Surreal Software's latest action game, The Suffering is a palatable and fun game that serves up some adult entertainment sprinkled with light puzzle solving, a dash of survival horror and bizarre and interesting monsters all rolled into a dark story of possible redemption, condemnation and escape. In this game published by Midway, players take on the role of a condemned prisoner shipped off to death row at the lovely island prison Abbott State Penitentiary for killing his wife and two boys. After what appears to be an earthquake, the natives get restless, many of them die and the Wolverine look-a-like Torque finds himself virtually alone (save the strange creatures waiting in the darkest corners of the prison, and those poor souls inured or unlucky enough to still be alive) and trapped. Just a few steps outside his prison cell Torque realizes that the prison has been over-run by creatures that are out to carve him and anything else they happen upon in to tiny little bite pieces.

As I mentioned, The Suffering is definitely not meant for kids. The game is rated Mature for its language, adult situations and scenes of utter violence. Keeping that in mind, the content is certainly acceptable for adults and isn't any more powerful than your average R rated movie. The dialogue (voice acting) isn't polished by any stretch of the imagination, but it does a great job of setting the tone of the game, and that's a good enough reason to sit through it once. One of the biggest mistakes that Surreal made is that the player is forced to sit through the opening dialogue more than once should they die before hitting a save point. Not good. I'm all for being forced to watch it once, but more than a single screening is a bit of an agitation because it's not that short of a cutscene. That complaint aside, the opening certainly sets up the overall theme of the game - the unredeemable against the other-worldly.

The Suffering wastes no time in throwing the player headfirst into surviving the horrors of the prison by any means necessary. As Torque makes his way through the prison, he'll find a variety of weapons to use and items that make exploring the dark corners of the prison like a flashlight. The game is a little too liberal with ammo, weapons and other supplies, so it doesn't quite play like a true survival game, but the monsters and the NPCs on the verge of death do a fine job of taking you there instead in small doses. The levels are very dark so getting an item like a flashlight early on is a pretty important thing and expendable supplies like drugs (for healing) and batteries (for the flashlight) are perhaps a little more readily available than they should be. This factor, coupled with the amount of ammo and weapons that can be found in the prison, makes The Suffering more of an action game along the Max Payne line.

Presentation wise The Suffering is pretty impressive. The dark and foreboding settings, the screaming of prisoners, the skittering steps of monsters and the sounds of metal on metal in the distance make the player a bit more cautious when entering an area. While there aren't too many "jump out of your seat" moments in the game, there's no denying that The Suffering serves up a fair amount of creepiness. Creatures are hiding everywhere and ready to jump out at you at every turn - and when they aren't assailing you, they'll be taking some poor prisoner or guard to their doom.

The Suffering also features some moderately light puzzle-solving - from finding a switch or a button, to pushing and pulling objects to solving a problem with good old fashioned force. Most of the puzzles are pretty straightforward and even the novice adventurer in you should be able to figure them out. One of the areas where players might find themselves lost is when they restart the game from a save point and don't remember what their current objective is. When I did that I found myself wandering around, oblivious to what my next step was, hoping to stumble upon the answer. Most times you'll be able to figure it out, but you can avoid the agony by just paying attention before you hit the off switch.

The most interesting aspect of the game is how Torque reacts to situations, because how you deal with other characters directly affects the ending of the game. If players feel like gunning down every guard or prisoner they run into it'll lead to a darker ending, while being the nice guy also serves to deliver a more sugary (well as sugary as a story can be about a man on death row) finale. There are a total of three endings for the game, and players may very well want to see what all three offer. Part of the overall presentation of the game is the haunting voices of Torque's dead family, who cry out when he's about to make a decision about a situation involving NPCs in the game. These kids of situations shape the ending for the game, but the voices really add to the game's overall appeal.

The game can be played in both first-person and third-person perspective, though most players will probably want to play it in third-person mode because it provides a larger area of view (and you'll be less likely to get blind-sided by one or more creepy monsters). The player controls Torque using the left and right thumb sticks together to turn and move forward. Inventory is handled using the directional pad. Players will do well to check out the control settings before they start playing just to make sure that they understand how it's all laid out - and to make any changes for the sake of sanity. Overall the control scheme works pretty well, and while they aren't always perfect in every situation, the control scheme does what it needs to do in order to make the game playable and palatable. The inventory could have been implemented a bit better so that players could use it more readily while in combat. Using it in its current state in the heat of battle will often times get you killed.

If The Suffering had a mantra it would be combat, combat, combat. Players will battle a lot of creatures during their inevitable escape from the prison using everything from a shiv (a home-made prison quality knife) to handguns and Tommy guns. There's ammo for these weapons at every turn and players will be shooting creatures from every possible angle, height and depth. When shooting isn't violent enough for you, you can simply use your "Rage" to turn into a terribly ferocious alter ego that is quite capable of taking on the monstrosities plaguing the prison in every dark corner. Using this strange power too much can kill you, so showing some restraint is probably a good thing..

Players will obviously be excited by the first sightings of the bizarre creatures created by Stan Winston Studios, who you may readily associate with the monster design from the Alien and Predator movies. Each creature in the game is inspired by a means of punishment for murder - hanging, lethal injection, decapitation, etc. Each creature has its own special tactics and attacks which players will have to learn, counter and avoid to stay alive. Some creatures like to climb the walls and ceilings while others stay on the ground and use deadly attacks that can temporarily impair the player. The key to getting a handle on these baddies is of course to learn the best tactics for fighting them. Most of the tactics players will use are straightforward once you figure them out. After the first encounter with a creature, you'll be less excited because you'll be seeing a lot of these same creatures at every turn. Remember, reload, shoot, repeat, repeat, repeat.

The Suffering serves up about ten hours of gameplay on your first pass through the game (mileage may very), and going through it again knowing all its secrets to see the other endings will probably give you several more hours of additional play. Turning up the difficulty level will make things a little more intense for those folks that think the game is a cake walk. Either way there's enough meat to keep action fans busy for approximately 10 - 20 hours if you count replays.