Probably because Silent Hill fans hate most of the Silent Hill games after the 2nd one. So any game hopping on that trend isn’t going to make it Edit; it was the 4th which was the last well received
@@amuroray9115 Well that makes sense but there are also games like Cry of fear or Total chaos which took the silent hill theme and made it in my opninion better. I must say These "Cry of fear" like games are the best horror games or at least the scariest which I played.
@@amuroray9115 no, it wasn’t the toxic fandom, it was the fact that nearly every game after 4 had huge isssues and were immensely flawed, plus Konami has essentially let the franchise die. Just look at the critical reception too. I think most people don’t hate the latter games, but they’re just not as good as the first 4, and.
Man fax. About 13 years ago y pops used to play infamous on his ps3 and put me on to it. He never played much and knowing him he was probably ass but that single-handedly sparked my interest in console gaming and Infamous. Love that man for that
I watched my mom play kingdom hearts and the final fantasy series starting from as early as I could remember. She’s long since stopped playing but KH & FF will always be held dear to me for that reason
The good ending I consider to be the canon one. Bc I think the fact that an innocent man was about to get exеcuted is what drove those spirits to go mad
Could also argue that the bad ending could be canon, as such an evil presence who actively denied any harm done and who could even possibly do it again if provoked enough could've awakened the spirits due to such violent and malicious energy being brought forth.
@@OverLorD768 There is no canon ending for the first game, if you have a save from the first and play the second, the game will begin from the ending you got in the first.
Not necesarly based on death penalties but on how people on the Carnate died. Apparently Carnate was owned by the French before so you get where the slayers prolly come (yeah also from stabbings too) from.Mainliners represent the lethal injection, Marksmen represent death by firing squad , Burrowers are a representation of those buried alive in the quarry and so on. It is explained that when a place gather a lot of negative energy it will become a 'ticking bomb'. Even before Torque came to the island there were strange occurings and malefactor sightings on the island.
I really like the idea for sure but also found that in this specific game, having that formula might have also stunted developer creativity a little bit with respect to designing really uniquely, individually memorable horror monsters. Like the formula is cool but maybe they didn’t stray far enough, often enough. Just my personal opinion/critique though, in no way am I trying to say it’s “bad” like objectively
Cryostasis Sleep of Reason has many monsters with similar concept. The most notorious example is a monster which represents GULAG's towers with machine gun and siren.
Dark Pictures: Little Hope did that with its monsters. They were all based off of the ways the characters at the beginning of the game died, as well as how their doppelgangers from the colonial times died.
@@the_furry_inside_your_walls639 Was gonna mention this. I absoluutely loved the monster design in that game. The water one was probably the most disturbing.
One thing I believe he forgot to mention, but is still a cool detail is that one of T's idle animation changes depending on your morality. Good: He'll pull out the picture of his family and place it against his head before it back in his pocket. Neutral: He'll reach for something else in his pocket, but drop the photo on accident. He'll then hesitate as he goes to pick it back up as if the action is painful for him. (Could be interpreted in many different ways.) Evil: He'll angrily ball the photo up and toss it away. Then look at it on the ground, sink to his knees and pick it back up.
Somebody made a video compilation on that years back. I think it was a channel called T.g. Or soemthing? They also made a video compiling all the monsters
I love that. That is such a cool and deep feature to add. I've never heard of this game before today, but it's obvious that the devs definitely put a lot into it, especially when it comes to the small features like those that add so much more to the story.
I remember I found this game at a flea market when I was a kid, great game, had a good sequel as well, back in the day horror games had more grim in them
You can still find grim horror games, but they're mostly more indie. When there's less budget, lower graphics, and no major corporation with a pure profit motive, you get more focus on things that Don't cost as much, like theming, story writing and so on, and you get more passion projects, and risk taking, instead of cash grabs and copy-pasted simple shooting mechanics.
As someone in my late Twenties who was considered "weird" for having parents who played video games, I am so relieved to hear the story "I was watching my parents play this game as a young child" to be a more and more common statement.
It is weird in the aspect that they are kinda hogging a childs system lol My friend had parents that gamed and he never got to play because of it Goes both ways.
@@willyjf6193 who said it was the child's? The early PlayStation 1 and 2s my dad got and they were explicitly his but me and my brother were allowed to play it I have my own PS4 thats explicitly mine but I let my son play on it with me or when I'm not using it
@@willyjf6193 I understand you're talking in your perspective of things, but other people live differently. The parents could be the ones who own the system and the person grew up watching them play, which in turn got them interested in gaming.
i was addicted to MK Shaolin long ago and i remenber playing that demo there, 2 weeks later i bought the game and enjoy it a lot, it has a precious place in my heart
bruh playing two amazing third person games back to back even if one was a demo was one heck of an experience. Now publishers and developers both would start crying if they did free shit like this ever again.
I know I'm a year late, but I think the reason Horace's boss fight is so easy is because he's desperate for you to end his suffering, so he's giving you an easy fight, but the reason he does anything at all is because he's conflicted between suffering and life or peace and death.
I played this game for a maximum of 10 minutes because the cover art scared the hell out of me as a kid. I seen the Guard die at the gate and wrapped it up
You and me bro I reached to the 1st part where to 1st enemy was supposed to be but I was such a scared kid I exited the game and it took me 2 months to come back and play it again... And I still love the OG game
@@FreeHectic As a kid I worked up the courage past that part eventually till the Police Station, got bit and locked into the animation, cut the game off out of fear lol.
pausing three minutes in just to say: Stan Winston working on the creature designs of this game blew my mind lol. It already explains how the monsters are so unique and top notch.
You should do Suffering 2. The best part of it is how it actually uses your first game save game to continue all 3 endings from the first game into full fledged stories of their own. While a lot of the gameplay is the same, small touches change up the narrative a lot. Some bosses outright become allies. I don't even remember if switching morality from good to evil, or from evil to good mid game creates whole new endings or not. But it sure felt like it. And that made the second game as memorable as the first
@@ECW5320 The game even spoilers the plot-twist to you by making Torque have the same voice-actor as the villain, Torque speaks at the beginning of the game before the villain shows up and speaks with the same voice. If you didn't see that generic-ass plot-twist coming, then you must be brain dead.
I love the fact that the voices you hear, are there as a “make your choice” gimmick. Even though it’s small, I love how the family is there to try pulling you into the light, and the sinister voice attempts to pull you into the dark side
I hope this franchise is rebooted/re-visited; prison horror is so underdone, which is weird considering it's a setting ripe for horror media. Because the game's story is pretty self-contained, the new games could be taken in any direction; different time periods, other countries, whole new character perspectives. Heck, it could be set in a gulag or POW camp, if done correctly. The possibilites are crazy, not to mention how nuts the designers could go with the monsters.
They need to go RE7 with it. First person, one monster per design, almost unkillable monsters and violent inmates. Would totally be an incredible release.
@@rustythefoxcoon5143almost unkillable monsters would ruin it. The two games are meant for you being the ultimate killer and finding answers to Torques/the players questions by any means necessary. If you go RE7 with it, it’ll ruin it imo, and the game already has FPS on it but it was more of a disadvantage due to how the game was made. I promise you the formula they already have here is unique and fun if they just remastered the game
a gulag setting would be pretty awesome, some form of psychological thriller meets haunting.. the camp is in an area that the soviets wanted to research and weaponize the paranormal but the under the guise of it being a mining camp... all is not what it seems and expired prisoners are haunting the area and picking off their prey
@Br0kenM1nded I feel like they’d be mentally insane skinny, rotting flesh, their skin hanging, blood all over them, I can see their voices being high pitch or a low whisper pitch. And theyd run at you with like a knife or some other weapon or just use their bare hands
Fun fact: John Patrick Lowrie, the man behind tf2's sniper, and the male rebel voices from half life 2, can be heard as some of the characters in this game.
I honestly remember watching my dad play this game, he would turn it on when he thought I went to sleep, but man I would watch him play this for hours and hours. This game actually stuck with me and its been 18 years I wish this game got a remaster or something
For The Suffering, the first one, there's the "indifference" option too, if you just leave them behind but alive, then you can get the neutral ending too.
@@armytrainer I did, for some reason he didn't mention neutral til towards the end...I just thought he missed it..hell, I missed the neutral ending for the longest time when I was playing it regularly.
This is why I miss this era so deeply. Devs created things and they just created them. If it was meant to be messed up, it was messed up. They let the environment and random people set tone, it just worked, no matter how twisted. They hardly had a limit to their twistedness and it just felt real like how messed up things and people are in the real world, at least in a video game sense.
Yeah everything now is made to sell not to enjoy , last game that has really just been a good game was like the god of war and dark souls elden ring esque games refreshing their mechanics and moving on with the times even without having to throw our wallet at the. nowadays if your game isn’t gonna make money then it isn’t worth making apparently !? here’s to the future of indie games, at this point I’d wait and pay 60 for a game 8 guys made in a basement over the course of three or fours years with patches and updates to come instead of, 60 on the most current release from a major video game company cause most of them are adamant on getting more than just the base 60 dollars or pre order money from us . if it’s not thru shitty dlc and additions to the gameplay or story, it’s cosmetics with absolutely no way to unlock most of them unless you have a debit or credit card on hand or other absolutely useless in game items. the gaming industry blew up cause just like every other major industry right now they saw a path to peoples pockets not their hearts …and what can we do as a people other than just wait for someone to make something genuine or for us ourselves to step to that challenge as the consumer and make it ourselves like with so many other industries
Well now a days games all have social credit scores they have to abide by. Not to mention they are more concerned with their Chinese consumers then Western users like the UK or U.S.
I would love it, but it's not gonna happen. Same case with Manhunt. Gaming became censored and politically correct to the bone. Those games cannot exist without proper violence, gore and other heavy themes. Even God of War is shell of it's previous games, with annoying kid and slapstick characters like those dwarfs instead of killing gods and sex minigames.
One thing that I noticed, but I'm not 100% sure about is that the order in which the voices speak when you are confronted with a choice about someone's life isn't random. If they have done something to anger you then the bad voice always speaks first, but if not the good voice does. Pretty indicative of someone with serious anger issues, like you have to take a second to calm down and forgive them for what they did.
Thats an excellent point and honestly I can even apply that to my own life. When I think back on when people have wronged me I feel angry and hateful towards them but when I slow down a second and apply logic and reason I realize they more than likely didnt mean it and even if they did blowing up on them isnt gonna help anything
@@Kerpkoop And also the challenge of them that's really neat is that even though the ranged ones mostly remain stationary, they're much more deadly when you have to keep dodging a pack of melees to focus on taking them out first which the player should always do
The monsters being based on different executions makes me wanna wish for more. Like Tank Executions, Drowning, Prisoners who were killed by other Prisoners, etc.
Midway went out of business, and most of their IPs were sold to Warner Brothers Interactive. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't bother to acquire lesser-known titles like The Suffering.
One detail you might missed out: your morality also effects your healing and how your Xobiums are effective. With good morality, you heal faster and Xobiums are highly effective. With evil morality, you heal much slower and your Xobiums are very much less effective.
Dude, This game always held a special place in my heart like that too. My pops had gotten locked up and so it was just me and my mom. And my fondest memories were always sitting next to her as a kid watching her play this. So hearing you say that warmed my heart. I used to imagine my father was fighting his way back home like Tork. It kinda made me sad the day she finished the game.
Dr killjoy was very puzzling to me during my first gameplay of the suffering I was thinking he's sort of helping me but I also thought he was the reason the monsters were around too
The Suffering has always been a gem imo. Strangely enough, I remember back in the mid-2000s the US Air Force sponsored a free-to-play PC version of this game and Area 51. Two very strange titles for the military to sponsor.
I picked this up randomly the week it was released, played it to death. So satisfying transforming into the beast and ripping those blade monsters to shreds.
Man if there's a game they need to remake THIS is definitely one of those games. This game really captured the horror aspect along with insanely terrifying enemies. If they made this into a next gen game it could be up there with Dead space, RE, Silent Hill etc.
This series is one that I'd actually be for a reboot. There's so much of today's horror games mixed with action that have focused on being psychological and really utilizing it's setting and themes. This franchise has a lot of untapped potential for modern day audiences, whether that be updating the gameplay mechanics (the two alternating voices of good and bad are great), the background of prison being rehabilitative vs. punitive, diving into the history of treatment of prisoners and weaving those into those horrifying monster designs. There's so much in this that could be expanded upon and made better and improves upon these original games.
I remember finding this game because I had a nightmare when I was 10 about a monster with blades for arms and legs, and then looking up the description for the monster and seeing that the slayer was almost identical to the thing I saw in the dream. Best nightmare ever.
I once played a on disk demo for "The Suffering: Ties that Bind" on the PS2 as a kid and I couldn't remember the name of the game to this day, but I'd think about it every now and then. I could never find anything, then you posted this video and I recognized the protagonist so I looked up a second game after this one and saw the game I played all those years ago. Man that's crazy
damn, Totally, you do 'Manhunt' last time, and now 'The Suffering'! These were a big part of my early to mid 2000's gaming life. Mad props on the good content...keep it up!
I remember watching PewDiePie playing suffering as a child. I used to watch TH-camrs playing horror let's play at that time and seeing old horror games like this brings me nostalgic memories that I want to go back
I got to experience it first hand playing this and silent hill 2 when I was 5 and 6 years old prolly wasn't the best thing for my age but fuck it,it shaped my love for horror media lmao
I remember when I played this game for the first time when I was a kid. I was to scared to leave my cell room at the beginning of the game lol. But when I met the first enemy and Torque jumped 10 feet in the air with duel revolvers, I wasn't scared anymore. I was like this man is a badass. I never got the chanced to play the Ties That Bind.
I was exactly the same with the 1st one man, lmao, I was like 12, but I loved how scary it was. And like the guy above said, if you ever get the chance, play the 2nd one, it's a little more action-ish, but its great
I never forgot about this game after all the years that have passed sense I played it as a kid. The suffering is quite possibly the only game that actually managed to scare me as a kid and I distinctly remember it by the amazing horror atmosphere the game manages to produce. I’ve been wanting for a full remake of this game for years, but I doubt it’ll ever get one. The whole reason I got recommended this video is because I recently looked into watching a play through of the game on TH-cam.
I honestly never felt scared but facineded, I had nightmares not going to lie, but I played all the SH franchise, RE, Forbidden siren, Obscure, Postal 1 and 2, Manhunt, Project Zero, and a bunch of another games around that genre, so I was sort of use too. But it was pretty strong non the less.
32:30 Little correction: being burned at the stake wasn't that common for witchcraft, it was actually mostly used for heresy. Hanging was a much more common mean of execution for witches. A pyre require a lot of work to set up, a lot of wood and it's hard to execute people quickly that way, that's why it was kept for "special" occasions.
They were either hung or worse yet: made to prove their innocence through an execution: be it being tied up in a sack filled with rocks then thrown into a lake or river, or just plain tossed off a cliff. You died, you were innocent and if you survived (though the drowning part would definitely have no issue with innocence as no one would survive long) then you would be found and THEN executed.
Hard to look back and not think wtf were we as humans thinking, going through the effort to display someone slowly burn alive was considered a "special" occasion? XD, jeez we've come along way
@@fobo3361 It's not that different from today. Even if it is arguably less painfull, the death penalty as it is used in the U.S right now follow the same logic: a rare event to scare people in the "right" path.
@@Torlik11 arguably? I believe its less painful all across the board, physically its ment to be as humane as possible (i believe), you dont get the shame or fear or confusion of being tied up infront of countless people while they all watch you, so emotionally its easier, along with your family either having to hear your screams or read about the horrific way you went out, so even for family its less painful
Just played this game for the first time recently. I was surprised by how much it holds up. Excellent atmosphere, fluid controls, fun combat. I don't know who owns the rights to it since Midway went under, but I'd love to see this ported over to modern consoles.
I really appreciate how this game doesn't demonize (all of) the prisoners. They even have a consensual prison-love mention! :) The guards too aren't all bad or all good either, and I really appreciate the nuances.
@FrostyElwood Toward the beginning one of the first (if not the first) friendly npc/follower mentions he had a lover who died in the outbreak and asks Cole if he ever found love inside the prison
I always think that Consuela’s scrapbook gets less love than it deserves. Yes, it gives you the history of the island, but she straight up decorated it with relevant items too. That’s some dedicated scrapbooking right there. 😆
@@VortexDnB oh, literally? The only way your sentence would be accurate is if you were referring to the movies, and even that bar is barely high enough for one to edge out the other. Not only did silent hill 2 improve in every way on every aspect over the first, but it also had the most accurately portrayed public restrooms in the history of games. Literally. But like not literally though. But if you want a horror game where the first really (literally) is better than the sequel, look no further than manhunt lol.
I feel like the rebirth machine is Dr Killjoy using his manipulation abilities to their fullest extent. As in, the same way he can create physical constructs with the projectors using his consciousness, he can use the rebirth machine to make someone literally face their demons by making it an actual fight. Instead of going to a therapist and talking the bad thoughts away, you go to him and punch the bad thoughts away.
Lol, always those moments you would just look at the cover and sh*t your pants. And still would continue looking and wondering how horrific the game would be.
15:00 the water "seeking out the fire" may have been the devs using the fact that public facilities will frequently have gradient floor sloping to guide water away from walls and toward the middle of halls and then toward the nearest grating/drainage plumbing to their advantage. it still looks wonky as hell but it may not have been as simple as "water, sic 'em"... although that would be hilarious to do lol
I show this to my dad he was shock there was a multiple ending he play it again and he's enjoying it on my pc i was so happy to see him playing again it make me tear up
I've never heard of this game but it really is unique and well-made. Its concept alone being a horror game set in Prison is also unique, it gives the message that you DON'T want to be in prison kind of like how most ex-convicts nowadays make blogs regarding things about prison. I hope people learn from this game now that you've talked about it and we'll see more prison games that cater to a psychological experience rather than something such as a hentai game or a funny cops n robbers minigame
I like how different endings actually have different versions of the past. Usually a game will have what happened before always be the same, and the different endings are just that, different ENDINGS. Very cool!
To this day, I still think this game had one the most outstanding sound direction. From the Doom-esque beefy gunshots, to the scream and roar of your character's transformation. It is quite memorable.
Without a doubt. The Suffering, The Suffering Ties That Bind, Legacy of Kain games, Killer7, Psi-Ops Mindgate Conspiracy, Second Sight, Urban Reign, Rise To Honor, Hulk Ultimate Destruction, Project SnowBlind, The Punisher, Ultimate Spider-Man, Def Jam Fight for NY, True Crime LA and True Crime New York City, Rogue Trooper, Midnight Club 2, Black, Urban Chaos Riot Response, Freedom Fighters, Area 51 are few I can think of. Miss those PS2 days.
@@Web720 It's less AA and more than games during the 6th gen era didn't require AAA budgets. That hit a lot of devs hard during the 7th gen, where not every studio could output true AAA production values.
4:14 This voice actor is the guy that did 90% of the male npc's in Half-Life 2 + Ep1 & Ep2. (Never understood why that one guy did them all. Some kind of gag?)
Damn I absolutely LOVE this game. I've played it too many times. And speaking about this moment at 13:24 you can't actually continue with him or it will brake the game. I've once managed to push Dallas inside the room before the cutscene and after that he basically becomes invincible (but actually can be killed if someone hits a headshot) and the same goes for Hargrave (but he is actually unkillable in this scenario). So after that they are both stuck in the constant loop of shooting each other and Dallas won't follow you outside of the location. It was a sad moment as I was leaving this room with constant sounds of gunshots slowly fading away in the distance. Anyway, thank you for the vid and I hope that you will see this comment.
Actually, you can escort him beyond that point. It’s difficult, but possible. You just have to kill Hargrave first, then push a button to open the door again. Dallas is meant to escape through the main prison entrance if you escort him all the way. It’s the second toughest escort mission next to Ernesto.
Two things I really I really liked was when the monster where being described by tow different people , they both thought that they originated from different crime/sins/events, which kinda made it seem like this could happen anywhere with enough concentrated evil swimming around. The other thing was that the morality system legitimately made being a good guy hard, cause there are like a dozen and a half ways to be good in the first game and like 50 to be evil, and the good options typically where things like escort quests or defenses missions, which drained you of resources, making eveil the easy way out, rather than just "another option".
The second game, Ties That Bind answers many of the questions the first game has, for example why in the neutral ending the older son drowned the other one then commited suicide.
@@bulldog200 Brother if you don't know what you're talking about just don't do it. There were literally 4 monsters that were brought back and that with a new design even, the rest were new. And there are a total of 12 monsters, so "most" doesn t even cut it.
@Larry Bundy Jr Psi-Ops was a great game! Hardly any money was put towards marketing it. I was fortunate to have been working at Midway at the time and was on the QA team for Psi-Ops and helped with testing on The Suffering -
I've only ever met one other person who even knows of Psi-Ops. Along with Vice City and MGS 3: Snake Eater, it was my favourite PS2 game. Criminally underrated and way ahead of its time.
I never got a chance to play this series but I'm a huge fan of various horror games. What a shame we'll never get remastered versions of both titles or a super good remake. On all platforms.
This game has a very soft place in my heart as I remember playing it with my older brother when I was way too young to be doing so. Hope something can be come from the franchise again. Edit: I do think some people at studios have expressed the desire for a remake or remaster or a new sequel but idk
I watched my uncle play this when i was a kid. Freaked me out. Now that i think of it, he kind of introduced me to a lot of horror games, because i also saw him play Silent Hill 4, RE4, Fatal Frame, etc. I have him to thank for my love of horror games!
Haha i think i relate to that either , i do recall that i saw a cover art of it once in a gaming store while i was looking at it in amazement , at the time i was a kid , being accompanied by my dad so he could get me xbox games.
I know that I might be a bit late to the party for commenting on this. I want to say thank you for making this. This game was something I grew up with and was by far something very near and dear to Heart and very few people have spoken so outwardly it was such an underrated experience and I remember growing up dreaming about this game getting better with every technological advancement we have in the gaming industry but never came to pass
This game, Twisted Metal: Black, Manhunt, Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill series, Fatal Frame, etc. There was an air in the time where edgy videogames really did put us on the edge. Now though? It’s “meh”…
I'd like to raise a point about the sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind. It was a surprisingly rare game to find, or at least it was where I lived. Stores just didn't seem to have it, and in a surprising twist, even when it was a new release, rental stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video either only had 1 or 2 copies, or just didn't carry it at all, depending on the exact store you went to. Because nobody could seem to find the game, nobody played it, and so nobody really talked about it. There also weren't nearly as many commercials for Ties That Bind as there were for the first one. I actually found out there was a sequel only because there was a very short demo in another game, though I can't recall what game it was off the top of my head. It MIGHT have just been a demo disc that was given out in a gaming magazine, but I simply do not remember.
@@derpyboi8591 Potentially, but I was never a Twisted Metal fan. Also, since I played the first one on Xbox, I wanted to play the second one on Xbox for consistency. Doesn't help that there were only a couple games on the PS2 I actually cared about, and it wasn't the exclusive franchises.
Really? funny thing is I got it as soon as I finished the first game on PS2 back then. Ties That Bind was literally placed right next to the first game when I bought it lol.
@@Disconnect350 This is why I was sure to specify 'where I live'. Straight up, nobody ever had it, and like I said, there were no commercials on any of the channels I watched where I'd seen some for the first game. I saw a preview of it on G4 once, and it was never brought up ever again. It just sort of faded into obscurity within a year of the sequel dropping because nobody ever talked about it, and in my area, nobody carried it. One might argue the problem was cyclical; nobody talked about it, so nobody carried it, and since nobody carried it, nobody talked about it, so nobody carried it.
Really appreciate you covering this series I always feel like i’m playing the most obscure games that only I knew about growing up lol (Plus the sudden zooms and sound effects were killing me) Not sure how you’d feel about covering the Turok series? Extremely underrated (First 2 games)
This is like the first horror game that ever gave me nightmares. My childhood friend's mum played this, and I had to be like 7-8 years old when I watched it. I couldn't sleep for weeks lmao, much less when we finally started playing it ourselves! Such a gem of a game. Torque's beast mode is so gnarly and fun! One cool thing about it as well, if you stay in beast mode when the insanity meter depletes, it starts taking your health down as well. Once it too empties, Torque turns back to human and curls up into a fetal position, having a mental breakdown / panic attack. Yeah it's not the best looking game, or the gameplay isn't the best to offer, but the art style and setting is very, very unique and it stays with you forever. When I think of a horror prison, this game always comes to mind first. This game would be so fucking incredible with a reboot, with today's graphical fidelity, and improve the shooting mechanics, you've got yourself a formula for a kick ass revival of this IP!
21:07 This is actually the *ONE* thing that really pissed me off about this game storyline wise. I actually think this one of *THE* most important details that should be explained. I mean seriously, your telling me that just because someone is deeply "conflicted" or disturbed ALL this shit just happens????? If that were the case, the entire planet would be overrun with monsters.
To be fair, ties that bind confirmed that everything is happening elsewhere too, along with the fact that a scientist is trying to explain it all via research
It makes sense though. In writing we call this the knukleeve principal. (A knuckleeve is a folklore monster that appears in times of great suffering and death to drag mortals to hell.) The island is a place that has seen such suffering and death that its all culminated and cause it all to manifest as horrific monsters and supernatural happenings. This is usually done in places that are isolated like islands or remote areas, though if its taking place in a normal area, its usually written where anyone outside of the goings on will simply see that place as normal. its not a very common writing trope but it can be a fun one if done well.
@@MsMoonDragoon I'm tired of stories that you mentioned at the end, particularly about no one else seeing it, God I think that's such a cowards way of writing things. The suffering was amazing because everything was happening, not some dream or hallucination and that made the impossible nature of the situation/creatures even creepier. If the slayer was a dream, oh well, I guess the apparatus holding his head is just to be creepy....but if he's real...how does he control his head? How can he see with nothing connecting to his body? Does he feel pain? Etc. Making things real requires some forethought, a good explainable source of things (like how they're representing executions) among many other challenges, so hopefully people make more stories like that...I know I am at least~
I went to school with a kid with a speech impediment that called this game "The Susher". I only played the second one. It was pretty good. The evil beast form was a lot cooler looking. The good monster has this weird human face and it's more funny than disturbing. Though it is more powerful than the evil version.
I really like the sequel personally. The weapons in it were improved with their effects and to me it made sense that Torque could only carry two weapon types at a time. Playing through it on impossible was really hard but for me it felt like playing Doom or Wolfenstein on a high difficulty. Just always shooting getting as much damage as possible while dodging slashes and projectiles. Then you can go into the monster mode and clear out a room with the cataclysm, or melee them down. The morality choices feel really impactful too. Effecting things like health regen and meter gain. Giving you different attack animations. Ammo can be really really scarce too on impossible, to the point where you could run out and lose your run or have to go back a long way to do better which is what I like in a horror game. I want it to be possible for me to wind up so low on resources that that I can run out and not have enough so I need to plan things carefully and Ties That Bind does this really well for me, much like Resident Evil Code Veronica.
The intro is so good. Really immerses you into that dark world. And every character's voice is so unique even the inmates are well written especially the villains/bosses
I remember seeing ads for this game and thinking the enemy designs were really unique and I believe they still are even today! Great breakdown of the game! I also really find it a great sound effect of when Torque is reverting back from the monster and it goes from a monstrous growl transitioning directly into his own raging howl, such a great touch!
31:00 "I wanted to save him ... I tried that multiple times and it didn't work, so I'm taking that as divine intervention and leaving the songbit to die" lmao, subbed
This game + Area 51 + Darkwatch were my favorite ones in the PS2 era, after playing a ton of the popular games for so long I started giving a chance to some less popular titles, and gosh I was rewarded
Area 51 was incredible, even had David Duchovny voice the protagonist and Marilyn Manson as the grey in the tank. I wish steam would have both of these games available
I'm loving the attention this game is getting recently. It's one of the most inventive games I played as a kid. It also had great in game extras including a documentary on Eastern State Penitentiary, and a dope manual!
Just before the final boss fight there's a narrow spine of cliff you can just barely jump across to access a secret area. Here you will find three electric chair switches. Interacting with each one will play out one of the alternate endings. There are so many secrets and rich details like this that go beyond even the scope of this video. I loved this game so much as a kid and never understood why it fell into such obscurity.
I was 9 when this came out and this was the very first horror game I ever played and it started me down a looooong line of playing endless horror games (27 now). I'll forever be grateful for this game.
One of my biggest regrets in life was trading in my ps2 and all my games for a 360. The suffering was one of those in this collection and man what's great game it was. You'll killing it with these in depth reviews.
@@milklesstea6091yeah PS2 go for like $60-$80 but recently The Suffering has been increasing in price lately from $15 to $30 which is crazy for a physical copy
For me, the only cool thing about The Suffering 2 was the soldiers fighting bloody battles with monsters all over the city. that was sooo cool. otherwise there was nothing special about the successor that differed from the first part.
This video was incredible, and for anybody feeling a little left out on the ties that bind for content, Avalanche Reviews has done a very good video on the sequel.
Absolutely, I remember playing this as a kid and really appreciating it fully. Same goes for the second one, I wish a third one came out though - would be awesome.
The ghosts of The Executioner, The Shrink and The Pimp, are 3 of my favorite characters in anything ever. In fact The Creeper was my childhood role model.
I remember playing this game when I was younger and I never beat it. my 11 year old mind didn't comprehend certain mechanics I guess. but I think I vividly remember either an Easter egg or a cheat code that gave you a chicken as a weapon? and the eggs would insta kill most enemies. I'm glad this video was made because now I know how the game ends. =)
I never thought of it before until your video, but the main 3 ghosts represent the 3 paths of the game, Dr.Killjoy for neutral, Hermes for evil, and Horace for good.
As a kid, I just remember this game having the most interesting story I had ever played through. It took me a long time though... as I was young and made me shit myself with fear lmaoooo
I swear, almost every early/late 2000s horror survival game has some of the coolest monster/enemy designs ever.
people had more creativity back then.
I feel like most of the good games came from the 2000s-early 2010s.
It was the golden age of games
100%! people had more passion and creativity back then. Originality is mostly dead now.
@@Disconnect350 originality has always been dead
It's so sad that this "silent hill" like horrorgames as a subgenre are dying
Good games with this genre are so rare.
Probably because Silent Hill fans hate most of the Silent Hill games after the 2nd one. So any game hopping on that trend isn’t going to make it
Edit; it was the 4th which was the last well received
@@amuroray9115 Well that makes sense but there are also games like Cry of fear or Total chaos which took the silent hill theme and made it in my opninion better.
I must say These "Cry of fear" like games are the best horror games or at least the scariest which I played.
@waxing gibbous well said. The toxic fans killed the series. They weren’t as open minded as the RE fan base
@@amuroray9115 no, it wasn’t the toxic fandom, it was the fact that nearly every game after 4 had huge isssues and were immensely flawed, plus Konami has essentially let the franchise die. Just look at the critical reception too. I think most people don’t hate the latter games, but they’re just not as good as the first 4, and.
@@charlestonobryant807 I see
it makes me really happy imagining just a kid watching their mom play such a gory game as a bonding experience
Sounds like you had a beautiful childhood 💜
Man fax. About 13 years ago y pops used to play infamous on his ps3 and put me on to it. He never played much and knowing him he was probably ass but that single-handedly sparked my interest in console gaming and Infamous. Love that man for that
reminds me of my old pal from school, told me he watched his mom play the original COD a bunch growing up
I watched my mom play different kinds of games as a kid. One series I watched her play was Resident Evil :)
I watched my mom play kingdom hearts and the final fantasy series starting from as early as I could remember. She’s long since stopped playing but KH & FF will always be held dear to me for that reason
The good ending I consider to be the canon one. Bc I think the fact that an innocent man was about to get exеcuted is what drove those spirits to go mad
Could also argue that the bad ending could be canon, as such an evil presence who actively denied any harm done and who could even possibly do it again if provoked enough could've awakened the spirits due to such violent and malicious energy being brought forth.
Well the game itself considers a neutral ending to be the canon one.
@@OverLorD768 More like a "default" one, since that's what sequel starts with, if saves from the first game not used.
Since the good ending had the most story in it, it's probably fair to say that they intended the Good route to be the 'correct' one.
@@OverLorD768
There is no canon ending for the first game, if you have a save from the first and play the second, the game will begin from the ending you got in the first.
I love that the Suffering’s monsters are all based on various death penalties prisons used. That was truly something different for monsters in gaming
Not necesarly based on death penalties but on how people on the Carnate died. Apparently Carnate was owned by the French before so you get where the slayers prolly come (yeah also from stabbings too) from.Mainliners represent the lethal injection, Marksmen represent death by firing squad , Burrowers are a representation of those buried alive in the quarry and so on. It is explained that when a place gather a lot of negative energy it will become a 'ticking bomb'. Even before Torque came to the island there were strange occurings and malefactor sightings on the island.
@@marius40838 torque must've been the spark to light the fuze
@@thelordofthelostbraincells Exactly.
@@marius40838 this game really deserves a remake, a remaster (whatever you call it).
Just imagine the monster designs in beautiful HD 3d
@@thelordofthelostbraincells It does but unfortunately i don't think it will ever happen . The series is very underrated.
"I shot at it, I threw explosives at it, I read it a strongly worded letter." Loved this part.
I absolutely love the concept of having the monsters based on forms of execution. It makes the game very unique.
I really like the idea for sure but also found that in this specific game, having that formula might have also stunted developer creativity a little bit with respect to designing really uniquely, individually memorable horror monsters. Like the formula is cool but maybe they didn’t stray far enough, often enough. Just my personal opinion/critique though, in no way am I trying to say it’s “bad” like objectively
Cryostasis Sleep of Reason has many monsters with similar concept. The most notorious example is a monster which represents GULAG's towers with machine gun and siren.
Dark Pictures: Little Hope did that with its monsters. They were all based off of the ways the characters at the beginning of the game died, as well as how their doppelgangers from the colonial times died.
@That guy with the brain. The point is not that the monsters have a motif but that the motif is different forms of execution
@@the_furry_inside_your_walls639 Was gonna mention this. I absoluutely loved the monster design in that game. The water one was probably the most disturbing.
One thing I believe he forgot to mention, but is still a cool detail is that one of T's idle animation changes depending on your morality.
Good: He'll pull out the picture of his family and place it against his head before it back in his pocket.
Neutral: He'll reach for something else in his pocket, but drop the photo on accident. He'll then hesitate as he goes to pick it back up as if the action is painful for him. (Could be interpreted in many different ways.)
Evil: He'll angrily ball the photo up and toss it away. Then look at it on the ground, sink to his knees and pick it back up.
That is very very cool
Oh neat
Somebody made a video compilation on that years back. I think it was a channel called T.g. Or soemthing? They also made a video compiling all the monsters
@@amuroray9115yup TG I remember watching all of his videos
I love that. That is such a cool and deep feature to add. I've never heard of this game before today, but it's obvious that the devs definitely put a lot into it, especially when it comes to the small features like those that add so much more to the story.
I remember I found this game at a flea market when I was a kid, great game, had a good sequel as well, back in the day horror games had more grim in them
You can still find grim horror games, but they're mostly more indie.
When there's less budget, lower graphics, and no major corporation with a pure profit motive, you get more focus on things that Don't cost as much, like theming, story writing and so on, and you get more passion projects, and risk taking, instead of cash grabs and copy-pasted simple shooting mechanics.
@@calemr heavily agreed
The silent hill of silent hill basicly.
@@calemr name me one I wanna play it
@@christmas_blitz2419 Lost in Vivo, an indie horror shooter. Really creepy.
As someone in my late Twenties who was considered "weird" for having parents who played video games, I am so relieved to hear the story "I was watching my parents play this game as a young child" to be a more and more common statement.
The hell? You all got cool parents.
It is weird in the aspect that they are kinda hogging a childs system lol
My friend had parents that gamed and he never got to play because of it
Goes both ways.
@@willyjf6193 who said it was the child's? The early PlayStation 1 and 2s my dad got and they were explicitly his but me and my brother were allowed to play it I have my own PS4 thats explicitly mine but I let my son play on it with me or when I'm not using it
@@willyjf6193 I understand you're talking in your perspective of things, but other people live differently. The parents could be the ones who own the system and the person grew up watching them play, which in turn got them interested in gaming.
😂 yeah i dont know why ppl freak out like parents can't enjoy gaming lol my mum loves horror games
Weird to think The Suffering Ties That Bind had a demo you could play in Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks
Wtf? Lol okay
i was addicted to MK Shaolin long ago and i remenber playing that demo there, 2 weeks later i bought the game and enjoy it a lot, it has a precious place in my heart
That demo in was how I got into The Suffering initially. Played the shit out of that demo then found out there was a game before it.
bruh playing two amazing third person games back to back even if one was a demo was one heck of an experience. Now publishers and developers both would start crying if they did free shit like this ever again.
@@MGrey-qb5xz And they even had a version of MK2 aswell, guarrantee we'll never see something like that again
I know I'm a year late, but I think the reason Horace's boss fight is so easy is because he's desperate for you to end his suffering, so he's giving you an easy fight, but the reason he does anything at all is because he's conflicted between suffering and life or peace and death.
I played this game for a maximum of 10 minutes because the cover art scared the hell out of me as a kid. I seen the Guard die at the gate and wrapped it up
Lmao
You and me bro I reached to the 1st part where to 1st enemy was supposed to be but I was such a scared kid I exited the game and it took me 2 months to come back and play it again... And I still love the OG game
That was me with resident evil 2 on the ps1. I boot it up, get to the car crash with all the zombies, get scared and turn it off.
@@FreeHectic As a kid I worked up the courage past that part eventually till the Police Station, got bit and locked into the animation, cut the game off out of fear lol.
Silent hill and the kids with knives did same to me.
pausing three minutes in just to say: Stan Winston working on the creature designs of this game blew my mind lol. It already explains how the monsters are so unique and top notch.
God bless you and whoever reads this, Jesus loves you,
@@flamingcat1101 maybe it's time to close all those reddit tabs and get some fresh air, touch some green, freshly cut grass
@@flamingcat1101 that place where "the hacker known as 4chan" has come from
@@flamingcat1101 Know what's more cringeworthy in my opinion? Someone attributing negativity to a positive message
@@dillfrill10 you can see they spam the same thing. Just click on their pfp before assuming
You should do Suffering 2. The best part of it is how it actually uses your first game save game to continue all 3 endings from the first game into full fledged stories of their own. While a lot of the gameplay is the same, small touches change up the narrative a lot. Some bosses outright become allies. I don't even remember if switching morality from good to evil, or from evil to good mid game creates whole new endings or not. But it sure felt like it. And that made the second game as memorable as the first
So they did make a second game....cool
@@endobro-ym9vvYup. Michael Clark Duncan is the main villain. The revelation will shock you.
@@ECW5320
It will not, it's a very generic and obvious plot-twist.
@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 not to everyone.
@@ECW5320
The game even spoilers the plot-twist to you by making Torque have the same voice-actor as the villain, Torque speaks at the beginning of the game before the villain shows up and speaks with the same voice.
If you didn't see that generic-ass plot-twist coming, then you must be brain dead.
Kinda cool hearing John Patrick Lowrie in a non-Valve game!
I thought i was the only one thinking of HL2 citizens
He plays Sgt. Harold Keegan in F.E.A.R. 2 which is one of my favorite games ever. The dude is so chill and talented.
Adding 1:28 into a mod 💀💀
He's also Bruno in No One Lives Forever
“Sometimes... I dreeeam about cheese”
I love the fact that the voices you hear, are there as a “make your choice” gimmick. Even though it’s small, I love how the family is there to try pulling you into the light, and the sinister voice attempts to pull you into the dark side
I hope this franchise is rebooted/re-visited; prison horror is so underdone, which is weird considering it's a setting ripe for horror media. Because the game's story is pretty self-contained, the new games could be taken in any direction; different time periods, other countries, whole new character perspectives. Heck, it could be set in a gulag or POW camp, if done correctly. The possibilites are crazy, not to mention how nuts the designers could go with the monsters.
They need to go RE7 with it. First person, one monster per design, almost unkillable monsters and violent inmates. Would totally be an incredible release.
@@rustythefoxcoon5143almost unkillable monsters would ruin it. The two games are meant for you being the ultimate killer and finding answers to Torques/the players questions by any means necessary. If you go RE7 with it, it’ll ruin it imo, and the game already has FPS on it but it was more of a disadvantage due to how the game was made. I promise you the formula they already have here is unique and fun if they just remastered the game
a gulag setting would be pretty awesome, some form of psychological thriller meets haunting.. the camp is in an area that the soviets wanted to research and weaponize the paranormal but the under the guise of it being a mining camp... all is not what it seems and expired prisoners are haunting the area and picking off their prey
@Br0kenM1nded I feel like they’d be mentally insane skinny, rotting flesh, their skin hanging, blood all over them, I can see their voices being high pitch or a low whisper pitch. And theyd run at you with like a knife or some other weapon or just use their bare hands
@Br0kenM1ndedwould definitely be cool to see a homage done to the RSE creepy pasta if they did reboot the suffering and put it in a Soviet gulag.
Fun fact: John Patrick Lowrie, the man behind tf2's sniper, and the male rebel voices from half life 2, can be heard as some of the characters in this game.
You mean Hawks?
The guy on the radio who tells you his current situation before dying to one of the Slayers?
Oh my what a fun fact
i was about to say that lmao, i recognize is so much.
I knew it from the start!!
Sometimes i dream about cheese
I honestly remember watching my dad play this game, he would turn it on when he thought I went to sleep, but man I would watch him play this for hours and hours. This game actually stuck with me and its been 18 years I wish this game got a remaster or something
Just buy a PS2 and order this game and any other old games u wanna go back to bc many aren't getting remasters. I've done it
Wholesome
@zachupchurch5012, there is a pc version
For The Suffering, the first one, there's the "indifference" option too, if you just leave them behind but alive, then you can get the neutral ending too.
He included that in the video
Did you watch the video lmao?
The ending of the game was so eerie when you got the neutral or bad ending
@@armytrainer I did, for some reason he didn't mention neutral til towards the end...I just thought he missed it..hell, I missed the neutral ending for the longest time when I was playing it regularly.
This is why I miss this era so deeply. Devs created things and they just created them. If it was meant to be messed up, it was messed up. They let the environment and random people set tone, it just worked, no matter how twisted. They hardly had a limit to their twistedness and it just felt real like how messed up things and people are in the real world, at least in a video game sense.
They actually felt like passion projects instead of boring AAA stuff we usually get today
Yeah everything now is made to sell not to enjoy ,
last game that has really just been a good game was like the god of war and dark souls elden ring esque games refreshing their mechanics and moving on with the times even without having to throw our wallet at the. nowadays if your game isn’t gonna make money then it isn’t worth making apparently !?
here’s to the future of indie games,
at this point I’d wait and pay 60 for a game 8 guys made in a basement over the course of three or fours years with patches and updates to come instead of, 60 on the most current release from a major video game company cause most of them are adamant on getting more than just the base 60 dollars or pre order money from us .
if it’s not thru shitty dlc and additions to the gameplay or story,
it’s cosmetics with absolutely no way to unlock most of them unless you have a debit or credit card on hand or other absolutely useless in game items. the gaming industry blew up cause just like every other major industry right now they saw a path to peoples pockets not their hearts …and what can we do as a people other than just wait for someone to make something genuine or for us ourselves to step to that challenge as the consumer and make it ourselves like with so many other industries
helps it isn't some bloated mess called an "open world" game, you no lives seriously consume that shit like it be fast food
@@JohnYourube because they were. This game wasn’t a triple AAA. It was almost indie. Play more indie horror
Well now a days games all have social credit scores they have to abide by. Not to mention they are more concerned with their Chinese consumers then Western users like the UK or U.S.
If any game needs a remaster or a remake its this one. Imagine how visceral and bloody and how amazing it would look on modern hardware.
Agreed
I would love it, but it's not gonna happen. Same case with Manhunt. Gaming became censored and politically correct to the bone. Those games cannot exist without proper violence, gore and other heavy themes. Even God of War is shell of it's previous games, with annoying kid and slapstick characters like those dwarfs instead of killing gods and sex minigames.
@@cor.tenebrarum it can happen but it needs to be fanmade
@@cor.tenebrarum I’d love to see fans make it come true
*cough* Outlast *cough*
3:21
They got the Predator guy to design the monsters? So that's why the Suffering monsters do the Predator style purr.
I'm surprised the most common enemies represent beheading when it's, all things considered, a pretty uncommon method of execution nowadays.
If you take a look at third world countries or gore websites at 3am, i can assure you that beheading is waaaaaay more common than you think it is.
Depending on what part of the world tho.
But it's been an extremely common one throughout humanity, overall
Also to add a point the guillotine is one of the most humane forms of execution. but then again depends on who your asking and what period.
@@snazy7777 And how dull that blade is.
One thing that I noticed, but I'm not 100% sure about is that the order in which the voices speak when you are confronted with a choice about someone's life isn't random. If they have done something to anger you then the bad voice always speaks first, but if not the good voice does. Pretty indicative of someone with serious anger issues, like you have to take a second to calm down and forgive them for what they did.
Great point! I never thought about that.
Thats an excellent point and honestly I can even apply that to my own life. When I think back on when people have wronged me I feel angry and hateful towards them but when I slow down a second and apply logic and reason I realize they more than likely didnt mean it and even if they did blowing up on them isnt gonna help anything
It's interesting how the ranged monster is massive, but the melee monster is small...
Because melee requires fast movements and ranged just requires sitting there and shooting. Well unless you're pyramid head lol
@@clockworkNate I think, in addition to that, ranged enemies are representative of an entire firing squad so they’re a large mass.
harder to hit small things
hey your not supposed to like things that aren’t fighting games
@@Kerpkoop And also the challenge of them that's really neat is that even though the ranged ones mostly remain stationary, they're much more deadly when you have to keep dodging a pack of melees to focus on taking them out first which the player should always do
The monsters being based on different executions makes me wanna wish for more.
Like Tank Executions, Drowning, Prisoners who were killed by other Prisoners, etc.
Female executives, the Games R rated 😏😈🥵
@@egalitarius8582k
@@Drako4KZ sh
There were drowning-based monster in The Suffering. The festers.
@@matyaksenton4301Festers representation is not drowning, it's being eaten alive by rats
This game seems to have perfect potential for a remaster
Never gonna happen
Midway went out of business, and most of their IPs were sold to Warner Brothers Interactive. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't bother to acquire lesser-known titles like The Suffering.
@@JonasPolsky ah midway and thq. Two good game companies who went out of business
@@EgoClubOfficial except THQ has come back
they didn't even bother to make it backwards compatible on the new xbox. unfortunately, The Suffering is dead.
One detail you might missed out: your morality also effects your healing and how your Xobiums are effective. With good morality, you heal faster and Xobiums are highly effective. With evil morality, you heal much slower and your Xobiums are very much less effective.
Bro I thought I noticed that but I wasn’t completely sure
It's Xombium. As in zombie. Not Xobium. It's one of the more common critiques of the game that the name of the healing item is beyond on the nose.
@@jackcoleman1784
Thanks for the clarification. I never thought I always mispronounce it. 😅
Dude, This game always held a special place in my heart like that too. My pops had gotten locked up and so it was just me and my mom. And my fondest memories were always sitting next to her as a kid watching her play this. So hearing you say that warmed my heart.
I used to imagine my father was fighting his way back home like Tork. It kinda made me sad the day she finished the game.
sorry for u
@@meziiiane i appreciate that. Thankfully we’re pretty close to him coming back home soon 🙏🏽.
@@skyrimdavid yo that's sick man. hope he gets back soon as possible
@@meziiiane thank you for tht man, it means a lot to hear!
@@skyrimdavid no problem ✌️
Dr killjoy was very puzzling to me during my first gameplay of the suffering
I was thinking he's sort of helping me but I also thought he was the reason the monsters were around too
Righteous, I was puzzled too. I initially thought he was an antagonist.
It was implied by stuff found in the asylum that he was responsible for the Slayers at least.
Low-key the slayers were my fav
I wish I could have made them join me like pikmin slayers to command@@DoctorFail
The Suffering has always been a gem imo. Strangely enough, I remember back in the mid-2000s the US Air Force sponsored a free-to-play PC version of this game and Area 51. Two very strange titles for the military to sponsor.
Maybe they were trying to say something
US Air Force: Come to Area 51 for The Suffering!
@@dofri2896 how they turn people into monsters like this? lmfao
@@qwertyiuwg4uwtwthn No idea, both also have protagonists with quirky transformation powers
That's how I got into it. Played it back in the late 2000s on my laptop at school. Amazing game!
I picked this up randomly the week it was released, played it to death. So satisfying transforming into the beast and ripping those blade monsters to shreds.
I remember how every 3rd person game back then seem to have a transformation feature
GoW, Jak and Daxter, Darksiders, Etc.
Man if there's a game they need to remake THIS is definitely one of those games. This game really captured the horror aspect along with insanely terrifying enemies. If they made this into a next gen game it could be up there with Dead space, RE, Silent Hill etc.
Considering that they wreck most remakes these days I would be just as nervous as I would be excited to see this remade.
😎💯
A proper remake seems pretty impossible. They just don’t make them like this anymore
@@crysolidtv That's true but there's always hope lol.
@@genuinejustin6269 I don’t think there is lol
This series is one that I'd actually be for a reboot. There's so much of today's horror games mixed with action that have focused on being psychological and really utilizing it's setting and themes. This franchise has a lot of untapped potential for modern day audiences, whether that be updating the gameplay mechanics (the two alternating voices of good and bad are great), the background of prison being rehabilitative vs. punitive, diving into the history of treatment of prisoners and weaving those into those horrifying monster designs.
There's so much in this that could be expanded upon and made better and improves upon these original games.
I remember finding this game because I had a nightmare when I was 10 about a monster with blades for arms and legs, and then looking up the description for the monster and seeing that the slayer was almost identical to the thing I saw in the dream. Best nightmare ever.
bro you got an ad in your sleep
Best nightmare ever, lol. That part got me good 😆
How is the monster going to chase you if it has blades for legs?
@@harveywallbanger3123 you know the track runners in the special Olympics?
Sounds too good to be true.
I once played a on disk demo for "The Suffering: Ties that Bind" on the PS2 as a kid and I couldn't remember the name of the game to this day, but I'd think about it every now and then. I could never find anything, then you posted this video and I recognized the protagonist so I looked up a second game after this one and saw the game I played all those years ago. Man that's crazy
The shaolin monks demo was so crazy I would always play it more than the actual MK game
Yes I also had the demo in the shaolin monks, with a friend we loved to play it and the demo.
Bro yes I knew I couldn’t be the only one
IKR???? For years it fucking haunted me
damn, Totally, you do 'Manhunt' last time, and now 'The Suffering'! These were a big part of my early to mid 2000's gaming life.
Mad props on the good content...keep it up!
Mine too right with Twisted Metal Black.
Hell yeah he the goat!
Manhunt, Suffering, Condemned, F.E.A.R, etc. We had so many underrated horror franchises back then.
I remember watching PewDiePie playing suffering as a child. I used to watch TH-camrs playing horror let's play at that time and seeing old horror games like this brings me nostalgic memories that I want to go back
What a cringe youtuber
I got to experience it first hand playing this and silent hill 2 when I was 5 and 6 years old prolly wasn't the best thing for my age but fuck it,it shaped my love for horror media lmao
Oh man, I read your comment just after I saw Pewds announcing he just became a dad! The nostalgia hits different this time. 👊
I'd have thought that someone with that renown would have helped to get more attention for this game.
I’m sorry you had to experience growing up by watching pewdiepie.
I remember when I played this game for the first time when I was a kid. I was to scared to leave my cell room at the beginning of the game lol. But when I met the first enemy and Torque jumped 10 feet in the air with duel revolvers, I wasn't scared anymore. I was like this man is a badass. I never got the chanced to play the Ties That Bind.
You should try to get your hands on a copy, it’s a pretty good follow up and not many sequels pull that off.
I was exactly the same with the 1st one man, lmao, I was like 12, but I loved how scary it was. And like the guy above said, if you ever get the chance, play the 2nd one, it's a little more action-ish, but its great
I never forgot about this game after all the years that have passed sense I played it as a kid.
The suffering is quite possibly the only game that actually managed to scare me as a kid and I distinctly remember it by the amazing horror atmosphere the game manages to produce.
I’ve been wanting for a full remake of this game for years, but I doubt it’ll ever get one.
The whole reason I got recommended this video is because I recently looked into watching a play through of the game on TH-cam.
Warner bros interactive entertainment Owns the rights now, it's up to them to dig this franchise out of their files.
#thesuffering3
I honestly never felt scared but facineded, I had nightmares not going to lie, but I played all the SH franchise, RE, Forbidden siren, Obscure, Postal 1 and 2, Manhunt, Project Zero, and a bunch of another games around that genre, so I was sort of use too. But it was pretty strong non the less.
32:30 Little correction: being burned at the stake wasn't that common for witchcraft, it was actually mostly used for heresy. Hanging was a much more common mean of execution for witches. A pyre require a lot of work to set up, a lot of wood and it's hard to execute people quickly that way, that's why it was kept for "special" occasions.
Ty for saying it! I hate when myths become “fact” lol
They were either hung or worse yet: made to prove their innocence through an execution: be it being tied up in a sack filled with rocks then thrown into a lake or river, or just plain tossed off a cliff. You died, you were innocent and if you survived (though the drowning part would definitely have no issue with innocence as no one would survive long) then you would be found and THEN executed.
Hard to look back and not think wtf were we as humans thinking, going through the effort to display someone slowly burn alive was considered a "special" occasion? XD, jeez we've come along way
@@fobo3361 It's not that different from today. Even if it is arguably less painfull, the death penalty as it is used in the U.S right now follow the same logic: a rare event to scare people in the "right" path.
@@Torlik11 arguably? I believe its less painful all across the board, physically its ment to be as humane as possible (i believe), you dont get the shame or fear or confusion of being tied up infront of countless people while they all watch you, so emotionally its easier, along with your family either having to hear your screams or read about the horrific way you went out, so even for family its less painful
Just played this game for the first time recently. I was surprised by how much it holds up. Excellent atmosphere, fluid controls, fun combat. I don't know who owns the rights to it since Midway went under, but I'd love to see this ported over to modern consoles.
I really appreciate how this game doesn't demonize (all of) the prisoners. They even have a consensual prison-love mention! :)
The guards too aren't all bad or all good either, and I really appreciate the nuances.
The real villain is the prison itself, if not the hold damn island
Prison-love? When and where? And what does it say?
@FrostyElwood Toward the beginning one of the first (if not the first) friendly npc/follower mentions he had a lover who died in the outbreak and asks Cole if he ever found love inside the prison
@@alexroy5854 oh cool
@@rgama1173 Did you play the game? The island was tainted before the prison was built.
I always think that Consuela’s scrapbook gets less love than it deserves. Yes, it gives you the history of the island, but she straight up decorated it with relevant items too. That’s some dedicated scrapbooking right there. 😆
I don't think I even knew it was a thing until, well, yesterday.
"The Suffering" and "Condemned" are still my favorite horror game franchises. I love "Silent Hill" too, but these are my personal favorites.
Condemned was awesome. Silent hill 2 was better than 1 tho
@@ggmann13 nah is literally the opposite lmao
@@VortexDnB oh, literally?
The only way your sentence would be accurate is if you were referring to the movies, and even that bar is barely high enough for one to edge out the other.
Not only did silent hill 2 improve in every way on every aspect over the first, but it also had the most accurately portrayed public restrooms in the history of games. Literally. But like not literally though.
But if you want a horror game where the first really (literally) is better than the sequel, look no further than manhunt lol.
@@ggmann13 I don't compare the 2 one is about fighting the cult and the other the town is punishing people the first needs a remake
@@johnlawful2272 I am so fucking sick of remakes. No more god damn remakes. Make new shit
I feel like the rebirth machine is Dr Killjoy using his manipulation abilities to their fullest extent. As in, the same way he can create physical constructs with the projectors using his consciousness, he can use the rebirth machine to make someone literally face their demons by making it an actual fight. Instead of going to a therapist and talking the bad thoughts away, you go to him and punch the bad thoughts away.
@@unprankable666 “Damn, my depression got hands”
a reboot/remake of this would be wild! this was the kind of horror that caught my morbid curiosity seeing it on shelves as a kid in blockbuster.
I saw it in Hollywood video lmao
Lol, always those moments you would just look at the cover and sh*t your pants. And still would continue looking and wondering how horrific the game would be.
@@helios1336 Right? that and the cases for horror movies
Ahh... blockbuster the expensive video store in history. Family video was the way to go video game rentals on budget.
@@grammification I alway looked at the scary movie cases. Silence of the lambs scared the heck out of me lol
15:00 the water "seeking out the fire" may have been the devs using the fact that public facilities will frequently have gradient floor sloping to guide water away from walls and toward the middle of halls and then toward the nearest grating/drainage plumbing to their advantage. it still looks wonky as hell but it may not have been as simple as "water, sic 'em"... although that would be hilarious to do lol
I didn’t see what you meant at that timestamp - might you have meant 34:30 ?
I show this to my dad he was shock there was a multiple ending he play it again and he's enjoying it on my pc i was so happy to see him playing again it make me tear up
W dad
That's pretty cool bro. My dad sucked ass lol
What a cool dad and moment for you both 💖
video games really bring us together
I've never heard of this game but it really is unique and well-made. Its concept alone being a horror game set in Prison is also unique, it gives the message that you DON'T want to be in prison kind of like how most ex-convicts nowadays make blogs regarding things about prison. I hope people learn from this game now that you've talked about it and we'll see more prison games that cater to a psychological experience rather than something such as a hentai game or a funny cops n robbers minigame
.....no....how did you bring hentai into a conversation about a prison horror game?
@@adriansalinas6755The inferna must have awakened the beast within his soul. This game was known to be evil even to this day.
I like how different endings actually have different versions of the past. Usually a game will have what happened before always be the same, and the different endings are just that, different ENDINGS. Very cool!
Yeah it’s interesting that this game shares that with SH Downpour
To this day, I still think this game had one the most outstanding sound direction. From the Doom-esque beefy gunshots, to the scream and roar of your character's transformation. It is quite memorable.
Agree, especially the 1st one. All those random sharp strings signaling something scary happened
I truly miss this era of games! We got so many hidden gems in these years!
The destruction of AA games really made gaming during mid-7th gen really derivative, which was caused by 08 recession.
Without a doubt. The Suffering, The Suffering Ties That Bind, Legacy of Kain games, Killer7, Psi-Ops Mindgate Conspiracy, Second Sight, Urban Reign, Rise To Honor, Hulk Ultimate Destruction, Project SnowBlind, The Punisher, Ultimate Spider-Man, Def Jam Fight for NY, True Crime LA and True Crime New York City, Rogue Trooper, Midnight Club 2, Black, Urban Chaos Riot Response, Freedom Fighters, Area 51 are few I can think of. Miss those PS2 days.
@@Web720 Game production quadrupling in price for the HD era probably didn't help either.
@@Disconnect350 exactly! This guy gets it! Don’t forget Advent Rising! Likely my favourite game of all time!
@@Web720 It's less AA and more than games during the 6th gen era didn't require AAA budgets. That hit a lot of devs hard during the 7th gen, where not every studio could output true AAA production values.
4:14 This voice actor is the guy that did 90% of the male npc's in Half-Life 2 + Ep1 & Ep2. (Never understood why that one guy did them all. Some kind of gag?)
3:07 The voice actor for Louis from left 4 dead, I don't know for sure, but he does kind of sound like him
I knew it! Love John Patrick Lowrie
I love the monster designs and also how they aren't allies with each other, and will attack each other
Damn I absolutely LOVE this game. I've played it too many times. And speaking about this moment at 13:24 you can't actually continue with him or it will brake the game. I've once managed to push Dallas inside the room before the cutscene and after that he basically becomes invincible (but actually can be killed if someone hits a headshot) and the same goes for Hargrave (but he is actually unkillable in this scenario). So after that they are both stuck in the constant loop of shooting each other and Dallas won't follow you outside of the location. It was a sad moment as I was leaving this room with constant sounds of gunshots slowly fading away in the distance. Anyway, thank you for the vid and I hope that you will see this comment.
Actually, you can escort him beyond that point. It’s difficult, but possible. You just have to kill Hargrave first, then push a button to open the door again. Dallas is meant to escape through the main prison entrance if you escort him all the way. It’s the second toughest escort mission next to Ernesto.
@@RockySamson Whaaat srsly? I guess I'll have to try saving him if another replay happens.
Two things I really I really liked was when the monster where being described by tow different people , they both thought that they originated from different crime/sins/events, which kinda made it seem like this could happen anywhere with enough concentrated evil swimming around. The other thing was that the morality system legitimately made being a good guy hard, cause there are like a dozen and a half ways to be good in the first game and like 50 to be evil, and the good options typically where things like escort quests or defenses missions, which drained you of resources, making eveil the easy way out, rather than just "another option".
This was unbelievably gem of a game! Brilliant! Would love to see an upgraded version
I love that you mentioned half life, considering almost every voice in this game is the default male civilian voice from HL2 lol
sometimes, i dream about cheese...
fr as soon as I heard it I instantly thought it was john patrick lowrie
The second game, Ties That Bind answers many of the questions the first game has, for example why in the neutral ending the older son drowned the other one then commited suicide.
it's a shame that most enemies were just copied from the first game
@@bulldog200 Brother if you don't know what you're talking about just don't do it. There were literally 4 monsters that were brought back and that with a new design even, the rest were new. And there are a total of 12 monsters, so "most" doesn t even cut it.
These games were awesome but agreed not “most” literally a small handful were redesigned for the streets of Baltimore.
this guy smoked that crack to say that the suffering 2 and 1 are the same with better graphics
Midway were on a roll with The Suffering and Psi-Ops.
a
@Larry Bundy Jr
Psi-Ops was a great game! Hardly any money was put towards marketing it. I was fortunate to have been working at Midway at the time and was on the QA team for Psi-Ops and helped with testing on The Suffering -
@@chanelpop really you was?
I've only ever met one other person who even knows of Psi-Ops. Along with Vice City and MGS 3: Snake Eater, it was my favourite PS2 game. Criminally underrated and way ahead of its time.
@@Chroic yep! Back in the day :) also was the mocap model for Commander Kyoto in Defender, though I don't look anything like the model :D
I would love a remake or a remaster. Part 2 was pretty cool too with it's karma system
This was such a good horror game for it's time. Imagine if it was made today with the same vision everything (setting, mood, monster design, etc)
1:30 everything you say?
They Neeeeeed to do this remastered.
@@Jdjngjfjfjjfirkrjckdkekdk yes EVERYTHING.
I never got a chance to play this series but I'm a huge fan of various horror games. What a shame we'll never get remastered versions of both titles or a super good remake. On all platforms.
@@jiggamanog "Never give up. Never surrender."
you can get it on GoG mate ;)
This game has a very soft place in my heart as I remember playing it with my older brother when I was way too young to be doing so. Hope something can be come from the franchise again.
Edit: I do think some people at studios have expressed the desire for a remake or remaster or a new sequel but idk
Same, but I watched my older sister play it. Its honestly probably what got me so interested in the likes of silent hill and dead space.
@@Swordsoulreaver oh same! I can still quote it way too well honestly😂
“We're not vermin. We're not creeps. And we're not pests. We're Borrowers.” Always fun to hear old callbacks. 😁
I watched my uncle play this when i was a kid. Freaked me out. Now that i think of it, he kind of introduced me to a lot of horror games, because i also saw him play Silent Hill 4, RE4, Fatal Frame, etc. I have him to thank for my love of horror games!
I remember being scared of the cover art for this game every time I saw it at the store as a kid😅
Crazy to see how “animated” it looks now
Haha i think i relate to that either , i do recall that i saw a cover art of it once in a gaming store while i was looking at it in amazement , at the time i was a kid , being accompanied by my dad so he could get me xbox games.
I love the feel of PS1/2 era horror games, they're just made so well, there's a certain feel to them that just works in my mind
I know that I might be a bit late to the party for commenting on this. I want to say thank you for making this. This game was something I grew up with and was by far something very near and dear to Heart and very few people have spoken so outwardly it was such an underrated experience and I remember growing up dreaming about this game getting better with every technological advancement we have in the gaming industry but never came to pass
This game, Twisted Metal: Black, Manhunt, Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill series, Fatal Frame, etc. There was an air in the time where edgy videogames really did put us on the edge. Now though? It’s “meh”…
Very few games today are able to capture the feeling that those gave us back in the day.
Re4 was meh
@@TJ-js7uf It has been milked to death, but I don’t believe you have tried playing the VR edition.
We had the golden age of horror games
Now it’s “meh-dgy”
I'd like to raise a point about the sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind. It was a surprisingly rare game to find, or at least it was where I lived. Stores just didn't seem to have it, and in a surprising twist, even when it was a new release, rental stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video either only had 1 or 2 copies, or just didn't carry it at all, depending on the exact store you went to. Because nobody could seem to find the game, nobody played it, and so nobody really talked about it. There also weren't nearly as many commercials for Ties That Bind as there were for the first one. I actually found out there was a sequel only because there was a very short demo in another game, though I can't recall what game it was off the top of my head. It MIGHT have just been a demo disc that was given out in a gaming magazine, but I simply do not remember.
I'm pretty sure it came with one of the PS2 Twisted Metal games, I think Twisted Metal: Dark.
@@derpyboi8591
Potentially, but I was never a Twisted Metal fan. Also, since I played the first one on Xbox, I wanted to play the second one on Xbox for consistency. Doesn't help that there were only a couple games on the PS2 I actually cared about, and it wasn't the exclusive franchises.
Really? funny thing is I got it as soon as I finished the first game on PS2 back then. Ties That Bind was literally placed right next to the first game when I bought it lol.
@@Disconnect350
This is why I was sure to specify 'where I live'. Straight up, nobody ever had it, and like I said, there were no commercials on any of the channels I watched where I'd seen some for the first game. I saw a preview of it on G4 once, and it was never brought up ever again. It just sort of faded into obscurity within a year of the sequel dropping because nobody ever talked about it, and in my area, nobody carried it. One might argue the problem was cyclical; nobody talked about it, so nobody carried it, and since nobody carried it, nobody talked about it, so nobody carried it.
@@ZeroFighter I liked the part where nobody carried it. Seriously though, I guess the game sadly had poor advertising which is a shame.
Really appreciate you covering this series I always feel like i’m playing the most obscure games that only I knew about growing up lol (Plus the sudden zooms and sound effects were killing me) Not sure how you’d feel about covering the Turok series? Extremely underrated (First 2 games)
the Speed Racer video game and Bionic Commando
Holy shit yes, Turok would be a great video
For me the most obscure horror game I probably played was Cold Fear
This is like the first horror game that ever gave me nightmares. My childhood friend's mum played this, and I had to be like 7-8 years old when I watched it. I couldn't sleep for weeks lmao, much less when we finally started playing it ourselves!
Such a gem of a game. Torque's beast mode is so gnarly and fun! One cool thing about it as well, if you stay in beast mode when the insanity meter depletes, it starts taking your health down as well. Once it too empties, Torque turns back to human and curls up into a fetal position, having a mental breakdown / panic attack.
Yeah it's not the best looking game, or the gameplay isn't the best to offer, but the art style and setting is very, very unique and it stays with you forever. When I think of a horror prison, this game always comes to mind first. This game would be so fucking incredible with a reboot, with today's graphical fidelity, and improve the shooting mechanics, you've got yourself a formula for a kick ass revival of this IP!
21:07 This is actually the *ONE* thing that really pissed me off about this game storyline wise. I actually think this one of *THE* most important details that should be explained. I mean seriously, your telling me that just because someone is deeply "conflicted" or disturbed ALL this shit just happens?????
If that were the case, the entire planet would be overrun with monsters.
@@arsenii_yavorskyi exactly. this is a Jungian concept. all these monsters are in the subconcious, all these monsters are you (and others)
To be fair, ties that bind confirmed that everything is happening elsewhere too, along with the fact that a scientist is trying to explain it all via research
It makes sense though. In writing we call this the knukleeve principal. (A knuckleeve is a folklore monster that appears in times of great suffering and death to drag mortals to hell.) The island is a place that has seen such suffering and death that its all culminated and cause it all to manifest as horrific monsters and supernatural happenings. This is usually done in places that are isolated like islands or remote areas, though if its taking place in a normal area, its usually written where anyone outside of the goings on will simply see that place as normal. its not a very common writing trope but it can be a fun one if done well.
@@MsMoonDragoon I'm tired of stories that you mentioned at the end, particularly about no one else seeing it, God I think that's such a cowards way of writing things. The suffering was amazing because everything was happening, not some dream or hallucination and that made the impossible nature of the situation/creatures even creepier. If the slayer was a dream, oh well, I guess the apparatus holding his head is just to be creepy....but if he's real...how does he control his head? How can he see with nothing connecting to his body? Does he feel pain? Etc. Making things real requires some forethought, a good explainable source of things (like how they're representing executions) among many other challenges, so hopefully people make more stories like that...I know I am at least~
I went to school with a kid with a speech impediment that called this game "The Susher". I only played the second one. It was pretty good. The evil beast form was a lot cooler looking. The good monster has this weird human face and it's more funny than disturbing. Though it is more powerful than the evil version.
I really like the sequel personally. The weapons in it were improved with their effects and to me it made sense that Torque could only carry two weapon types at a time. Playing through it on impossible was really hard but for me it felt like playing Doom or Wolfenstein on a high difficulty. Just always shooting getting as much damage as possible while dodging slashes and projectiles. Then you can go into the monster mode and clear out a room with the cataclysm, or melee them down. The morality choices feel really impactful too. Effecting things like health regen and meter gain. Giving you different attack animations. Ammo can be really really scarce too on impossible, to the point where you could run out and lose your run or have to go back a long way to do better which is what I like in a horror game. I want it to be possible for me to wind up so low on resources that that I can run out and not have enough so I need to plan things carefully and Ties That Bind does this really well for me, much like Resident Evil Code Veronica.
@@emulation2369 Yeah I agree the first one had better battle music. But the second still had it.
@@emulation2369 Maybe the first game had always battle music, and the second only had it in ambush sections, but they both had pretty good BGMs
With all the remasters how is this one not picked up?!
The intro is so good. Really immerses you into that dark world. And every character's voice is so unique even the inmates are well written especially the villains/bosses
I remember seeing ads for this game and thinking the enemy designs were really unique and I believe they still are even today! Great breakdown of the game! I also really find it a great sound effect of when Torque is reverting back from the monster and it goes from a monstrous growl transitioning directly into his own raging howl, such a great touch!
31:00 "I wanted to save him ... I tried that multiple times and it didn't work, so I'm taking that as divine intervention and leaving the songbit to die"
lmao, subbed
This game + Area 51 + Darkwatch were my favorite ones in the PS2 era, after playing a ton of the popular games for so long I started giving a chance to some less popular titles, and gosh I was rewarded
Area 51 was incredible, even had David Duchovny voice the protagonist and Marilyn Manson as the grey in the tank. I wish steam would have both of these games available
I'm loving the attention this game is getting recently. It's one of the most inventive games I played as a kid. It also had great in game extras including a documentary on Eastern State Penitentiary, and a dope manual!
I fucking loved the series! I wish we got more games like that. Horror is lovely but it doesn't mean the game cant be a shooter. Like first FEAR.
IKR
This like a cross between Silent Hill, Dead Rising, Bioshock and Max Payne… Awesome!
And character looks almost like CJ lol. When you forget the name of the game "the game where CJ looking guy shoots monsters in prison"
Its better
Just before the final boss fight there's a narrow spine of cliff you can just barely jump across to access a secret area. Here you will find three electric chair switches. Interacting with each one will play out one of the alternate endings. There are so many secrets and rich details like this that go beyond even the scope of this video. I loved this game so much as a kid and never understood why it fell into such obscurity.
I was 9 when this came out and this was the very first horror game I ever played and it started me down a looooong line of playing endless horror games (27 now). I'll forever be grateful for this game.
I was 12 when the first game came out and I was 13 when ties that bind came out,I'm 30 now
One of my biggest regrets in life was trading in my ps2 and all my games for a 360. The suffering was one of those in this collection and man what's great game it was. You'll killing it with these in depth reviews.
You can just buy ps2 they cheap asf so are the games
@@milklesstea6091yeah PS2 go for like $60-$80 but recently The Suffering has been increasing in price lately from $15 to $30 which is crazy for a physical copy
What a coincidence, I just played Manhunt and now I'm playing the suffering.
I played and beat this game as a kid. Nostalgia to the max!
For me, the only cool thing about The Suffering 2 was the soldiers fighting bloody battles with monsters all over the city.
that was sooo cool.
otherwise there was nothing special about the successor that differed from the first part.
for first game the plot twist is that there were no monsters lol
For me it was Baltimore city, it’s crimes and it’s bad history like there were monsters and 2 criminals copperfield and creeper
This video was incredible, and for anybody feeling a little left out on the ties that bind for content, Avalanche Reviews has done a very good video on the sequel.
Absolutely, I remember playing this as a kid and really appreciating it fully. Same goes for the second one, I wish a third one came out though - would be awesome.
Are you reading this Warner bros? Literally everyone wants this series to come back. You know what to do
The ghosts of The Executioner, The Shrink and The Pimp, are 3 of my favorite characters in anything ever.
In fact The Creeper was my childhood role model.
...Role model ?
Who am I kidding ? Killjoy is mine.
I remember playing this game when I was younger and I never beat it. my 11 year old mind didn't comprehend certain mechanics I guess. but I think I vividly remember either an Easter egg or a cheat code that gave you a chicken as a weapon? and the eggs would insta kill most enemies. I'm glad this video was made because now I know how the game ends. =)
I never thought of it before until your video, but the main 3 ghosts represent the 3 paths of the game, Dr.Killjoy for neutral, Hermes for evil, and Horace for good.
As a kid, I just remember this game having the most interesting story I had ever played through. It took me a long time though... as I was young and made me shit myself with fear lmaoooo
That projector ghost is SO freaking cool. So many creative designs in this game!