Condemned: Criminal Origins (2005)
You might think a first-person melee-focused Xbox 360 launch game couldn’t be a very scary horror game, but you’d be wrong. Condemned: Criminal Origins puts you in the shoes of an FBI agent who is investigating a murder spree and ends up getting wrapped up in the action and framed for killing someone. What follows is a tense adventure as the agent tries to find the real killer while fighting numerous people using various melee items. The combat in Condemned is messy, heavy, slow, and dangerous. And because you can only carry one weapon at a time, you sometimes have to work with whatever you have during ambushes.
It’s a shame that beyond one (also good) sequel, Condemned has been left to rot in a ditch by Sega. This could have been the start of a popular survival horror series with sequels and spin-offs, but instead, it’s mostly been forgotten and is hard to play in 2024. Your best bet is to play it on PC using fan mods and tweaks to make it run. A tragic fate for a fantastic horror game. — ZZ
