The Suffering: Ties That Bind Preview

Midway and Seattle-based Surreal Software pulled off quite a coup with 2004's The Suffering. The original third-person action game managed to add a new branch to the time-honored horror genre, which ultimately made it one of the most unique horror entries in quite some time. Whereas the genre has been dominated by Japanese-developed games for the past few years, The Suffering offered a nicely unsettling experience, with nary a schoolgirl, talking cat, mutated animal, spooky mansion, or zombie in sight. Instead, the game offered foulmouthed prisoners, a generous helping of seriously unhappy ghosts, twisted abominations based on executions, buckets of gore, and an antihero who may very well have been a psychotic killer. Good stuff all around. However, the disturbed individuals at Surreal weren't satisfied with the franchise's creepy debut, so they set out to top the first game with The Suffering: Ties That Bind, a sequel that continues the story of the main character Torque in new and even-more-disturbing ways. We recently clocked in some quality time with a work-in-progress version of Torque's latest adventure to see if Surreal can continue the promising franchise in a suitably disturbing direction.

Torque is back in The Suffering: Ties That Bind. No, he's not having a better day.

The game's story picks up right where the first game left off, so it will get you started with one of three openings based on which ending you got in the original. If you don't have a clear save, you'll get a default beginning that uses the neutral ending as its jumping-off point. Though the main thrust of the narrative focuses on Torque finding out more about the death of his family and how his nemesis, Caleb Blackmore, is involved, there are some complicated roadblocks you'll hit along the way. First and foremost is a paramilitary organization known as the Marbas Foundation. The mysterious shadow agency has been tasked with cleaning up Carnate Island, the setting for the original game that's still pretty thick with evil creatures. The foundation takes what is potentially an unhealthy interest in Torque and his unique rage-fueled shape-shifting abilities. The borderline-sane antihero is conked on the head and taken into custody at the start of the game's default beginning, thus kicking off his unique relationship with the group. Its leader, a mysterious hottie named Jordan, pops up quite often during your adventure. However, so far, we're not totally clear on just where her allegiances lie. As for Torque, while he's not much saner than when we last saw him, you'll discover more about who he is and what he's about: for better or worse.

You'll find unholy abominations aplenty in this latest entry in The Suffering series.

The gameplay in Ties That Bind hasn't strayed too far from the first entry in the series. All the same mechanics return but have been modified or expanded from the original. You'll still be able to play in either third- or first-person perspective, although for some of the more advanced climbing and exploring, you'll want to stick to third-person perspective. Running and gunning has been tweaked some by a two-weapon limit that's been imposed on your inventory system. Your options when wielding your hard-earned arms have been beefed up. You'll be able to dual-wield weapons, as well as hit boxes or people with your weapons. A new crouch attack gives you one more way to tussle with your foes. The most significant addition to The Suffering's gameplay is Torque's rage transformations. The Hulk-like transformations will now differ based on your moral path through the game, and they'll feature powerful special attacks that are uncomfortably close to those of the foes you're fighting against. This naturally calls into question just what's going on with Torque these days and makes for a compelling reason to stick with the rich story. Besides offering you more-gruesome ways to take out your foes, your rage forms are now an integral part of progressing. You'll find places where you'll need the extra power afforded by the rage forms to punch your way into new areas or to take on boss creatures that can only be harmed by a little anger-fueled mutation. Another addition to gameplay are rail shooting sequences which put you behind the sights of a large gun on a moving vehicle and let you blow up anything that moves.