Ties That Bind is a reasonably satisfying run and gun game, but there isnt quite enough variety to keep it satisfying.
Ties That Bind
The Good: Decent arsenal of weapons, reasonable graphics, gore galore, a few new bad guys, creepy sound effects
The Bad: No weapons really jump out, glitches, recycled material, glitches, no real variety.
The Suffering was a third person action game from Midway that came in 2004. It told the story of a supposedly convicted psycho named Torque who was charged of killing his family. Torque however blacked this out during the whole thing, and it’s up to you to really find out what happened.
During this time as Torque is in jail, a slew of monsters come about and slaughters everybody. Somewhere in the mess of all this there’s a plot...but basically you just escape from the prison. If you really want to know the story, go play yourself, or be lazy and wait for the movie.
In Ties That Bind, you play through a tutorial to begin with, which takes place in the prison. During the time of the monster onslaught. You learn how to move, jump shoot, fight and all that. Then the game takes off where the first one ends, where you just escaped prison. Now it’s basically the same as it was before, hell you’re even going to visit a prison again. But the majority of the game is played in the ghetto…erhm, suburbs. The game plays very similarly to its predecessor. Almost exactly like it its predecessor. You’re going to be running around with a weapon or two, and you’re going to be popping monsters nonstop. This is one thing it does well. Nonstop monsters. There will be a lot of bad guys coming at you that will sometimes really challenge you. Even in the first few levels, you’re undeveloped skills will be put to the test with onslaught after onslaught of monsters. With all these monsters coming about you’re going to want to be well equipped with the latest in capping technology. Well you’re going to find a variation of pistols, shotguns, rocket launchers, bats, axes, Tommy guns, AK 47, Uzis and whatnot. So right off the bat you can tell that weapons won’t be a problem.
But what is the use of guns if there’s no ammo to shoot with?
That’s correct. While you won’t have much of a problem with finding weapons, every now and then there’s a drought of ammo. So you’ll have some neat weapons, but nothing to shoot with.
This chain reacts to something else. Torque has this neat ability to transform into a super scary monster. This super scary monster has the ability to rip through an army of enemies with a few different attacks. However, your appearance and attacks will change depending on your morality level. What’s that? Let’s take a gander.
Now in the first game, as mentioned Torque goes to prison for the murder of his family. That may or may not be true. But that’s all up to you. See there are three endings to both games. Every now and again you’ll come to an opportunity to do something good, bad, or in the middle. Depending on which you have chosen will boost, reduce, or have no effect on your morality meter. This basically keeps track of your good, bad and middle deeds. This has little effect during the game. But the ending is 100% affected by the meter. Your ending will be good, bad or neutral depending on the meter.
Also your monster ability will change, which I have mentioned before. A few minor little changes will happen with the meter, but nothing really worth mentioning. See if you can spot them yourself! Graphically speaking, the game looks decent. The game doesn’t look horrible, but the game doesn’t look exceptional either. It’s in the middle…ish. Torque himself looks okay, but what suits him better, is the blood that covers him. While in your rampage of killing things, you won’t be nice and clean. You’ll be drenched in the blood of your enemies. One of the better parts in the graphics department.
The monsters, well they look okay as well. They sound a little better though. A lot of monsters are brought back from the first game (which Midway clearly states in a more interesting way on the back of the case). There are a few new ones, but there isn’t much about them that makes them special either. Some of the animations are well done, and look pretty well in the process. Some effort was put in, but it would’ve been, and could’ve been so much more with a little more time. Soundwise…well, it’s the same as graphics. There are a lot of recycled sound bits with monsters. The voice acting isn’t totally convincing, but its there. Weapons are probably the best aspect of both sides. They look and sound great.
The story mode is really all there is to it in this game, and there are no real side quests, or extras in the game. The story is a decent length. It’ll take players about 10-15 hours to finish on a first try. Well, the story aint to interesting as it is. You’ll find yourself confused now and again. You’ll also find that the gameplay will be repetitive. The biggest thrills are generally when a monster jumps at you from outta nowhere and makes you kinda jump. Now that says something.
So generally Ties that bind is a straightforward, run of the mill, unchanged third person shooter. It has a decent length of story, and it continues where the first left off. It has a decent difficulty, but that really only lasts in the beginning. Once you get used to the gameplay and develop some strategies, difficulty isn’t a real factor.
While the game is now very cheap, it may be worth the asking price. It’s worth a shot if you’re looking for an eerie, creepy video game. Or if you’re a fan of run and gun third person shooters, you may want to look at this one as well. Gameplay: Reasonably fun, good arsenal of weapons, good length campaign, but doesn’t do much to change or vary from previous game 6.7/10
Graphics: Decent, nothing very impressive, nothing horrible. 6/10
Sound: Eerie sound effects, middleish voice acting, recycled sound. 6/10
Lasting Appeal: 10-15 hours is pretty good, few different endings may make you want to play more, but not by much. 7.5/10
Tilt: Fun game, decent graphics, good effects, decent campaign make it worth a purchase if the price is right. 7.5/10
Overall: 7.4/10 not an average.
Gamespot average: 7.6 Good