Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: The Suffering

Written by John Scalzo on April 22, 2003

First Impressions: Dead man walking!

Midway has made a flurry of announcements in the last few weeks trying to establish some momentum going into the E3 expo, which is right around the corner. They've taken the Blitz and Hitz series' online. They've given a new meaning to the word espionage by making a psychic a secret agent in ESPionage. One of the best retro recreations is being given a sequel with Spy Hunter 2. With Roadkill, gamers may see the closest a game can come to The Road Warrior without actually starring Mad Max. And once again Midway will attempt to push the envelope on video game violence with their survival horror title The Suffering.

Cramped and confined spaces make the best survival horror locales. Just look at the police station in Resident Evil 2 or the hospital in Silent Hill 2, tiny places that could have a gruesome sight behind every corner. The Suffering takes this idea and brings us to a new location for a horror game, an island prison circa 1950. Think Alcatraz but off the coast of New England instead of San Francisco. The hero of the game, if you can call him that, is Torque. Torque was sentenced to die by the electric chair for the murder of his wife and child and as the game opens no one is really sure whether he guilty or not. As Torque awaits his date with Old Sparky, a demonic force descends on the prison. Former prisoners that had been executed return to the prison reincarnated as the methods of execution that befell them. Survival is your only goal in this game and that means getting Torque off the island.

The game is split into nine levels in both indoor and outdoor sections of the prison. Given the location, The Suffering will probably feature a lot of key fetch quests. The first batch of screenshots show plenty of steel gates and cell doors that prisons are known for, so this isn't really a stretch. Torque will also be able to interact with other inmates and the guards and this interaction will determine which of three endings you'll see at the end of the game.

Midway is very proud of the amount of gore they have planned for The Suffering. "Blood and gore, dripping, pooling and splattering at every level of the fright-filled journey." Just warms your heart doesn't it? From those comments and the first screens and movies, it's very apparent that the blood will be free flowing in The Suffering. Even Torque will be stained and splashed with the red stuff as the game progresses. While it won't win them any friends in Washington, this kind of carnage is always appreciated from the company behind Mortal Kombat.

If promises from the developer aren't enough to convince you (and they never should be) then take heart in knowing that the gruesome creatures that will populate The Suffering were created by monster guru Stan Winston. The man behind such disgusting but awe-inspiring offerings like the Terminator series, Predator, The Thing and Aliens should make good on his reputation. In fact, and it should be of little surprise, some of the creatures bear more than a passing resemblance to the shape shifting alien found in The Thing. If you want to go a step further, a lot of the environments even look a little like those found in The Thing game. That's not meant as a knock on The Suffering. The Thing was a tremendous game and The Suffering looks like it will fit nicely next to my copy of The Thing.

Torque will also need to dispatch of these monstrous demons in some way and Midway has that covered as well. Starting out with his trusty shiv, Torque will be able to move up to pistols and eventually a submachine gun. And for those players that would rather take the hands on approach, Torque will be equipped with a rage meter, and when it fills he'll be able to use the fiendish energy that surrounds the prison and transform into a monster himself. But remember, he's a nice killer, and could be innocent.