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Free Suffering
Written by Alec Meer on September 26, 2008 at 2:57 pm.
Which isn’t a post about what you get if you visit my house, but rather news that Midway’s 2004 horror FPS/3PS The Suffering is now free to download. And also to play, if you like. It’s about a violent prisoner bloke who kills other violent prisoners and occasionally turns into a monster. Um. Just how obvious is it that I have never played this game? Answer: very. I’m not embarrassed. I was probably playing Riddick at the time instead. Suffering scored middling reviews at the time, but is doubtless worth a look for non-money. Get all 1.26Gb of it from here. “Ultra-mature” content apparently. Geriatric, then?
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The Shed says:
Decent, fun game. Well worth a download. Had me freaked out once or twice too, but that was mostly due to the really in-your-face combat, and enemies everywhere.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Someone says:
You mean I wasted the $3 I spent on the xbox version? Damn, should have held out longer.
The game itself feels like budget game, stilled animations, unnecessary cutscenes, and low budget presentation. The gameplay itself is fun, but nothing special, I enjoyed wasting a few hours with it, but didn’t feel compelled to beat the game. I can’t imagine paying $50 for this but for $3 I didn’t feel ripped off. Pretty forgettable overall, with its biggest claim to fame being the monster designs by the late, great Stan Winston.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Agrajag says:
I couldn’t get a clear info on the game from the web, does it have a multiplayer/coop option?
September 26th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
spd from Russia says:
Iv played it back then. It wasnt any scary and not very atmospheric. And the combat was just crap. Interesting monster designs … so its worth to try for few hrs
September 26th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Rosti says:
Is that very many Peggles? Shall have to have a nose now that it’s cheap-as-free.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Chris R says:
I played this on the PC back in the day, and it wasn’t too horrible… in other words, I had fun with it. I don’t believe there is a multiplayer/coop mode though. That would have been fun.
I played this game at night in a room all by myself, and there were a few times where I got creeped out or startled, but it’s really your standard horror genre.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Po0py says:
Never played it myself but I remember my friends raved about it. If you like horror games, I’d say go for it.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Malibu Stacey says:
I have it (and the sequel) for the PS2. Control system was terrible & put me off finishing it which is often a complaint of mine about console games especially these “multiplatform” jobs (e.g PsiOps). Might give it another go on the PC though since it’s now available for free (legally).
September 26th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Nick S says:
But I already own Fallout… er, wait.
Actually this is pretty cool since I’ve sort of wanted to try it out ever since reading Richard Rouse III’s book about game design. I don’t know if the game design advice bits of the book are much good, they seemed pretty generic to me and more focused on the processes of working in a team then the actual theory, and I only skimmed through most of them, but it’s full of great interviews with tons of the great games makers of the last few decades.
On The Suffering he was the lead game designer and talks about it quite a bit in the book, so I figure it will be a more interesting game knowing what they were trying to do even if it is supposedly pretty mediocre. Maybe I’m just weird, but I always find a game that I’ve read a postmortem on pretty interesting, even if it isn’t really very good by itself. Speaking of which, here is gamasutra’s postmortem on The Suffering.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
NoNamePls says:
Yeah bought this and the sequel. The sequel was a step back in terms of level design though cause the higher poly count must have taken a huge tool on the limited PS2 memory but in terms of violence lot’s of S&M stuff on women being mentioned here and there.
Frankly Psi-Ops & The Suffering IMHO are some of the better Midway games to be published.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Harbour Master says:
I think The Suffering is one of the few console ports which were worth the effort. It’s all a bit weird, but in a good way. The handling took a while to get used to, but it’s engaging, fun and I have nothing but fond memories of the experience.
I never gave the sequel a go, though. I wasn’t sure if the experience could be “extended” so easily.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Lars BR says:
I was rather fond of it - freaked me out a few times.
Ditto the sequel, though it was a much weaker title.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
vash47 says:
Completely awesome game, played it through twice, very disturbing.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
slang says:
Yep, definitely worth a download. I must say the voice acting is pretty good and it’s very satisfying to transform into that “hellraiser meets hulk” monster in order to rip everything apart:-)
Also cool that it’s the uncut version and not the German trash.
Feels like a solid B-movie.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
malkav11 says:
I don’t know that it’s anything special as a shooter, but as a horror game it’s top notch - one of the few that’s ever managed to freak me out. There are some -lovely- moments waiting for you if you play this one.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Tony says:
It is middle of the road in a lot of ways, but it has a surprisingly involving story for what it is. They did a great job with some of the horror elements too.
It’s worth paying nothing for it. I bought the sequel for $10 too, which is also quite good.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
slang says:
Hmmm, thought we were talking about “Ties that bind”.
Anyway, here’s the sequel…for free (legal):-)
http://www.gameswelt.de/downloads/freeware/12038-The_Suffering_-_Vollversion.html
Just click on the button “Download starten”
EDIT: Sorry, forget the link above. Some joker renamed the file. Seems only the first part is free to download.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:18 am
paneon says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Suffering_(video_game)#Engine_Problems
“The game is protected by the Starforce copy protection system version 3.5 (that overwrites and doesn’t do system driver backups).”
Err… a quick rummage around wikipedia raised my interest, but yes… could anyone confirm or deny that Starforce has been removed from this? Please?
September 29th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Discosauce says:
I stumbled upon this game a few years ago on PC, and I must say I really enjoyed it. The storyline is excellent, the settings very immersive, and overall I thought it was a very good horror game.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:21 am
slang says:
@paneon
No media to protect = no drm/protection.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
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This is the day time tv model of gaming. Free, not awesome, free, overlooked and did i mention free? Hell, this is a smart move every downloader who loves this game will be a little bit closer to buying the sequel than they were. The ad money can’t hurt either. And while tempting free fruits are legal? Potential first time pirates will have a distraction.
Downloading. Moar pleze
September 26th, 2008 at 3:07 pm