It's what you would get if you replaced all the enemies from Max Payne with demons from Clive Barker's Hellraiser.
On the surface, The Suffering excels on many levels. It has an interesting premise involving a hard ass looking tough guy named Torque (think Ash from Evil Dead on steroids) who is put on death row after supposedly killing his wife and 2 sons. Only problem is he has no recollection of ever doing it. The day he get’s put into Abbott State Penitentiary, a maximum security correctional facility on an island, he doesn’t get to enjoy the comforts of his cell long before a giant cataclysm unleashes an army of hellions throughout the place killing guards and inmates left and right.
The game has you running around the prison arming yourself with whatever weapons you can find and joining up with other prisoners in an attempt to get out and to safety. The action handles fairly well. The controls are tight and can be played in first and third person perspectives, the latter of which is what you’re going to want. The main weapons are handguns, machineguns and shotguns, but you’ll also find melee weapons like a shiv and axe for the rare occasions that you all your ammo get’s depleted. You also get various explosives you can heave at clusters of enemies.
There’s also something called the insanity meter which fills up with each creature you lay to waste. When it maxes out you can trigger it and turn into a massive monster which can plow through most enemies like a hot knife through butter. If you don’t turn back to your human form before your insanity meter runs up you take some damage though. Overall, the creature form is cool to show off to your friends but isn’t very useful in the game because it leaves you open for projectile attacks and if you’ve got a buddy on your team and they get a little too close while you’re dismembering things like crazy they might take some unwanted collateral damage.
The enemies in the game come in a few different forms, all representing various ways of execution. The Slayers will be your prime enemy and aren’t overly bright in their tactics. The mainliners, which are the most annoying of enemies, will attempt to attach on to you and inject you with a needle which requires you to tap the attack button repeatedly to shake them off. There are some larger monsters later on that take more damage and serve up stronger attacks but they are slower moving so it balances it out. There are a few occasions when you’ll have to fight a boss and usually there are invulnerable to shooting or hacking. These guys usually require you to solve a puzzle of sorts to vanquish them.
The overall presentation is top notch. This game knows how to scare you and takes great pleasure in doing so every chance it gets. There are lots of random effects that sort of jump on screen every so often and the view tends to get blurry whenever a hallucination manifests. The game also changes up your locale quite a bit so you never feel like you’re just retreading the same spots back and forth. At certain moments in the game you’ll have to make moral choices on whether to help someone or blast them to hell. Depending on the alignment you choose you’ll get one of three endings.
Graphically the game is superb from a creative perspective. All of the monsters were designed by Stan Winston Studios and are presented in illustriously grotesque detail. The environments aren’t the most immersive but they serve their purpose. The game’s lighting is possibility its strongest cosmetic feature reminiscent of games like Doom 3 and Silent Hill. There are quite a few dark areas to this game and your only source of illumination will often be a small hand light attached to your shirt. This definitely boasts the creepiness of the game.
The sound production is just as good as the visuals if not better. There is a constant ambience that makes sure the game never loses its unsettling tone. When the action picks up the score switches to thundering tribal sounding beats and Torques heartbeat, which is heard throughout the entire game, increases rapidly to heighten the tension. The enemies sound just as terrifying and disgusting as they appear. The basic enemy types emit shrieking wails while the more gargantuan beasts voice low guttural growls. The voice acting is also well done adding a cinematic tone to the games dialog.
The Suffering is definitely a game with a lot of style and great high octane action. It does wear a little dry in a few spots, most commonly when the enemy barrages seem to last minutes without any real level progression. The story is also a bit skimped. You are given this really interesting and mysterious setting at the start but it’s only further revealed in small increments which tend to only confuse you more. Depending on the end you get you may walk away unsatisfied seeing as only one of them ends “happy”. Still, the savage ass kicking and eerie presentation should keep you well entertained and take precedence over any of the shortcomings the game may have.