches that fixes some issues this port might have but again it ran mostly fine for me.

Puzzles in this game are usually like get this specific weapon to interact with this specific object. For example some doors need you to chop it down with a axe, some doors require you to bash a lock with a sledgehammer, and some safes require you to pry it open with a crowbar. There is one point in the game where there is a "riddle", but a woman that the main character talks with over the phone a lot during the game will just give you the solution to it if you wait long enough.

Condemned runs on the same engine as F.E.A.R. so both games sort of look similar. Although I recommend F.E.A.R. much more than Condemned because that game is such an excellent shooter even though both games are different, Condemned was pretty good I guess.

Condemned really likes it's bloom effect, it's a lot more obnoxious in the scenes where the main character has a mental breakdown and the game just s,hits weird lighting effects at you like it's trying to blind you.

Condemned has a sequel that I haven't played and it doesn't have a pc port (as far as I know), apparently people are divisive if it's a good game or not from what I heard.

According to SteamDB Condemned can go as low as 3.73 USD and I definitely recommend picking this game up for that price for a short horror game that took me close to 6 hours to finish.

Not quite groundbreaking like F.E.A.R was but at the same time it doesn't try to be and I really have to applaud Monolith for trying something this ambitious so early into the 7th gen. Definitely worth a play through but i'd recommend looking through the Guides on steam for game fixes, especially if you're running the game on modern hardware.

Fun horror game with underdeveloped combat and repetitive mission design that's elevated by its incredible atmosphere.

The plot of Condemned: Criminal Origins takes place in Metro City. This city has never had a good reputation: low standard of living, low wages, a serious problem with the homeless, a fairly high crime rate, etc. But for many years, law enforcement officers managed to curb crime and maintain at least some order.But everything changed in a matter of weeks. Inexplicably, the already high crime rate increased by several tens of percent. And the rate of fatal attacks has increased 28 times. In addition, law enforcement officers found out that just at this time people began to complain en masse about local sources of strange sound throughout the city.According to observations, it is this sound that causes uncontrollable aggression in many citizens. On top of that, the same sound literally destroyed the brains of all the birds in the vicinity, which led to a huge number of decaying feathered corpses throughout the city.The main character of the game is a middle-aged man named Ethan Thomas. He has been working for the FBI for many years, namely as an agent in the serial murder department. It just so happens that Metro City is “famous” for a dozen serial killers whose cases have still not been solved. The plot of the game begins at the moment when Ethan and his partners arrive at the next murder scene, which is attributed to the killer nicknamed the Match Maker.But Ethan could not even imagine that this evening would change his life forever. After all, it ends with both of Ethan’s partners being killed by an unknown person using our main character’s pistol, thereby framing him. And, of course, it is Ethan who is now considered the main suspect.Having already returned home after the incident, Ethan experiences incredibly frightening and crazy hallucinations for the first time. Around the same moment, in his apartment, Ethan meets one of the important plot characters - Malcolm Vanhorn, a friend of his father. It is Malcolm who warns that Ethan is now being hunted by his own department.From this moment begins the long and thorny path of one man, who will make his way through the most seedy places of the city in search of one killer.With each stage passed, this path will become crazier and crazier, smoothly blurring the line between reality and hallucinations. And the number of unexpected turns will shock not only the player, but also the main character himself.At its core, Condemned is a classic first-person action game, where all we need to do is go from one point to another and destroy enemies along the way.The combat in the game is quite fun; you can use almost anything you can get your hands on as a weapon. There are problems with firearms, so try to save ammo.The game deserves your attention. And the atmosphere of constant tension will not let you get bored during the passage.

not a great port, but a really good game. needs a direct x fix to keep the fps from chugging.

A great game similar to F.E.A.R in some ways. But darker, and scarier environments. Few chapters in now and i definitely, wholeheartedly recommend this game. The story seems interesting enough and most other things are really well made too. It is a slow paced FPS game, compared to F.E.A.R, which is more fast paced. So if you prefer that quicker kind of combat maybe this isn't the game for you.

I do recommend, but this is from the era of console games that were extremely linear, limiting player agency. Despite this, the criminal investigation side of the narrative kept me entertained, as well as the fairly unique combat. You'll find yourself using many improvised melee weapons, with the occasional gun, and your trusty taser.

My main gripe about the game is that the story seems to go off the rails towards the end. After the credits rolled, I was left scratching my head.

The first time I launched this game, I was stuck on a black screen. Did some research on how to fix it, got it fixed, stuck at sub 30fps. Did some more research on how to fix that, game wouldn't launch. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling and it finally ran fine. Not a great start...

Finally after fixing the game, I was able to play it! Hooray? The idea of the game seems really interesting, I heard great things about the horror aspects and the story so I wanted to give it a shot. There are a few things that already made me give up on the game within an hour of playing.

I've never played a game that at the same time feels so linear and like such a maze at the same time. It's nothing but tight hallways everywhere you go. The game feels so linear and then you'll just reach a dead end. You turn around to find a new door open. That has been the level design formula pretty much the whole way through so far. Either that or you make a big loop to unlock a door and return back down the hallway you came from. This isn't about you making a wrong turn, it's literally how the stages are designed for you to progress. At one point I went into a small office, paused the game for a few minutes, came back, and genuinely forgot which way I came from and where I should be going because everything just looks the same.

The movement feels really cumbersome. This may be part of the theme of a horror game but you can sprint for probably 3-4 seconds and then have to wait 10-12 seconds to regain your stamina. Walking speed is just annoyingly slow. Moving up and down stairs feels even worse. It's like your character moves six inches on the step, then has to stop to climb the next step, and repeat that whole process. I almost feel like it may be an issue with the frame rates knowing how older games are. I did not test this with low frame rates to see if it was an engine problem but I'd rather not have to play the game at sub 30fps for stairs to feel normal.

The combat is just the absolute worst. It's mostly combat based and blocking just doesn't feel like it works at all. The whole thing is so clunky that you're forced to use a taser and beat them up while they can't attack. If you're up against two enemies at the same time, just swing frantically and hope you kill them before they kill you because you're probably not blocking. Again, this may be an issue with higher frame rates in the engine, I did not test lower frame rates, but the blocking and combat as a whole just does not feel good.

I'm sure the game has a great horror vibe and story, I know it's a cult classic, but at this point in the gaming industry, this is a bad game at worst or a game that has aged poorly at best. Either way, it's not worth your time anymore.

A short and sweet survival horror game! While it is pretty short and requires some modding on your end to make it work on pc, when you do get it working, its a pretty good single player horror game, especially considering its a very early Xbox 360 title thats almost 20 years old.

(If you need help modding the game to make it work then feel free to use the guide here!: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593741074 If that don't work for ya, well im sure there are other resources on the internet you can use, or you can get a Xbox 360 copy of the game and play it on that instead.)

Ok game. Has a lot of REALLY good ideas but needs some fixes to get working. Also the ability to more faster then the speed of smell down steps would be nice.

This game is really good, but unfortunately becomes less and less so as it goes on. It starts out as a Seven inspired horror detective game and homeless brawler but it takes a supernatural turn that is just not as appealing and does not feel like it even fits. It could have worked, but does not. What does work though is the incredible dingy atmosphere, horror, sound design and melee combat. This is still imo sort of a bar to reach when it comes to the combat part. It is frantic, quick and brutal with you literally pulling pipes off walls and hitting the actual teeth out from peoples faces. Fantastic stuff. Also a few of the different horror sequences are like unbelievably good and iconic (the damn mannequins...). It is a bit too inconsistent for my taste, but I would love to see this franchise see some new love but it will never happen as the sequel went too off the rails (also due to it not being as good). Cool game!

You need to install two mods to get the game running (See Steam Discussions for the fixes).

Back in the day Silent Hill and Resident Evil dominated the horror genre of the early to late 2000's, but Criminal Origins is so underappreciated for not only bringing a confusing yet engaging terrifying story it backs it up with great combat and the best hobo enemies you'll ever kill. It saddens me that this game doesn't get talked about allot for some of the all time greats of horror games but it holds its own and then some.

Condemned: Criminal Origins Review

The Game

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fantastic game, one of my favorite horror and crime themed games, wish it would get a remake honestly as it is showing its age.
also
bring condemned 2 on pc pls i beg

Smashing Kenzos with lead pipes, a Philadelphian's dream. Even better when blasting them with 12ga. My friends and I often joke about driving around the ave, firing blowdarts laced with Narcan at the Kenzoids. This game makes the 'zoids out to be more threatening than they are in reality; in person, they're usually doing the FentSlump (tm) and can be easily dispatched with a crowbar to the base of the skull.

It's certainly showing its age, and it will take some troubleshooting online to get working right.

But this is a fantastic piece of gaming history. Highly recommend. Great for streaming to friends while playing.

Neat concept for a game. Enemies seem balanced, and has a good story. The downside is janky controls. Walking and running are inconsistent and you seem to get stuck on nothing.

very cool atmospheric dark game. I recommend it to everyone who likes to shiver in dark corridors.

SARINEKE SOOVITAB 100%