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.