The Suffering won't reinvent the action genre, but it's a frightening horror games that is definitely worth playing
First, a bit of plot overview: Torque is escorted into a prison cell by two guards explaining the back story. Apparently, Torque has killed his wife and two sons, has been convicted, but no one really knows for sure, as he claims to have blacked everything out. As Torque is getting to learn about his new partners in prison, the lights go out, and everyone but Torque is brutally murdered by strange, unseen creatures.
Then, Torque's cell door conveniently falls down.
And, so, that's how Torque's worst night ever and first day in Abbot begins.
The gameplay in The Suffering is your standards Third-Person Shooter style. You walk around with the analog sticks, and use the trigger buttons to fire and do other similar things. The game even gives you the choice of switching between third-person view and first-person view at anytime, though chances are you'll stick with the third-person view.
Along with your standard shooting, after Torque has killed a certain number of memories, his "Sanity Meter" (or is it Stress? I forget) goes up. By pressing a button, Torque evolves into a massive creature, ripping apart everything in his path into tiny, bite-sized chunks of flesh and blood. Once the meter reaches the bottom, players must transform back to a human Torque or risk constantly losing health.
Though the way the game is played isn't anything new, it's done right. The game was responsive and aiming was fairly easy.
As you play the game, you are systematically introduced a new and harder enemies, each with their own journal entry into a man's diary on the creatures that gives the back story on them. What's particularly unique about the creature designs is how they are based on the various execution methods used by the prison over the years. This I found to be very creative and interesting.
During the course of the game, you will be filled in on a lot of the back story from the creature diary, along with the diary of the wife of on of the Corrections Officers. When you reach an area of the game, her journal will be updated, and you'll be filled in on the history there. The story is all very interesting, and you don't need to watch a cutscene to get the back story, making a lot of the plot optional.
The various abominations of Abbot aren't the only things Torque will meet in the game. He'll also meet a couple of Abbot's legends. Whether they're friend or foe is unknown at the beginning of the game. Along with these people, Torque is often visited by various visions of his family (sometimes they even talk to Torque), previous atrocities that happened at Abbot, and sometimes glimpses of the truth behind these events.
The Suffering's main claim to fame is the ending, though. Mainly, it's the fac that the game has 3 possible endings: Good, bad, and neutral. Over the course of the game, you'll be given decisions, such as help this inmate escape the prison, kill this person, or constantly torture a soul in an electric chair. Most of the time, doing bad involves killing someone, and then it's done with. Doing good many times involves escorting someone to a certain location (though it's not always safety), and being neutral means ignoring them. ***SPOILER SOMEWHAT*** At the end of the game, which way you decided to go changes who killed Torque's family, all of them told in a gritty flashback. ***SPOILER ENDS***
A big thing about The Suffering is the atmosphere. When playing, occasionally images will flash up on the screen for about a second. Couple with and eery atmosphere, scary enemies, and playing in the middle of the night and you can get seriously spooked. The images aren't the only thing, though. On numerous occasions I've been so freaked out by various things that I've had to stop playing for the day.
At the end of the day, The Suffering is a very enjoyable experience, mostly because of the very interesting story full of twists and mystery, partly because the game is so scary, and partly because of the well polished gameplay.
If you haven't picked this game up, I suggest you do.