[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]John:Condemned[/i]' is a first person psychological horror game where you play as John, a man who from childhood was trained as a murderer tasked to take out scores and now appears to be paying for his horrible deeds. Little does he know, this entire ordeal is actually a test and the ending of the game holds a twist that I won't spoil. The game actually isn't as bad as a lot of the other crappy horror games that litter the [i]Steam[/i] store. For one it has voice acting, a variety of different levels with their own unique environments and a story that although isn't very good, was at least thought out and holds some substance to it. There are flaws, but for a free game, it actually isn't bad.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
The game is pretty much a walking simulator with light puzzle elements and a somewhat decent level of atmospheric horror aspects. All you really do is walk through different environments while the story unfolds and witness the types of things that appear to be haunting John as he comes to terms what he's done. While you do this, there may be a few parts that'll require you to do something particular such as counting the number of people in an area, navigate a simple maze or even evading a threat. There's only one instance where you're pursued by something or someone but it's only brief and the rest of the game is just psychological horror.
There are 5 levels in total and each of them reflect on different murders that John committed and are pretty much there to show John how cold hearted he is and how wrong he was to have done such horrible things to people. Each level looks pretty unique and attempts to implement a different type of puzzle or vibe for the player to experience and does an okay job. Thankfully none of them contain jumpscares and relies solely on suspense and atmospheric horror to keep the player on edge. One complaint I have is the fact that the game runs fairly poorly in some areas due to the fact that the entire map is loaded in all at once. This means that large maps will almost guarantee lower frame rates since the system running it has to maintain one entire level constantly regardless of where the player is.
Another gripe I have is with how slow walking around is. Considering how big some of the maps are, you're going to mostly be sprinting instead of walking but it takes time to build up speed and you also slide around when you stop so the overall movement system in the game feels very awkward and uncomfortable to play which really doesn't help when the entire game revolves around walking from point A to point B. Despite that, I honestly don't find the game to be as bad as many people seem to claim but each to their own I suppose. Don't get me wrong, the game is still well below par and isn't something I would personally recommend, but I [i]will[/i] give the game credit where credit is due. Perhaps I've just played too many crappy games that my standard for what makes a game bad has stooped even lower.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
They work fine enough for a walking simulator and I haven't gotten stuck anywhere to my recollection but the movement is extremely slippery and makes playing the game feel rather uncomfortable. This is also one of those games that tell you how to play when you first start the game but fails to retain an option for players to check the controls in case they end up forgetting later on. For the hundredth time, [b]why[/b] is it so taboo to have simple and basic settings for things like volume and controls? The quality assurance is lacking to say the least but damn, the amount of developers that can't even get a main menu right is astonishing.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
Honestly some of it isn't bad but most of it is. There's a huge lighting issue that causes some maps to flicker and many textures are inconsistent with some being detailed while others are pixelated. There [i]are[/i] some nice areas with decent lighting and shadows without any kind of flickering but the overall visual quality just doesn't make the mark and comes off more as an inconsistent mess with the bittersweet view here and there.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
Well, the music already isn't very good and almost blew out my air drums when I first played the game as the [i]Unreal Engine[/i] intro sequence was [i]way[/i] too loud for anyone's liking. The sound effects are lackluster and aren't special in anyway but I'd rather have unoriginal sound effects taken straight off a website than ones that will potentially deafen me. The voice acting although not great, is spoken in Spanish but there are at least subtitles automatically implemented so non-Spanish speakers will know what is going on in the story. The worst thing is that the game has no audio settings, none. They have settings for graphics but not volume. Sigh, I've already complained about it earlier so I'll just leave it at, the game doesn't have something that it clearly should.
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]John:Condemned[/i]' is a decently lengthy first person horror game where you play as a murderer going through a nightmarish world that reflects on the bad things he did and the people he killed. It's a pretty dark premise for a game that sadly doesn't live up to the standard of quality due to it's slightly awkward controls, inconsistent graphics and general game design. It actually isn't a super terrible game and [i]can[/i] be of mild amusement for people such as myself to whom have standards for games set much lower than the average player. Despite that, it still isn't a great game as there are many other free horror games that are far better.
