The Suffering

The Suffering is a hybrid third person/first person horror game set in the Carnate Island Abbot State Penitentiary. You play as Torque, a death row inmate you has just been transferred to Abbot after being convicted of killing his wife and family. Just as Torque is locked in his cell, an earthquake rocks the prison and demons begin to descend from the ceiling. Everyone in the vicinity is wiped out and only Torque, and his now ripped off the hinges cell door, are left. So the only thing left to do is plunge into the darkness of the prison and fight your way out.

The Suffering is all about mood. And it goes about this mood three seconds after the disc is first loaded into a PS2. It prompts you that first time to adjust your television's darkness level to help make the game extra creepy. Darkness pervades everything, and having a healthy supply of flashlight batteries is one of the game's main goals. Players are eventually treated to (I don't want to say orgy because that sounds so cliche, but an orgy it is) of blood, gore, vulgarity and a non-stop psychological mindf***ery. The Suffering is a horror game, but like Resident Evil, it gives Torque enough firepower to take out tanks and buildings, so a pesky army of demons and the undead will be no problem. You start with the prison standby, a shiv, and eventually move up to pistols, a Tommy gun, a shotgun, a flamethrower and others.

The creatures that Torque will have to battle were created by Stan Winston, the FX guru behind The Thing, Aliens and The Terminator just to name a few. These creatures are all based on the horrible capital punishments that befell them. Throughout most of the game you will meet giant demons with shotguns growing out of there backs (firing squad), little buggers that have needles for eyes (lethal injection) and demons that have lost their limbs and their head to the guillotine that are called Slayers. Needless to say, a headshot is pretty useless on a demon who's head is suspended above his body by knives.

Torque himself also eventually gains the ability to change into a demon to further increase his demon killing arsenal. It's partly like The Shining as Torque is chosen by the demons for the potential evil in him. He is later trained by the ghost of a guard Torque kills in the gas chamber in how to shape his powers. The demon form is actually pretty cool as you use the attack button to control one arm and the throw button to control the other. Jumping causes DemonTorque to jump and make the ground explode around him.

Thankfully, the neverending arsenal and the demon form work well as combat is the game's main focus. The game also includes the option to move into first person to aim and actually if you wanted, The Suffering is very playable as a straight First Person Shooter. The fighting can get a little monotonous as there are only a handful of demon designs and the only variety you'll see is that every once in a while a bigger version of a Slayer or a shotgun demon will show up. This problem plagued Stan Winston's last video game venture, The Thing, as well. And The Suffering, just like The Thing, is able to move past that monotony by providing quality scares and a great atmosphere. Although the combat is spiced up a little by the fact that different demon species hate each other just as much as they hate Torque and they will attack each other if you can lure them together.

While combat is the main point of The Suffering, some puzzles are spread out few and far between over the prison. These few that are included are very clever and more "real world" than "find the chess piece key under the fireplace by burning a hole in the painting to get at the secret panel behind it, etc, etc, etc." At one point you have to put out a fire by tripping the sprinkler system and then covering a storm drain to keep the water in the room. Later you have to setup a series of spotlights to keep the demons at bay, because they won't cross the light. While this is a great idea for a puzzle, I'm a little disappointed that Surreal didn't go further with the idea and give all light sources this feature. That puzzle keeps the demons away because of the light, but they have no qualms about diving head first into a fully lighted room to get at Torque. And while the flashlight is important to keep the game from going dark, how much more important could it be if the light could keep demons at least an arms length away?

But for all the gore and the violence, The Suffering's true claim to video game fame is it's psychological mindf***ery. You'll hear voices and have disturbing visions as you play. The voices mostly flare up when you meet other survivors and act like the angel and the devil on your shoulder. One side will tell you to help the people you meet and the other side will tell you that they're weak and you're better off killing them. Whichever voice you listen to more will affect how you're perceived in the end and the game will show a different ending depending on whether you played it good, bad or neutral. The voices happen out of the blue. They happen in the same spot every play through, but you never expect them. Hearing the child plead "Daddy, please don't make me watch" in the second level skeeves me out every time. The depths of what that could mean plays with your head and the vision Torque has of a group of guards torturing a prisoner doesn't help my sick mind at all.

The Suffering is survival horror turned up to eleven. Yes the fighting can get a little monotonous, but the control is spot on and the look and feel of the game is unsurpassed when it comes to total immersion. You are in the prison. You are interacting with these prisoners. There are demons around every corner. The graphics aren't mindblowing, but it sets new heights when it comes to vulgar language and gore in a video game. For once the hype has been fulfilled. Every nasty thing Midway said this game would do, it did it. I like the game, but I'm a little ashamed to admit that.