The Suffering: Ties That Bind – PC – Review

Get ready for a little taste of the deranged when
you sit down to play Midway Games latest installment to The Suffering franchise.
The Suffering: Ties That Bind, developed internally by Surreal Software, takes a
lesson from the previous game by keeping the same dark flavor while furthering
the storyline with a few twists and turns along the way. As Torque (the main
character), you are forced to battle your way through your hometown of Baltimore
in search of resolution with an old enemy, Blackmore. Along the way you will
uncover some startling truths regarding the death of your family and in doing be
forced to utilize your own inner demons in your ultimate quest of vindication
for those who were wrongfully taken from you. In concept and theme, The
Suffering: Ties That Bind turns out to be a great story and idea. Unfortunately,
upon weighing the gameplay and technical aspects into the equation what you get
as an end result is a great story that is distracted by generally unoriginal
status quo action elements.

Gameplay mainly consists of navigating through a
linear compilation of narrow halls and the occasional open street setting. Don’t
expect to have tons of options when it comes to how you choose to play the game,
pretty much you are going to be blasting your way straight through this one.
This is a good thing though, because the more you frag, the more your insanity
meter will grow so that you can transform (unfortunately not like voltron, but
cool none-the-less) into a killing machine. Another cool feature that is
definitely worth mentioning is that as you shot your enemies at close range the
blood will actually splatter on your body and guns making that well placed
head-shot with the shotgun all the more rewarding.

While playing through the game you will be
treated to a plethora of weapons to unleash with all your maniacal fury. With
weapons ranging from grenade launchers to lead pipes (sorry no crowbars here),
you can bash, shoot, or blast your way through the demonic monstrosities that
have been unleashed on the streets of Baltimore. You will have to pick your
arsenal to suit various situations though, since you are only capable of
carrying two weapons at a time. Like the first game, you will also have an
insanity mode where Torque will unleash his inner demon upon his helpless foes.
To do so, you will have to slowly build your insanity meter by killing, or by
witnessing various atrocities. A cool addition to this game is a new system of
ethics and morals that will actually change your characters appearance when you
enter insanity mode. If you kill the helpless expect this evil to show through,
though by helping those who cannot help themselves your insanity mode will
reflect this compassion with a less evil representation of your inner psyche.

What gives Ties That Bind the most originality is
most definitely the creatures that this development team has hatched. From the
first enemy to the last, each monster is so twisted and grotesque that you can’t
help but instantly want to insure that you give it a quick ticket back to
whatever hell spawned it. While a good number of the creatures have made a prior
appearance in the first game there are also a few new baddies to challenge your
sanity and inspire your fears. My personal favorite would be a large hulking
corpse of a man with multiple legs and limbs which have been fused with the cold
metal of automatic weaponry.

Unfortunately, it is the little things that tend
to spoil the overall feeling to the game. One such thing that I am always
infuriated with is a poorly designed camera system that impedes gameplay and
leads to unwarranted deaths. Though I must applaud Surreal Software for
innovating a little, with the ability to switch between a first-person and
third-person camera system on the fly, some issues can be resolved. This is
especially needed because in many cases the third-person camera makes the game
nearly unplayable. Commonly you will find yourself in tight spaces that are
dimly lit which will require quick movement and thus also require a flawless and
quick camera system as well. Instead, the camera often would collide with the
wall causing your character to take up nearly the entire screen, making it so
that you can’t even see what you have your reticle pointed at. To solve this you
can quickly hit the “1” key on your keyboard to switch into first-person view,
but doing so will often cause Torque to take a few more bullets than he would if
the third-person camera behaved better.

Adding to the technical mishaps were a few
instances where events failed to trigger properly. I once found myself standing
around in the streets outside a police station running around for about 10
minutes trying to find what to do next only to finally have the game trigger the
event and send the next grotesque demon for me to gun down. This sort of thing
happened in a few other situations that lead me to a good deal of frustration,
because the first thing that came to my mind was always that I had simply forgot
to do something. Upon playing it through the second time I then realized that it
was in fact just a few nasty little bugs that must have slipped through the
cracks and past the QA (Quality Assurance) team at Midway.

A major point to take into account when deciding
if this game will be your cup of tea relates to story continuity. Ties That Bind
is a game that relies heavily on the story set in place by the first game. This
means that someone who hasn’t played the first game will really be caught off
guard and might feel like a fish out of water for a good majority of the game
while they piece together the story and make assumptions regarding the back
history of the characters. For fans of the first game I feel that The Suffering:
Ties That Bind is a must own title. For those looking to get into the series, I
highly recommend you either play the first game or read a synopsis of the first
game before you try to tackle Ties That Bind.

Gameplay: 7.2
Generally unoriginal gameplay consisting of industry standard shooting
action elements mixed in with some less than complicated puzzles.

Graphics: 7.6
Rather impressive graphics allow for a more visceral effect on the player.
Only issue is that with such a dimly lit game it is sometimes quite hard to
really enjoy the impressive character design.

Sound: 7.0
Generally well done environmental sounds add to the general evil vibe of the
game. Only complaint here would be the lack of a really good musical soundtrack.

Difficulty: Medium
As a seasoned veteran gamer there were even a few places that stumped me on
mid-ranged difficulty settings. Luckily you can choose your difficulty with this
game.

Concept: 8.0
A delightfully demented approach to the blending of the action and survival
horror genres. Perhaps one of the most disturbing horror games I have played to
date.

Overall: 7.4
A great sequel for any fan of the first game. Plenty of story and twists
keeps things interesting though the minor technical flaws that the game has
dampens the enjoyment. Generally speaking this is a decent game that with a bit
more polish could have proved to fix some of the technical issues and improved
the overall experience of the game as a whole.