This is the perfect introduction to next-generation horror gaming, simple mechanics placed upon a disgustingly warped canvas and then brought to life with impeccable lighting and shadow effects. It sounds like such a nonsensical technical issue, but the game has been designed in such a way that it can cause frights simply by dancing shadows down the corridor and, perhaps for the first time, making the player question what they are seeing without the developer actually lifting a finger. The majority of the scares in Condemned are false, but they are not always scripted. This difference is the key.

There are many memorable moments that the developer has superbly scripted, but the real highlights are the personal scares, events that exist only in the mind or through some cunning artificial intelligence on the part of the various enemies that skulk in the darkness. Outwitting someone armed with plank of wood who is fuelled by immense aggression and a will to survive, in an environment lit only by a weak flickering light and plenty of hiding spaces feels brutally real. It’s the stuff of nightmares; being chased by the bogeyman with nowhere safe to hide in near-complete darkness. It is here the imagination begins to run riot, the darkness playing tricks on your eyes, while the ears pick up noises that may not actually be real. It’s all sensory diversion, making the player think they’ve second-guessed an enemy, but they've actually been fooled by simple trickery of the mind.

If the atmosphere is largely down to the imagination, the brutality of attacks most certainly is not. Condemned is truly shocking in this regard, deserving its adult certification and no doubt a ban in certain countries. Combat is mostly melee-based, but for once it is devastatingly effective – think a refined Riddick. Each swipe of your chosen weapon (picked up, or indeed ripped off of the environment) feels devastatingly powerful, sending the enemies reeling in pain. Likewise, their attacks are equally powerful, both in terms of energy loss and graphical cues. The first person viewpoint is violently thrown about realistically, while the sound is crunching to say the least. It’s not just the actual contact either – the animation behind each attack is incredibly harsh. Each swing of the weapon feels like it’ll kill, but interestingly, it feels desperate - desperate like each and every enemy wants you dead and also does not want to face the same end. Nothing can prepare you for the first attack; it’ll scare the crap out of you.

In a nutshell, this is Condemned. It’s an exercise in beating up homeless people and following a restrictive and very linear maze. Its effectiveness is due to its simplicity, the rules are laid on the table quickly (despite not all of them being entirely logical) and the game does little to divert its attention away from maintaining its stalker-like atmosphere. The only real diversion is in the investigation segments that sporadically appear throughout the ten-hour story. These sections can only be described as ‘neat’. They look nice, they feel nice and they are visually disturbing, but they essentially only stall progress until the vital clues are found. Only once are the investigatory tools used in a truly complementary way to the main thrust of the game, and it works supremely well. It’s perhaps here where the main fault of Condemned lies, holding back what is otherwise a genuinely brilliant game.

Though the simplicity of the game allows it to focus on its strengths – and rightly so – there are elements that are underdeveloped. The game does not feel unfinished; rather it is obvious where extra work in certain areas could have greatly improved it. The investigation side could have been profoundly innovative rather than mildly derivative, while the plot – as intriguing as it is – would have benefited from greater depth behind each environment. Indeed, if developers Monolith had been as obsessed with story detail as much as Konami’s Team Silent, then Condemned would be an instant horror-classic.

Quite frankly, this is the finest Western-developed horror since System Shock 2, and it also has the distinction of containing arguably the scariest single level since Ion Storm unleashed “The Cradle” in Thief: Deadly Shadows.

It doesn’t quite reach Fatal Frame, Silent Hill or Siren (Japanese version) as a complete package, but with Condemned, Monolith have created one of the most shocking, frightening, atmospheric, unrelenting and involving games in recent memory. Even those who disliked their other action\horror title F.E.A.R. should invest in Condemned, for it is the superior game.